From merope@Radix.Net Mon Aug 28 15:01:10 2000
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 15:01:09 -0400 (EDT)
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Be still my fluttering heart...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Sunday 27 August 2000:
Tim Stowell forwards the following letter from Curt Allen, COB of
MyFamily.com"
"Dear USGenWeb Members:
By now, news of MyFamily.com's acquisition of RootsWeb has made its way
through the genealogical community. We are thrilled with the overwhelming
positive feedback we have received. I would like to take this opportunity
to assure the USGenWeb Board and Members of MyFamily.com's desire to
continue our support of your project. And in response to some of your
questions, we will make the following pledges to the USGenWeb Project:
* MyFamily will continue to support the USGenWeb Project with free,
unlimited server space.
* MyFamily will not place advertising banners on USGenWeb Project
pages without the express permission of the page creator.
* MyFamily will never charge for access to any USGenWeb data, nor
will we use it in any way other than its current use, without the express
permission of the contributor and/or the Project.
* The USGenWeb.org and USGenWeb.net domains will be transfered to
The USGenWeb Project. We have been working with Tim Stowell, the National
Coordinator, to ensure a swift transfer.
* MyFamily will continue to strive towards open communication with
the Board and Members of the USGenWeb Project.
On a related subject, I want to reassure you that all of the current
RootsWeb features, including mailing lists, message boards, user
databases, and WorldConnect GEDCOMs, will continue to be FREE. And while
we will no longer solicit financial contributions, we will continue to
honor all commitments to current contributors for tagline-free mailing
lists, banner-free home pages, use of Personalized Mailing Lists (PML),
vanity domains, etc. We appreciate your on-going support of RootsWeb, and
look forward to a long relationship.
Sincerely,
Curt Allen
Chairman of the Board
MyFamily.com, Inc."
===
Tempest In a Teapot Corner: In a development that mirrors those on the
national scale, a private citizen of NCGenWeb, Horace Peele, has purchased
the ncgenweb.org domain and offered it to the NCGenWeb as its "future
home". The new owner of the ncgenweb.org domain has posted his conditions
for turning it over to the NCGW at http://www.ncgenweb.org; they include a
provision that the NCGW must pass bylaws that protect the domain.
Mr. Peele bought the domain name originally back in June and at that time
started a dialogue about it. As in most cases of this nature, folks
immediately started in to yapping about how they didn't want to leave
Root$web and his suggestion went nowhere. NCGenWeb more or less was
not interested in the domain. Recently, Horace began to use the
domain, first to go to his own home page and more recently to go to the
letter now posted at the site. And now a number of members of NCGenWeb,
foremost among them Archives lap dog Kelly Courtney Blizzard, have decided
to file a grievance in an attempt to have Horace declared "not in good
standing" and in her words "REMOVED from NCGENWEB, BANNED from NCGENWEB
and also from USGENWEB !" [Kelly has been one of the more vocal opponents
of NCGenWeb acquiring the domain on its own; apparently she doesn't want
anyone else to have it either.] A less hysterical approach has been
suggested: to send a letter of complaint from NCGW to InterNIC and to
begin the process of acquiring control of the domain in the name of
NCGW. Former SC Elizabeth Harris has suggested that Horace be requested
to immediately redirect the url to the NCGW home page or remove it
completely until the issue is resolved. The NCGW SC has issued a
cease and desist order [accompanied by a vague threat], telling Horace
"This is your official notice to CEASE and DESIST your use of
NCGENWEB.org, other than to redirect any traffic from a plain single page
that points to the NCGENWEB State Page." Kelly has also asked for a "show
of hands" of people willing to join in her a grievance; she has indicated
she will go forward with the grievance even though specifically asked not
to.
Has Horace done anything wrong? Legally, probably not. NCGW did not want
the domain and there was nothing therefore to prevent anyone from else
from acquiring it [interestingly enough, a number of usgenweb-like
domains are registered at InterNic; they appear to have nothing to with
genealogy and at least one is registered to a domain name reseller].
Since he claims to have acquired the domain on behalf of NCGenWeb and
he is a member of NCGenWeb and he is not trying to sell it, he is most
likely not in violation of the "cyber-squatter" regulations. Has he
violated the bylaws? Maybe. Our bylaws specifically protect the "XXGebWeb
Project" names, but not the domain names, and the project has been
notoriously lax about vigilantly defending whatever trademark status
"xxgenweb" might have. No stink at all was raised when Root$web was
handing out unused xxgenweb.rootsweb.com addresses in order to bypass the
correct state pages. Several other states, among them INGW, TNGW, CAGW,
SDGW and NYGW, have acquired their own domains. With one exception, all
are registered to individuals. nygenweb.com/net/org are registered to
NYGenWeb, with Holly Timm as the admin contact. All the above, however,
either house the main state page or redirect to it. Horace's domain does
not do that.
Horace's big sin in all this is not that he purchased the domain; other
project members have purchased domains without raising a hullabaloo and he
purchased it on behalf of NCGenWeb [or so he claims]. To find that
purchasing domain names on behalf of state projects is grounds for
punitive action would open quite a can of worms in TN, IN, CA, SD, and
NY. The problem rather is that he's using the page to go somewhere other
than the correct state page and that will be quite confusing to visitors
looking for NCGW. Not to mention that he appears to be holding the domain
"hostage" until NCGW is governed to his satisfaction, and he is using
the site to force the issue. Even if he is legally in the right and not
violating the bylaws, the right thing to do is to use the domain to direct
traffic to the official state page until such time as the project is ready
to adopt the URL itself. He should not be linking to a private page.
Confusing people helps no one; the page doesn't even have a link to
NCGenWeb so that people can find what they are looking for.
What we are essentially seeing here is a vivid demonstration of what we
are all afraid will happen if Linda Lewis acquires the trademark of
"USGenWeb Archives". It is what essentially happened when Jerry Dill et
al incorporated USGenWeb, Inc., and when John Rigdon bought the
usgenweb.com domain but allowed it to be registered to Dale Schneider's
name instead of the project's. Someone has leased and/or purchased
something intrinsically identified with the project, they can potentially
use it however they choose, and the project is more or less powerless to
do anything about it. But the precendent has been affirmed repeatedly: if
Dale Schneider can own usgenweb.com, if Richard Wilson can own
cagenweb.com, if Tom Agan can own ingenweb.org, if Fred Smoot can own
tngenweb.org, and if Joy Fisher can own both sdgenweb.org and
sdgenweb.net, then Horace Peele can own ncgenweb.org. I suppose he can
be booted from the project for using it inappropriately, but then the
project will _really_ lose control over the domain. Tough dilemna.
===
"Heresy is another word for freedom of thought."
---Graham Greene
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
-------
Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Tue Aug 29 08:08:34 2000
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 08:08:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
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Subject: Daily Board Show
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They ARE watching you...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Monday 28 August 2000:
Shari Handley forwards Kevin Fraley's response to the request for
information on the Baltimore census transcriptions. [This post is worth a
full read; it is notable both for the height of its arrogance and the
depth of its bull manure]. Kevin says
"As a courtesy to you, there being no requirement to do so, I will answer
this request on behalf of the USGW Census Project and the three members of
its staff you have addressed. Linda Lewis is not connected with the
management of this project. These questions have been covered before, but
seemingly little or no attention was paid to the facts I presented to the
USGW Advisors about a month ago...As you were informed earlier, all work
written by Pauline Leitner was removed from all project directories online
approximately two months ago. As far as I am aware, not a single word
authored by Ms. Leitner has remained since that time, and no one including
Leitner herself has been able to find one...Pauline Leitner has every
right to quit as a project volunteer, just as everyone does, but neither
she nor anyone else has a right to "lock up" a county so that another
volunteer cannot step into the vacant space. She became incensed two
months ago when informed that sooner or later these counties would be done
by someone else and appear online in the project without her little
name...At least five separate people have worked nearly nonstop for two
months on these new transcriptions, doing original research in the
microfilm records. We estimate that between 300 and 400 man-hours have
gone into this so far, and the work is far from completed to our
standards...Kay Mason is the group leader in this effort, and the
transcription quite properly bears her name. Other names will not be
published, due to the rather frightening and aggressive e-mail war being
waged against our volunteers by Ron Eason's gang... This monumental
transcription work bears no connection whatsoever with Pauline Leitner,
she has had nothing to do with it at any time, and it frankly differs
rather fundamentally from her very poor earlier files...Leitner not only
managed to do her earlier transcription under the name of the wrong
county, but also has every single page and sheet number wrong! When we
first started into the retranscription we were amazed at what a terribly
poor job she had done from start to finish, and the silver lining in all
her tantrums was clearly the chance to replace sloppy and inaccurate work
with a much better effort. Neither Pauline Leitner, Kay Mason, nor
anyone else owns or in any other way has any special rights to the
government published census record...Despite the ignorant statements some
have made, there is no gray area or legal ambiguity here of any kind, and
attorneys with knowledge in this field certainly could not differ with
this statement...The only material in a census transcription which is
eligible for copyright protection, and which in any way "belongs" to any
individual, is the original notes, remarks, or explanatory text written by
the transcriber and added to the original census...Regarding an
"investigation," there is only one proper person authorized to conduct
such an investigation. That person is I, and I have thoroughly done so.
The facts of this matter have been clearly established, and appropriate
action taken, thereby closing the matter at the court of last resort.
From what we have learned in this, there will probably be revisions made
in our policies and procedures, which as always is a constant and ongoing
process. It is likely that in the future we will decline all requests of
a similar nature, and not attempt to accomodate them as we did in this
case. After two miserable years of being used as a political football to
further the personal political aims and careers of a number of persons,
the USGW Census Project is thankfully once again what it was created to be
in the first days of 1997. We are once again a unified, professionally
managed scholarly project created and authorized by USGW to properly
transcribe and place online the entire US Federal Census. We are an
apolitical project, with a very great deal of hard work ahead of us, and
we cannot spare time or effort on ever again engaging in the countless
political disputes that such a disappointing percentage of USGW volunteers
seem to spend their time at...Because of that, our staff will not be able
to be further distracted by the various political battles that seem so
constant, but must return to our work. I'm sure you will understand that
we will have no further comment on the Pauline Leitner matter, and will be
unable to answer future "nuisance" e-mails on this sort of subject...any
attempt by anyone, either individual or group, to use coercion or
political pressure in an attempt to force any project or branch of the
project to violate its own policies and procedures on behalf of a special
interest would be unethical and highly improper. If the person or persons
guilty of such behavior happened to occupy positions of trust and
responsibility within the project, the offense becomes more serious and
more reprehensible, and represents a very disturbing breach of the trust
placed in that person or persons. Repeated offenses of this type could
call for the use of the USGW grievance or complaint mechanisms, or even
merit disciplinary action."
[Whew. So let's see, in this message he has 1) said that the ACP has no
obligation to provide the Board with any explanation of its actions; 2)
told the Board the ACP will not respond to any further inquiries; 3)
threatened the Board with grievance or "disciplinary action" if it
continues to press the matter; 4) spared Linda Lewis the trauma of
having to answer yet another direct question, 5) informed the project
at large that it will be even harder to get your work out of the
Archives --even when you didn't give it to them in the first place--; and
6) failed to affirmatively state that they did transcribe the work in full
from scratch. More on this below.]
Ginger Hayes notes that the more she reads Kevin's message, the more need
she feels for her hipboots.
Ginger Cisewski asks why "Kevin Fraley is misrepresenting himself as a
member of the USGW Census Project. That group is quite alive and well at
www.us-census.org as evidenced in yesterday's lengthy upload report, and
they are most definitely not associated with Mr. Fraley." [To their
credit.]
Tim Stowell reminds her that the Board severed relations with the USGenWeb
Census Project some months back and "has been sent a notice to cease and
desist using the name as it misrepresents to the public the organization
it is gathering info for." He agrees with her that Kevin Fraley is not
associated with the CP.
===
Notes From An Investigation: Whither goest the investigation of the
grievance submitted by Pauline Leitner over her transcriptions? Well,
some of the Board members at least have been doing some footwork. For
instance, check this out:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~hft/census/
Here's an excerpt from that page, apparently authored by Holly Timm:
"I downloaded the first 100 pages of the 1850 Baltimore City census from
each of the two census project sites the evening of August 24, 2000...I
then began to try to compare the transcripts. I used MSWord's Document
Compare function on the first file in each group...the comparison of the
names, age and occupation was clear and easy to look at, there was not one
single variation between the pages contained in both files. I then opened
the files as plain text in Wordpad and visually compared over half the
total pages in the entire groups in random sections. I did not locate one
single instance of variation in name, occupation, age, birthplace...there
is simply no way two independent transcribers are going to have absolutely
no variation between works. It is my opinion and conclusion that these two
transcripts were identical. That the files were reimported by the ACP into
the census program and spit out at a different number of pages per file
with the remarks column omitted, that changes were made to the headers and
page numbering, but that the transcript itself was and is one and the
same."
Here's another one:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~hft/census/irclog.html
And a snippet from that log, posted August 19 2000, between Holly Timm
[MaMaT] and Kay Mason [Keziah]:
"<MaMaT> what are you doing to Baltimore?
<MaMaT> not razing the city I hope :-)))
<Keziah> Stripping and moving things for 1860. We finished 1850 already.
<Keziah> Maybe it should be?
<MaMaT> lol
<Keziah> I don't know. I've never been there.
<MaMaT> stripping and moving?
<Keziah> Yes. Some of the headers need cleaning and moving so the census
can be put back up.
<MaMaT> ahhhhhh
<Keziah> Its been so much fun lol
<MaMaT> I'll bet
<MaMaT> tedious
<Keziah> yes. a bit, but I'm almost done. Yeah!"
This is fascinating. The Archives Census Project has apparently been
caught red-handed and they are now applying all sorts of convoluted
reasoning as to how what they have done is OK, legal, above-board, and
"ethical". [I didn't reprint it above, but after he threatens the Board,
Kevin goes on at some length about what an honest guy he is.] Kevin
obfuscates more than a little in his message to the Board. For instance,
when he says that they have removed all of Pauline's work, he is referring
solely to her notes and remarks, since that is all the ACP considers to be
hers.
To recap, this what they have done so far:
--refused for two years to change incorrect information in the
transcriptions at the request of the transcriber
--refused to take down the transcriptions at the request of the
transcriber
in the last month or so they have:
--took the transcriber's name off the files, replacing it with [NAME
DELETED]
--removed that notice and replaced it with one seeking a new transcriber,
which was posted over the original transcription still online
--reposted at least one set of transcriptions, which is exactly like the
old one, under a new name; this set calls itself an "abstraction" rather
than a transcription
--told the Board to mind its own business
--threatened the Board
--reminded us all once again the legal and ethical are not the same thing,
especially at the Archives
Really makes you want to donate transcriptions, doesn't it?
===
"Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of
time; ere long she shall appear to vindicate thee."
---Immanuel Kant
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
-------
Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Wed Aug 30 13:55:32 2000
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 13:55:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
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To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: Daily Board Show
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Tuesday 29 August 2000:
Ginger Cisewski suggest to Tim Stowell that he consult "an attorney
familiar with with this type of law." She reminds him that "This Advisory
Board voted to sever a dissolved corporation that was never a part of USGW
to begin with. Removal of a Special Project requires an amendment to the
Bylaws and that was never done." She also notes that since the USGenWeb
Census Project is a nonprofit they can claim that "the name is theirs
alone until such time as they are legally severed from the USGenWeb
Project."
===
Rats Jumping Ship Corner: Looks like even the "Archives Uber Alles" crowd
is hurrying to put some distance between it and them in the face of the
recent "explanation" and brush-off offered by Kevin Fraley. John Schunk,
for instance, has posted an impassioned letter to just about every general
project mailing list out there stating:
"I am extremely disturbed by a posting from Kevin Fraley to BOARD-L. This
posting implies that a group of five people (four of them unnamed) have
done a fresh transcription of the 1850 Baltimore City census from the
original 7 microfilms...What is disturbing is that the Mason transcription
and the Leitner transcription are virtually identical. I have been unable
to find a single difference in how a name or an age has been transcribed.
And there is no way that two individuals acting independently would
interpret all handwriting exactly in the same way. It is clear to me that,
while there may have been other changes in headers, page numbering, and
notations, the Leitner transcription of data has been unchanged and has
been attributed by The USGenWeb Archives Census Project to Ms. Mason...I
find such behavior indefensible. To remove the name of the person who did
all of the transcription work and to give credit for it to someone else
is, to me, unthinkable. Moreover, the position presented by Mr. Fraley
means that any census transcription (or any other files claimed to be
public domain) to The USGenWeb Project (whether it be to the Archives or
to any of the county or state websites) are free pickings for any
harvester...I trust that the USGenWeb Advisory Board will not endorse such
action."
[Interestingly enough, shortly after John posted the above message, which
included URLs so people could go to the files and check them out for
themselves, the files in question were taken offline. You can still view
a subset of them here: http://www.rootsweb.com/~hft/census/]
Board member Pam Reid posted a long message to USGENWEB-DISCUSS saying,
"Public domain records are not afforded copyright protection by
law... BUT, this in no way means that we should go merrily along and take
public domain records that have digitized by others and add them to the
Archives, to our County sites or to any of our Special Projects...That
would be clearly unethical...The people who do these tasks deserve SOME
kind of right to their work. At this point in time, I am not concerned
about the legal ramifications of using someone else's transcriptions of
public domain records. I am VERY concerned about the ethics of this
practice. It bothers me greatly to think that I am associated with an
organization that would practice this code of conduct as standard
operating procedure in governing the way our various States, Counties, and
Projects gather materials. I would GREATLY hope that the principals,
ideals, beliefs, and standards that characterize The USGenWeb Project as a
whole would strictly oppose such conduct."
Board member Barbara Dore, putting a finger to the wind and figuring out
right quick which way it is blowing, posted a message to most of the
general distribution lists and both Board lists in which she says, "While
I am reserving final judgment until all the evidence has been gathered and
presented, I basically agree with the sentiments Pam presented."
We notice a distinct tendency in these various messages to first deny
there has been any actual illegal behavior and then to distance themselves
from it, just in case. Perhaps the Board members are finally realizing
the extent of their own legal exposure should they continue to permit
unlawful activity such as copyright violation to occur under the USGenWeb
banner?
Deja Vu All Over Again: Those of you who think you've seen this before
are right. Just about a year ago a roving reporter sent us a log of a
chat between Maggie Stewart Zimmerman [who now heads the Archives Census
Project] and Mary Ann Hetrick [COGW SC]. A transcriber had requested that
some of her work be removed from the Archives forthwith, and this is what
Maggie had to say about it:
"Maggie> Someone wants half of the public domain records removed from
Lawrence County...
Maggie> they say they are copyrighted.
CCmahoni> copyrighted by who?
CCmahoni> when where they done?
Maggie> Imperial artworks.
Maggie> They were put there in 1996 for Gods sake.
CCmahoni> sigh
CCmahoni> well gee they took there sweet time
Maggie> Linda said to pull them and have someone else proof the material
and resubmit."
[from 13 July 1999]
Apparently the policy of affixing a new name to an old transcription
rather than take it down comes from the very top. Can Maggie and Kevin
get out of this by saying "we were just following orders" or will one or
both of them be a good little soldier and fall on their swords?
===
"The cynics are right nine times out of ten."
---H. L. Mencken
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
-------
Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Thu Aug 31 16:15:08 2000
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 16:15:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
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To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: Daily Board Show
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Parting is such sweet sorrow...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Wednesday 30 August 2000:
There was no Board-L traffic on this date.
Thursday 31 August 2000:
Ginger Cisewski says she has received another request "that the service
mark of "USGenWeb" be protected and objections made to Linda Lewis's
attempt to obtain a service mark on "USGenWeb Archives." She urges the
incoming Board "to act on this expeditiously" and provides them with the
following two year old statement from Linda Lewis: "There's no doubt that
The USGenWeb Project has "dibs" on the names "USGenWeb" and XXGenWeb 's if
anyone else tried to claim them. There is documentation all over the place
of it existing for two years."
Gloria Mayfield agrees with GingerC and hopes the service marks are
protected by the Board. She says she's enjoyed "working with the group
and she's around if anyone needs her.
===
Fond Adieu Corner: The DBS would like to wish the departing Board members
god speed and to thank _all_ the Board members as we close out yet another
eventful and entertaining session. Truly, we could not have done it
without you. As a going away present, we've put together a little history
of the late, lamented 1999-2000 session of the USGenWeb Advisory Board.
You can read it at: http://www.radix.net/~merope/history/brdhist2.htm
Another One Bites The Dust Corner: Fred Smoot, SC of TNGenWeb has
resigned the State Coordinatorship, effective 15 September. Apparently
while Fred was away on vacation, a vacancy arose on the TNGenNet Board and
an election was called to fill it. The only candidate was Chip Brown, so
ASC Cathy Hall declared him the winner and listmanager Nancy Cole put him
on the Board mailing list. [You'll remember Chip; he is a vocal critic of
Fred and is the person who was using the ~tngenweb account on RW for
awhile]. When Fred got back he declared Chip's appointment to be out of
order and took him off the list. Nancy Cole put him back on and Fred then
locked _her_ out of the lists, and from what we hear, TNGW erupted in
anger [Nancy is _very_ popular]. After much recrimination and scattered
calls for a recall election, Fred posted his resignation: "I hereby tender
my resignation as State Coordinator of the Tennessee Genealogical Network,
Inc. (TNGenNet, a.k.a. TNGenWeb) to take effect Friday, September 15, 2000
at Midnight PDT or upon my replacement, whichever comes later." Fred has
also called for an immediate election and recommended that the voters
elect Nancy Cole to replace him. The times, they are a changin'.
===
Today's quote was submitted by a reader:
"Fire away, Captain; and may God have mercy on our souls."
---Admiral Augustus Johnston, Royal British Navy (Battle of Gibraltar)
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
-------
Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.