From merope@Radix.Net Mon Jan 24 11:59:43 2000
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 11:59:42 -0500 (EST)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: Daily Board Show
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Vaudeville in a dark house...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Sunday 23 January 2000:
Joe Zsedeny says "When we get a historian in place it will be the
responsibility of all the Board members to ensure the appointed individual
provides an unbiased version of our history." He feels that it is the
Board's important duty to select an unbiased person and that there must be
several individuals in the project with the training and experience to do
the job. He notes "the people in the best position to know that is our
State Coordinators. I am sure that Tim will ask them when the time comes."
Ginger Hayes asks Rich if he has any specific things the Board should
implement and notes that historians' duties commonly consist of recording
events as they occur, but "Since the historian we appoint will also
be charged with going back to the project's inception and bringing the
history up to date some general guidelines would be in order."
Joy Fisher states that since there have been many "flame wars" among
old-timers over their "selective memory" of project history, "the
historian should be someone who can to resolve these varying views and in
a fair and impartial manner."
Jim Powell points out that "History is one of those plastic things that
moves towards the ideas and values of those in power. History is also a
divisive issue." He notes that even those that were there do not view
project history identically, so how can anyone possibly divine the true
version. He also says, "Is this history documented anywhere by anything other
than privately held emails? Is there anything to base this history on
that stands up to your standards on what you would base your genealogy
on?"
Tim Stowell says that he was hoping that in addition to a Historian for
the project at-large the states organizations could be persuaded to send
in their individual histories. He says "this would give credit to the
various folks who have been State Coordinators for each state along with
the approximate times that they headed specific projects. Some of these
folk are no longer with us be it through death or moving on to other
avenues of interest." [Oh good, Tim. You going to tell us how you became
SC of Georgia?]
Tina Vickery reminds the Board that they are all genealogists and to work
backward from the present. She says "It is very important that the
historian present names, dates, places and events with citation of sources
and documentation of any supposition."
Shari Handley says that she sees the need for a history of the project,
but it doesn't need "to include every sordid detail on all the infighting
and on every political battle that has taken place in our stormy past (and
present)". She points out that if the history will be primarily for
visitors to USGW, "we'd want to put our best foot forward, would we
not?...a basic history, touching on the highlights and accomplishments of
the USGW, and the people who have made it great, would be the face we want
to show the world, right?" [Let the whitewash begin.] Shari recommends
that the successful candidate for historian "should be optimally be
someone who has been there from the beginning (or nearly so), and who has
no political axe to grind." While she feels that a truly neutral
historian is probably impossible to expect, "However, tact and the
ability to present an even-handed portrayal of the history of the USGW
would be essential."
Monday 24 January 2000:
Maggie Stewart-Zimmerman says that she once did a timeline with only
facts included. She says it took her hours and it includes a lot of
information but she chose just to do a timeline "as that cannot be
contested. Facts and dates are just that - totally impartial." [Not
true, Maggie May. What facts and dates one chooses to include is often
highly subjective.]
Joe Zsedney says that his only experience with historians is with military
historians and he describes how historians exist at several levels within
the USAF who pass historical information up the chain. He thinks it would
be ideal if someone existed in each state to pass info up to the Board's
historian. He also notes "Who started the Project, when, where, why, Who
comes, who goes, significant events and dates of events are historical.
The internal squabbling is not." [Whitewash.] Joe recommends that if the
motion passes, that the Board search "carefully from among the wealth of
talent in the Project for someone with experience as historian either in
business or government. If we select well the job of the AB in ensuring
unbiased and accurate recording of our history will be minimal." [Yes,
hire someone who agrees with you from the start and the requirement to
censor what they write will indeed be minimal.]
Joy Fisher asks if there is any wording in the motion regarding the term
length of the position and suggests that if not, the motion be amended to
include the provision that appointments be made based on teh election
year, with the first appointee serving until Aug 31 2000. She also
proposes "that an Historian can be removed by a simple majority of the
Board." [thus making the position just one more Board-run popularity
contest. Come on, guys, be brave.]
Your History Is My Fiction Corner: A couple of Board members have
expressed to me privately their concerns over the issue of a Court
Historian. They correctly point out that history is written by the
winners, so to speak, and that it will probably be an exercise in futility
to come up with an "official project history" that not only satisfies a
large number of project members but also adequately covers the rich
history of the project without embarassing it. Facts and dates are not
totally impartial and can be manipulated in such a way as to highlight
some events at the expense of others, or to "disappear" other events
entirely.
For instance, Board members are already discussing the idea that some
business in which the Board has engaged does not constitute "history".
Can anyone guess which of its activities the Board would prefer not to
find in an official history? And although some members of the Board claim
that the Board has no right to tell any project member where they can keep
their stuff; do you suppose any "official history" will contain
information on the time the Board did just that and removed an entire
Special Project because of the server it was on? Do you suppose the
"official history" will give any information on why one Board member a
month resigned during the last term, or why we've had seven NCs in three
years? Or why we don't mention Jeff Murphy on any official webpages [and
don't forget, this discussion started because he requested that oversight
be rectified]? Or what happened to Bill Couch or Jeff Weaver and why we
don't do lookups anymore? Or any insight into "the Project has two Census
Projects" issue? Will it contain stuff from the secret list or the IRC
chats? [History, as someone once said, is made at night.]
The Board members' painfully obvious stressing of finding someone
"unbiased" for the job is just downright hilarious. Anyone who has been
in this project for three years and who has no opinions on the convuluted
machinations of its history probably isn't going to be too interested in
getting involved in such a highly charged topic now. And having been here
since the beginning is no indicator that one knows the history of the
project [witness one longtime project member's ignorance of the Black
Helicopter Society]. All efforts to find someone out there who knows
the history, wants to do the job, and is ideologically pure are
essentially meaningless, since anything he or she writes will have to be
passed through the Board for approval. Frankly, the assertions made by
some Board members that people on this Board could not possibly be
"opinionated" are ludicrous. On their secret list, people that raise
uncomfortable issues with them get called "destroyers", and accused of
spreading "garbage" on mailing lists, and of using the Board to stir up
trouble. That some of them apparently think that this qualifies as
"unbiased" or "unopinionated" does not impart confidence in their ability
to select a truly neutral historian. Even if they do by some miracle find
a neutral, knowledgeable, and capable project member willing to serve as
an historian, how long do you think that person will survive the
popularity contest the Board is apparently going to make of the position?
Any historian this Board picks had damn well better put up the history
this Board wants to see or their tenure will be very short indeed.
Sucker Punch Corner: We hear through the voices in our heads that some
Board members are characterizing the ongoing discussion of the Archives'
"friendly arrangement" with RW as a "flame war". They seem to be under
the impression that some participants in the discussion are trying to lure
the Board into openly supporting Root$web, to fan the flames of the
argument. We hear that Board members are being urged to stop responding
to the discussion and more or less ignore the constituents. [Question for
the Board: What exactly is a "beloneous argument"?]
"All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the
comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach."
---Adolf Hitler
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 Jan 25 12:14:58 2000
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 12:14:57 -0500 (EST)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: Daily Board Show
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000125061233.8138B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
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Fooling some of the people ALL of the time...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Tuesday 25 January 2000:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date, thus far.
Rules Are Made To Be Broken Corner: Archives representative Joe
Zsedeny has apparently revised the Archives guidelines. In a message to a
CC, he states "Every file manager in the Archives could, if they wished,
take the files they manage and put them on any server, anywhere,
unilaterally." This may come as a surprise to former KS Archives file
manager Ken Thomas who was fired in August 1998 "because he violated the
Archives guidelines, specifically not uploading files to the Archives, but
receiving them and uploading them elsewhere, in particular, Blue Skyway.
[sic]" [Linda Lewis, 1 Nov 1998]. According to voluminous correspondence
with Linda at the time, files that are not on RW are not in the Archives.
Linda's agreement with Brian precludes any sort of mirror of the Archives
on another server, so Joe's apparent free-form interpretation of the
guidelines could be construed as a violation of that contract. Joe also
seems a little free with contributor's files; since they were presumably
donated to the "USGW Archives Project" and that Project can exist only on
RW "and no other server", taking them and putting them "on any server,
anywhere, unilaterally" could constitute inappropriate taking of those
files.
This, incidentally, is not the first time an Archives member has revised
the guidelines on the fly. Last year, during a discussion of the
difficulty in removing submitted files from the Archives, Joy Fisher [who
is the Asst. Coordinator of the Archives] stated "Aw c'mon now...we have
removed data at the request of submitters. I have removed files, Linda
Lewis has removed files, maybe even you have removed files. I don't know
why we even have it in the guidelines" [30 Sep 1998]. What we are all
curious to know is why, if archivists can apparently remove files from
the archives with ease despite the guidelines that say submission is
forever, they don't just say "OK" when someone asks them to remove a
file? Why make it so difficult and why act like submitters have no right
to request such a thing?
Mirror, Mirror Corner: Ron Eason, Coordinator of Census II, reports on
CC-L today that there is a complete mirror of Census II at this address on
Root$web: <ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/hold/> Census II neither
requested this mirror nor knew of its existence until yesterday. The
directory apparently was created on Dec 27, 1999, which was right around
the time the merger talks between the two census projects were collapsing.
Now why do you suppose RW felt the need to mirror Census II's entire
directory structure [and all the files in it] in some buried directory
called "hold"?
Free Speech Corner: We hear some of the Board members are blowing gaskets
over CCs who accidentally forward messages to BOARD-L. Ye gods, a lowly
CC actually sending a message to BOARD-L! What will they think of next?
"To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of
dogs."
---Aldous Huxley
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 Jan 26 18:22:06 2000
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 18:22:04 -0500 (EST)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
cc: jzsed@slic.com
Subject: News Flash!
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000126175323.2478B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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DBS News Flash:
Jackbooted Thugs Corner: Board member Joe Zsedeny [who represents the
Archives] has recently posted a message to BOARD-L in which he vaguely
threatens civil and criminal action against his fellow project volunteers.
Joe, as we recall, was recently embarrassed by inaccurate comments he made
about Archives policy, and rather than clarify his statements, he instead
posted a message about copyright to Board-L. For your pleasure, a
redacted copy of that message follows:
============
Joe tells us he's been researching copyright law and how it pertains to
email. He's shared his findings with his colleagues on their secret list
[BOARD-EXEC] but will also share with his fellow volunteers "in order
that they not unwittingly violate the copyright laws."
He cites a resource that indicates that email is protected under copyright
law <http://www.benedict.com/basic/basic/scope.htm> [interestingly enough,
this site belongs to someone who does not appear to be a copyright lawyer,
or in fact a lawyer of any type.]
Joe then references a site showing where criminal sanctions were obtained
against a BBS operator who distributed pirated software [what this has to
do with email is not clear; Joe seems to think that since they may be
covered by the same law, they are equivalent.
<http://www.benedict.com/news/headlines/headlines.htm>
Then he cites another url showing civil action against ISPs who fail to
stop software pirates who post warez to their servers [again, why? He
fails to mention that in Nov 1995 a federal judge in CA ruled that Netcom
could not be help responsible for copyright violations made by its users,
unless it knew they where copyright violations and did nothing to stop
them.]
<http://www.benedict.com/news/headlines/headlines.htm>
[This case never actually went to trial, so no legal finding of fact was
made, and it was not in fact determined that ISPs are "publishers"
responsible for the contents of their servers. If they are, RW is in big
trouble.]
Joe sums up thusly: "Those who forward, receive, republish and carry such
on their server are all punishable under the copyright statute, either
criminal or civil...technically every message forwarded requires the
approval of the sender or list owner. Pirated messages from closed lists
or parts thereof, attached and posted elsewhere without permission are
actionable under criminal and/or civil statute."
Joe says that Board cannot be effective if people are constantly
making fun of it and they have taken every opportunity to make their
meetings open to the public. They try to answer every email that has
merit and Joe himself has never failed to answer a message sent in "an
honest attempt to get an answer, whether from a constituent or not." But,
he says, he "will not respond in the future to messages whose only clear
intent is to ridicule and down grade this potentially wonderful Project
for mean and small reasons."
He states that he and his fellow Board members will do all in their power
to "insure that the pirating of email on and from the Board lists stops.
If that means pursuing legal action, so be it."
He suggests that if someone wishes to reprint materials from the Board
list [he does not specify which one], they should ask the National
Coordinator for permission.
==========
There you have it, a Daily Board Show News Flash!
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
From merope@Radix.Net Wed Jan 26 18:43:29 2000
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 18:43:25 -0500 (EST)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: Daily Board Show
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Double your pleasure, double your fun...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Tuesday 25 January 2000:
Pam Reid says she would be happy to post a history of the USGW Project on
the national page, but she doesn't have a good one. She asks if anyone
has a good history of the Project available.
Pam thinks that writing up a history of the project is a good idea. Such a
history should include a timeline of the beginning of the project,
including organizaers, and it should be job of the historian to keep it up
to date. She says, "There are things that should be omitted. The
infighting, etc. has no place in the history. That is one reason I
removed the page about the Jerry Dill thing from the main pages." [Yet,
strangely enough, its still there:
<http://www.usgenweb.com/official/announce.html>
Ginger Cisewski asks when the Board voted to start several "new" Special
Projects that appear on this page:
<http://www.usgenweb.org/projects/projects.html>; she notes that this page
was updated Jan 12 and now contain listings for a "Digital Map" and a
"Pensions" project. She notes that the procedures for forming new
subprojects in the bylaws were not followed and cites the relevant
section. She "respectfully" requests "the above named "Special Projects"
be removed from that national listing." [These two projects have been
listed on that page for months. Both were formed as subprojects of the
Archives, so the bylaws allegedly do not apply. Technically, of course,
they should be listed as subprojects of the Archives, but they aren't.]
Pam says she made the Special Project page on her own without discussing
it with anyone, and she "just thought it would be nice if researchers had
links to any project that might help them." She "didn't think about rules
or Bylaws or anything else except ease of research." [This page is badly
out of date: it still lists Pam as the coordinator of the Tombstone
Project and Fred Smoot as coordinator of the Map library, and leave out
entirely the "Special Collections Project".]
Ginger Hayes says it was her understanding that those were subprojects of
the Archives.
Joe Zsedeny tells Ginger she is correct in her understanding, and says
that Pam made "an honest error."
Mirror Mirror Corner, part 2: Board member Barbara "Vote Early, Vote
Often" Dore tells Ron Eason that she first noticed the duplicated Census
II directories shortly before the merger talks collapsed. Maggie Stewart
Zimmerman and Linda Lewis both told her that the directories were made to
facilitate the merging of the two projects, and the decision to make the
mirror was theirs and not Root$web's. This is all well and good, but
Babs then redirects the issue away from the clandestine duplication of
Census II to the trumped-up issue of whether or not Census II is being
diligent about forwarding transcriptions to Census I. She cites
absolutely no evidence that they aren't, but goes on about it at some
length. [But it doesn't appear to us in the newscube that Census II would
have to be diligent about forwarding transcriptions to Census I; from
the appearance of that duplicated directory, Census I just takes whatever
it wants.]
New And Improved Corner: Speaking of the Archives, they have a new
subproject, called the "Special Collections Project". It appears to be
run by Linda Lewis, and covers those submissions that span several states
or that consist of books scanned in their entirety. Check it out at:
<http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/special/>.
Corrections Corner: Joy Fisher has contacted me and informed me that Joe
Zsedeny misspoke himself yesterday when he stated that "Every file manager
in the Archives could, if they wished, take the files they manage and put
them on any server, anywhere, unilaterally." What he meant to say,
according to Joy, is that "he could upload copies of HIS files to
another server (which is totally within his rights, since he owns the
copyrights to HIS files)." Joy also notes that the "The Archives will not
authorize mirror sites of selected portions of the Archives." The DBS
apologizes for any confusion caused by the contradictory statements made
by these members of the Archives and which were previously published here.
Who's The Fairest Of Them All Corner: As reported on the CC-L list
yesterday, USGenNet has offered to provide a complete mirror of both the
Archives project and the Census Project [Census II, we presume] for free.
It will be interesting to see how the Board responds to this generous
offer.
"It is a newspaper's duty to print the news and raise hell."
---William Storey, [statement of the aims of the Chicago Times, 1861]
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 Jan 27 13:19:46 2000
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 13:19:44 -0500 (EST)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: Daily Board Show
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000127060553.1140B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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There is nothing new under the sun...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Wednesday 26 January 2000
Joe Zsedeny posts his message regarding copyright to the Board [this has
already been discussed here.]
Thursday 27 January 2000:
Tim Stowell posts a threat to unsubscribe non-Board members who send mail
to Board-L. He says that members who wish to respond to the Board should
obtain their individual addresses from the web pages and that messages
sent to the list bounce back to him. He then says "If someone who is
unauthorized to post to this list continues to do so, they will be
unsubbed from this list." He notes that this has not been a widespread
problem so far, but "This is a public notice, of consequences for those
who fail to heed this request."
Tim calls for a vote on Motion 00-1, to appoint an historian. Thus far,
five Board members have voted "yes", two have voted "no", and one has
abstained.
You Read It Here First Corner: Last night's New Zoo Review contained the
official announcement of the launch of the new Archives subproject, the
Special Collections Project.
Movin' On Up Corner: Just a couple of weeks after it got a new SC, it
looks like the UTGenWeb is moving to RW:
<http://www.rootsweb.com/~utgenweb/>
"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree
upon."
---Napoleon Bonaparte
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
meorpe@radix.net
-----------
Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Fri Jan 28 08:00:46 2000
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 08:00:45 -0500 (EST)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: Daily Board Show
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000128062226.22490B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: O
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Hit the road, Jack!...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Thursday 27 January 2000:
Voting on Motion 00-1 proceeds. Currently the count stands at 7 yes
votes, 3 no votes, and 2 abstentions, with 4 Board members yet to vote.
Only one Board member, Ginger Cisewski, has appended any sort of comment
to their vote. She says that she agrees with Jim Powell's earlier comments
that "It's extremely difficult to create a written history without
injecting bias of some sort into the facts....Our time and energy would
be far better spent elsewhere so therefore I vote NO."
Greased Lightening Corner: Last evening, USGenNet president Fred Smoot
sent an announcement out that reads in part:
"The United States Genealogy Network, Inc. (USGenNet), a nonprofit
historical and genealogical web-hosting service, is pleased to announce
that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, in record-breaking time, today
granted final and permanent approval of our December 2, 1999 application
for 501(c)(3) tax-deductible, charitable status."
[Let's see, that's a little over a month and a half for the IRS to approve
tax-deductible, charitable status for USGenNet. Root$Web submitted their
application, when? June? Six months ago? I wonder what the hold up
is.]
USGenNet provides free server space for USGW counties and for the ALHN, as
well as several other online genealogical groups and societies.
"Donations" to them are really and truly "donations", not fees for
services, and are tax deductible. Please visit their home page at:
http://www.usgennet.org/
"It has been my experience that what most viewers and readers are most
unhappy about is not that journalists slant the news, but that we don't
slant it their way."
---Don Hewitt [executive producer of "60 Minutes"]
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 Sat Jan 29 10:30:03 2000
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 10:30:00 -0500 (EST)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: Daily Board Show
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000129084816.4663A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: RO
X-Status:
Who you gonna call?...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
[today is long, but read all the way to the end. The quote today is
_really_ good.]
Friday 28 January 2000:
Voting on Motion 00-1 continues, with one Board member voting yes, and two
voting no.
Regarding her vote, Teri Pettit notes that she sees merit in Maggie's idea
of the historian as a "timeline maintainer". She says "It would be
extremely valuable if there was someone responsible for maintaining a
table of the dates that each state first came online, who held offices
over what periods, etc. The longer we go without recording such info
systematically, the harder it is to recover it." She notes, however, that
"many of the comments made by other board members (the historian should be
tactful, unbiased, etc.) seem to envision a more narrative history, which
I think is a bad idea for the reasons that Virginia expressed." She says
that because "it is unclear which of the two kinds of historian a yes vote
would be voting for", she would vote "no".
Regarding the Special Projects [and in reference to the webpage she
creates that lists them], Pam Reid says "As far as the Bylaws go, only
Tombstones and Census exist as separate special projects." She, however,
felt it would benefit the researcher if all the "special" projects were
listed in one place. She notes that she feels strongly that "ALL records
belong in ONE central repository, that repository being The USGenWeb
Archives." She thinks that is where opinions start to differ.
Saturday 29 January 2000:
Voting on Motion 00-1 is completed and Tim Stowell announces the results:
8 yes votes, 5 no votes, 2 abstentions, 1 member did not vote. The motion
is declared failed because it did not meet the 2/3 rule. Tim also notes
that he received two votes from non-Board members, one of whom voted "yes"
and one of whom abstained.
Ginger Hayes agrees with Pam and sees nothing wrong with listing the
projects on the Special Projects page. She suggests that since some
object to them being shown as separate projects, Pam could put them under
the Archives heading and perhaps use a smaller font size. Ginger thinks
that would be "sufficient to identify them as subprojects of the Archives,
appease those who object and still let the researchers know that they are
there."
Molasses In January Corner: Being curious about this whole 501(c)3
process, I called the IRS yesterday and talked to a very nice and helpful
public servant. She says that the process to receive tax exemption takes
a maximum of 120 days, unless there is something wrong with the
application [which could mean missing documents, improperly completed
forms, etc]. In that case, the length of time the application takes to be
processed depends at least in part on the applicant, since they are
usually required to send more documents, respond to IRS questions, etc. I
asked her if 6 months was a long time for an application and she told me
that generally they don't take that long, but sometimes take much longer
if the application is complicated or documents are not received in a
timely fashion.
She did not find either RootsWeb.com, Inc. or GenSoc.org, Inc. in her
database of approved tax-exempt organizations. All this means is that the
application has not yet been approved. The IRS is not allowed to give out
any information at all on pending or denied applications.
The history of Root$Web/GenSoc's application is lengthy. As we all know
by now, RW was originally registered as a for-profit company so that Brian
Leverich could save a little time and a few bucks. The option of
incorporation as a non-profit without getting the tax-exempt status seems
not to have occurred to him. For a long time, Brian told RW users
and customers why getting the tax-exempt status wasn't necessarily a good
thing. For example, in July 1998 they told their customers this:
"RootsWeb has substantial expenses: our servers and bandwidth cost a fair
amount of money. Incorporating a 501(c)(3) to handle that sort of thing is
fairly expensive, takes about six months to do, and most importantly
requires a substantial amount of paperwork on a continuing basis... " (22
Jul 1998, Brian Leverich, ROOTSWEB REVIEW: Genealogical Data Cooperative
Weekly News, Vol. 1, No. 6)
By December of that year, RW had apparently decided that tax-exempt status
was not a bad thing after all, and Brian posted this:
"RootsWeb has retained Borton, Petrini, and Conron, an old and
distinguished California law firm, to prepare a 501(c)(3) incorporation
for us. The 501(c)(3) filing is actually kinda messy for a number of
reasons, and that's why we're using a firm with strong corporate and tax
law departments to do the filing." (Brian Leverich, Team-Rootsweb List,
19 Dec 1998)
On May 23, 1999, just five days before they incorporated RootsWeb.com,
Inc. as a for-profit corporation in California and Delaware, Brian
answered a question by a member of the Team-Rootsweb list by giving him a
number of reasons why the 501(c)3 application for Rootsweb was taking so
long, noting in particular that "the IRS is currently being a real pill
about Internet-based 501(c)(3)s." He also noted that:
"...we started the 501(c)(3) process some time ago with counsel
in Bakersfield. As we learned more about what was involved, we
transferred the work to a firm in Los Angeles with specialized experience
in 501(c)(3) incorporations. I think we'll have a bullet-proof filing (so
much as any filing is bullet-proof) going to the IRS in the near future."
On May 28, 1999 Rootsweb.com, Inc was incorporated in California as a
for-profit company. Two months later, in the July 21 edition of the
Rootsweb Review, RW CEO Robert Tillman made the following announcement:
"On May 28, 1999, we incorporated RootsWeb as a "C" corporation with the
name of RootsWeb.com, Inc. In mid-June 1999, we incorporated a new
non-profit corporation called GenSoc.org, Inc. We are currently in the
process of finalizing an application to the Internal Revenue Service for
5013 (tax-deductible charity) status for GenSoc.org. This application for
tax-deductible charity status is an entirely separate and far more
difficult process than forming the nonprofit corporation....The Internal
Revenue Service typically requires six months to approve or disapprove
such a filing. (21 Jul 1999, Robert Tillman, ROOTSWEB REVIEW: RootsWeb's
Genealogy News, Vol. 2, No. 29)"
At the time he wrote this, the 501(c)3 application had not been filed, and
Bob noted that the application may take as long as six months and they
could not solicit contributions until it was approved by the IRS. [This
is not technically correct. As a non-profit they can solicit
contributions, but they cannot claim they are tax deductible.] That is
the last time that GenSoc.org has been mentioned in the RWR.
In mid-November 1999, someone on asked Brian how "Rootsweb's" application
with the IRS was coming along, and he replied:
"The application for the nonprofit operations has been with the IRS
now for something like three and a half months. We've had no
communications from the IRS, other than a confirmation that they received
the application." [Brian Leverich, 10 Nov 1999, Rootsweb-Help-L; note
that he does not mention that the application is not for RW]
Based on this, the application was probably submitted at the end of July.
Here we are at the end of January, six months later and no further word
on the application. The IRS may or may not be "a real pill about
Internet-based 501(c)(3)s", but its obvious that at least one
internet-based non-profit managed to get its approval in 49 days
[substantially less than both the 120 days the IRS lady says it takes and
the 6 months RW says it takes]. Perhaps someone out there can prevail on
RW to update us all on the status of the application.
Today's quote is from a reader, and is provocative, to say the least:
"Linda also says that the archives have a contract with RootsWeb, and has
repeatedly given me to understand that in the unlikely event that the
board would direct that the archives be removed from RootsWeb, her
response would be to remove the archives from the Project and keep them at
RW."
---Megan Zurawicz, to the Board, 16 Feb 1999
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 Mon Jan 31 20:41:35 2000
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 20:41:33 -0500 (EST)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: Daily Board Show
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000131113114.9384D-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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X-Status:
Shoveling snow...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Sunday 30 January 2000:
There was no Board-L traffic on this date.
Monday 31 January 2000:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date, thus far.
Behind the Scenes Corner: Although it doesn't look it, the Board has
not been entirely inactive over the last couple of days. We've heard that
the Archives has rejected the offer made by USGenNet to host a free mirror
of the entire Archives. Joy Fisher, second in command over at the
Archives, gave the following reasons for turning down the offer: 1)
perceived instability at "USGenNet/USIGS/ALHN" [although the three are
independent of each other], and 2) the Archives has previously had poor
experience with mirrors. USGenNet has, we are told, explained the
relationship between itself and the other organizations, and also
explained that mirroring can [and should] be automated, so that the
Archives and its mirror are always entirely identical.
A couple of Board members have responded to a CC's request that they
address the issue of servers who claim to be "sponsors" of the USGW
Project. Barbara "non sequiter" Dore's response boils down to "amend the
bylaws if you don't like it". Joy Fisher, on the other hand, helpfully
responded by pointing out that 1) "USGenWeb has NO agreements regarding
sponsorship of the USGenWeb Project", and 2) "Every server that provides
service for USGenWeb has the right to claim sponsorship and I will defend
their right to do so." [Joy also noted that no server may claim ownernship
of the project.]
Fun On a Snow Day Corner: A reader sent me this URL:
http://www.ss.ca.gov/business/corp/corporate.htm
If you go here, click on the "Records Search" link on the left. In the
search box for Corporate Record Search, enter "RootsWeb.com, Inc." [no
quotes" and hit "Submit". See what you get. If interested, you can go
back to the search box, and also input "GenSoc.org, Inc." [no quotes] and
see what you get for that one as well. If anyone's interested you can use
the handy online form to send for the incorporation records for both of
these corporations.
"CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit."
---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
--------------
Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.