Jul 1-9 2000
From merope@Radix.Net Sat Jul 1 10:04:13 2000
Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 10:04:12 -0400 (EDT)
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.SV4.3.96.1000701073239.11004A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: RO
X-Status:
Double, double, toil and trouble...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* you won't _believe_ the amount of editorial content in this
thing today. Read at your own risk!
Friday 30 June 2000:
Three more Board members vote "yes" on Motion 00-19, bringing the total
count to seven "yes" votes, and one abstention.
Ginger Hayes forwards the following request from a CC and SC: "Please
consider this my request to you as my board representatives that you take
some action to make it clear to the Election Committee that they have
overstepped their authority in their recent actions to limit voting
rights. I understand you are reluctant to create the appearance of
manipulating the committee, but that concern is less than the present
danger presented by the actions of the EC. Voting rights as established in
previous elections should be honored this election."
Based on information provided by a CC that the election is neither secret
nor secure [see below], Ginger Cisewski moves "that voting be immediately
suspended and the Election Committee be required to use the secure system
on VoteBot system that Pam forwarded information about earlier today."
Jim Powell seconds this motion. [Interesting thing about that though. He
has to send his mail four times to get it to go through, because RW was
refusing to relay his message.]
===
Election News: The Chair of the EC has made the following announcement:
"The ballot forms at located at http://elsi123.august.net/~usgenweb/ The
voting period begins at 00:01 CDT, July 1, 2000 and continue through 23:59
CDT, July 31, 2000."
Shortly after the polls were opened, a few project members made some
interesting discoveries about the balloting method and the server the
ballots sit on, mostly concerning the fact that the ballots are neither
secret nor secure. Ballots for the NC and the amendments are mailed
directly to Roger Swafford and no one else; ballots for the other races
are mailed to Roger and to the EC reps for the respective region. The
ballot page posted as of 8:00 am Saturday 1 July 2000 is incomplete and
lacks campaign page urls for several candidates [I'm one of them]. The
Amendments voting is attached to the NC vote page, but this is not made
clear from the front page of the ballot. In addition, the EC has
"suggested" [by checking a radio button that members abstain from both
the amendments that made it onto the ballot [Recall, Special Projects];
this may be due to the limitations of the coding they used for the page.
There have also been scattered reports of project members receiving two
different ID numbers, which would presumably allow them to vote twice.
According to Ellen Pack, who had her son check out the page [he's a
computer security techie], "There is no security. The page is wide open,
no ssl. Htts tells if it's secure. They are using an Apache server on red
hat - lynux. Will have to use someone with a certificate to get security-
which means registering with 3rd party, probably VeriSign. Page does not
even use low encryption. Page is wide open. Anybody can see it. If my son
is correct, then not only can EC members can see who voted for whom, the
whole world can see." This was verified by Nate Zipfel, who says "It took
me all of 1 minute to view the source code for the page to locate
the text file that the votes are actually written to and to then be able
to see the votes that have already been caste. This is unacceptable."
Shortly after Nate's message and about 3 hours after the polls opened,
they closed briefly. Roger informed the project: "Please hold your votes
for the time being. There is a glitch that must be corrected. Will
advise." In response to this message, Diane Mason notes "The glitch is
this: You can go to a link and see how the few people have voted. Perhaps
it is time to make use of vote.bot because with the current system, the
source will always be accessible." She then proceeded to tell the members
who all had voted so far [but not how]. About 15 minutes later, Roger
notified members that the glitch was fixed and voting could resume.
Fixing the "glitch" did not include making the ballots secret or secure,
however. All are still mailed [with identifying information] to
individual EC members for tabualting.
Besides the motion currently before the Board, numerous calls to either
hold off on voting or to stop the election entirely have gone out and some
members are suggesting a boycott. The EC and its Chair have been entirely
silent throughout this controversy.
New Faces Corner: Margot Hill is the new SC for the IAGenWeb. Congrats to
Margot!
Follow That URL Corner: The saga of the ~tngenweb URL continues. Betsy
Mills has denied the account to Fred Smoot, TNGW SC, saying the account is
not empty and she cannot give it to him. A new page has appeared at
http://www.rootsweb.com/~tngenweb that says "Stayed tuned a new page will
be appearing shortly." The history of the account is rather murky. Linda
Lewis claims the URL doesn't belong to TNGW, but that "The "tngenweb"
account used to "belong" to the USGenWeb Archives, but I requested
tngwarch instead, just like I did for "magwarch." Therefore, I abandoned
"tngenweb" and it has apparently been assigned to someone else." Tim
Stowell claims "The tngenweb account was created before Fred became SC,
while he was on the TN RC group with Bridgett as SC. It was created so
that TN would have a place to move as our welcome at USIT servers was
wearing out it's welcome...it was set up as a contingency place to move
should the move need to be done quickly." A brief history of the URLs in
question reveals: 1) The tngwarch account was created on May 16, 1997; 2)
The tngenweb account was not created until 10/28/1999; 3) The domain,
tngenweb.org, was registered on Jan 26, 1998; 4) The account that Bridget
planned for the "relocation" to RW was "virtual domained" at
www.tngenweb.rootsweb.com in May or June 1999 (it is now gone); and
5) Bridget left office as TNGenWeb SC on 6/30/1999, and went to work for
RW circa 7/1/1999. None of this explains how Chip Brown came into
possession of it.
There is now a page at http://www.rootsweb.com/~ksgenweb that wasn't there
yesterday. That would be a page for the USGenWeb Archives Project's
Kansas counties. Isn't that interesting? Especially since, prior to
yesterday, it apparently was inactive and forwarded to the KSGenWeb state
page. So, apparently in the last two days that account was given away and
now anyone who has bookmarked it will not be taken to the KSGW state page,
but to the Archives. The page was apparently put up quite hastily
[perhaps to preclude any claim on it by KSGW?], since most gifs are
broken and many of the links don't work.
Working For The Clampdown Corner: Rita Maggard, list admin for
USGENWEB-DISCUSS, has issued new rules for the list: "ALL POLITICAL
DISCUSSION IS TO STOP IMMEDIATELY. Anyone posting any political message
will be immediately removed from this list. Any of you who consider this
low-level form of "discussion" to be necessary for your continued
happiness and well-being can jolly-well go start another list somewhere
else."
TimeOut Corner: Fred Smoot has been suspended from the CC-L list
temporarily for behaving badly. He is not, however, crying about being
banned.
===
"Big Brother is watching you."
---George Orwell
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 Sun Jul 2 12:26:11 2000
Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 12:26:10 -0400 (EDT)
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.SV4.3.96.1000702080100.6807A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: O
X-Status:
The truth will out...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains enormous amounts of editorial content. Read at your
own risk!
[buckle in...its a busy day today. Much of what follows is not in
chronolgical order, but is grouped categorically, since there are several
topics under concurrent discussion.]
Saturday 1 July 2000--Sunday 2 July 2000:
Regarding Motion 00-19 Ginger Cisewski asks "Would the NC be so kind as to
declare this motion as final and forward the results to the Election
Committee? She also notes that there is a motion on the floor awaiting
acknowledgement from the NC and "a lot of voters waiting to see this issue
resolved in an expedient manner."
Two Board members vote "aye" on Motion 00-19 [their votes will not be
counted in the final count]; this makes 12 "yes" votes and 1 abstenstion.
Jim Powell points out to the Board how votes were counted last year when
he was EC Chair: "We allowed the machine to handle the count. We thought
a secret ballot was important. When there were questions at the end, I
requested the log of votes from Tim Pierce. I then took that log, placed
it in excel, removed the email addresses and compared the count with the
machine count. Then I placed a portion of the original list temporarily
on a page for the EC members to check with their region...EC members then
checked with selected addresses in their area and asked for confirmation."
Noting that "things seem to be dragging", Jim moves "that we set the
official voter eligibility cut off date as June 1, 2000." Holly Timm
seconds the motion.
Jim [in a bold stroke of leadership or a hungry power grab, take your pick
<g>] notes, "If the NC does not show up in a timely manner to number
motions, someone else should be empowered to do so. Who Knows Robert's
Rules well enough to advise us as to what we do in the meantime. We need
to start working for this project. If our leader isn't going to lead what
do we do. I don't care how you vote, just be willing to do it. Let's
move this forward." He suggests that the motion about using VotBot made
by GingerC and seconded by Jim Powell should be given number 00-20 and he
calls the question. He also suggests giving the June 1 motion number
00-21 and opening discussion on it immediately after voting on Motion
00-20 is finished.
Betsy Mills asks if the VoteBot system was set up with the same votes
lists the EC used. In a post from Lynn Waterman [who set up the VoteBot
system] forwarded to the Board by Jim Powell, it is explained that voter
addresses have not been added yet, but the voting system is otherwise
ready to go.
Teri Pettit also says she would like answers to some questions about
VoteBot before they vote on that motion. She says "I am in agreement with
suspending the voting until we can get a system that addresses most of the
concerns, but I would not be comfortable with requiring the use of VoteBot
until we get some more input on how well it works and whether the voter
list can be "batch loaded" from some file we already have." Jim tells her
that the voting lists can be batch loaded [he obtained the information
from Lynn Waterman.]
Jim Powell assures his colleagues that he does not mean to take over, but
that the Board needs "a mechanism to help things at least move onto
discussion." He notes that if "this motion" [not sure which one] fails,
he will "wholeheartedly support the EC's voting procedure with one
exception. That exception would be that each candidate for NC appoint
someone to "help" Roger with the count." He also notes that he doesn't
believe that Tim is delaying, but is not available. Jim notes that RRoO
pass the chairmanship down through various officials; he suggests "We
could use some system like the SC rep with the longest tenure on the Board
would chair and release the chair at anytime the NC came online." He alos
notes "I believe in this case if we empower ourselves to conduct this
vote, we will be acting in the best interests of this project."
Ginger Hayes notes that Tim is indeed available as he was currently over
on the SC list dealing with bounced messages and asks "Still don't think
he's delaying?"
Holly asks to table Motion 00-20 [VoteBot motion] until Motion 00-21 [June
1 cut-off] is dealt with. She notes "00-21 is a rather uncomplicated
direct motion requiring I believe little investigation or discussion.
00-20 on the other hand involves an abrupt change to a voting mechanism
that may or may not be jumping form the frying pan into the fire and
deserves at least some additional time to consider and ask questions
about." GingerC supports this idea.
GingerC notes that in the past assigning a "Temporary Chair" was mostly a
matter of finding someone willing to do it. She says that Betsy is the
senior SC rep and she is senior CC rep and she's open for suggestions.
GingerC addresses a message to Joy Fisher thanking her for including her
in her posts [uh oh...secret stuff!]. She agrees with Joy that "these
are critical issues that we need to resolve ASAP and I'm sure the
membership of USGenWeb is fully behind that sentiment." However, GingerC
states "I don't believe an IRC meeting is the way to go about it. These
are not personality issues, but ones of election procedure, and of such
scope as to affect each member of the Project. These discussions and
their resolution should be carried out here, on Board-L, where the members
of the Project can see what is or is not being done. None of this should
be arrived at in anything less than the full view of the membership."
GingerC thinks that if they are aboveboard the membership won't complain
about the 48-hour rule being ignored.
Joe Zsedeny says he would support Holly Timm for temporary Chair since as
the At Large Representative she represents all project members. Joe moves
"that a vote be taken to appoint Holly and that Jim do the vote count."
GingerC seconds the motion. Joe calls the Motion and begins the vote.
Before Tim reappears and declares the motion out of order, 5 Board members
vote "yes".
Pam Reid asks if this [Temporary Chair] motion will be numbered 00-20 and
says her current count on Motion 00-19 is 11 yes votes, 1 abstention.
[another Board member voted after this count was released]. Joe tells her
just to record the vote and to turn it over to Holly if she becomes
Temporary Chair.
Shari Handley says she supports Holly for Temporary Chair and she will
attend any IRC meeting that is being arranged.
Tim Stowell [lo ahd behold, he suddenly appeared once it appeared his
gavel was about to be handed to someone else] forwards a message to the
Election Committee notifying them that Motion 00-19 had passed. Joe
thanks him and asks him to "please stick around."
Tim posts the final count of Motion 00-19: "Yes - 11; No - 0; Abstain - 1;
Have not yet voted - 3" and declares it passed.
Upon Tim's reappearance, Jim suggests continuing the vote on appointing
Holly as Temporary Chair "if we need a Chair again when Tim is not
available." He also asks that Tim start the vote on the 30 day rule [June
1 cutoff] immediately if the vote for the TC is not continued. Joe
supports the idea of continuing the vote on the TC, noting "We should have
had a back up all along for emergencies." GingerC agrees with Jim and Joe
that the vote should continue. Rich Howland thinks this is premature and
that the Board is not in such a bad situation that they cannot wait for
Tim. He notes that "Tim advised me last time he was haveing trouble that
Betsy should take over if he could not get on line." He says he's getting
emails from Tim and doesn't see a problem. Jim agrees but says "no one
should be able to slow up Board business by just not showing up. There is
business to conduct, has been all day. The Project deserves better."
Gloria Mayfield agrees with this statement. Rich objects to Jim's
statement that he is not part of the team, and Jim apologizes and rewords
his statement. He also notes that Tim had disappeared again and "That is
not fair to the rest of us or the Project." Tim pops back in to note that
he has a life outside of the project.
Tim Stowell declares the VoteBot motion "moot", declaring that "the
security of ballots has been corrected." Joe asks if anyone other than
Roger Swafford will be counting the NC race vote. Shari Handley says the
verifier(s) should be part of the EC and that one has already
volunteered. GingerC asks that the motion be reinstated, noting that
"There are additional security concerns in addition to the one that was
corrected." Jim also notes that the Board should vote on the motion
for the good of the project. Tim reinstates the motion and immediately
declares it out of order. He says "The Board can not interfere with the
EC's operations once the Board set it up as an independent entity."
Tim declares the motion for the Temporary Chair out of order.
Tim declares the motion to establish June 1 2000 as the voter eligibility
cutoff date out of order. He notes "The EC was set up by the Board as an
independent entity. Had the Board decided on the rules the committee
would operate under, it should have done so at its creation. Since the
Board did not, any action by the Board at this point in time, are for feel
good reasons only." [Hmmm...protecting their constituents' voting rights
is "feel good only"?] He also says that Roger can structure the EC anyway
he pleases.
Jim reminds Tim that last year the Board involved itself in every aspect
of the EC's work and "The only difference was that the Election Committee
bent over backwards to adjust to the Board's wishes."
Teri reminds Tim that the concern is not over how the committee is
structured, it is about the voter eligibility rule. She asks about the
hypothetical situation in which the EC declares that term limits are in
effect and Tim is disqualified from running for NC, and asks "Would you
still say that the Advisory Board could not interfere with decisions of
the independent Election Committee and that ALL of its rulings must be
allowed to stand? Or would you allow the Board to vote on the question of
whether the Election Committee had the right to declare term limits? Or
would you simply declare that they did not
have that authority?"
Teri posts her vots on motions currently under discussion, should Tim's
"squashing" of them be overruled and empowers Jim Powell to place the
votes for her [she is going to unavailable for a while].
Maggie Stewart Zimmerman moves "I move that State Level Special Projects
with CC's meeting the cutoff date be allowed a vote in the Fiscal Year
2000 election." Barbara Dore seconds. Tim gives this motion number 00-20
and opens the floor for discussion.
Regarding the issue of the domain names, Tim says "With the Board's
permission I'd like to ask Rootsweb/MyFamily not to transfer the domains
to the Project until after August 1 and then to the new NC." He also asks
under what circumstances the NC would be authorized to make changes and
what changes would be allowed. He notes that the Board should also
consider who is authroized to move the domains elsewhere and whether the
Board should vote on this or should the SCs also be consulted.
Jim says he will support Tim's suggestions about the domain names,
suggesting that moving or changeing the domains should require a majority
of Board plus one, as opposed to 2/3, and that the SC and maybe even the
CCs should be consulted. Jim also says "Tim, as a person I have nothing
against you at all. I do once again respectfully ask that you reinstate
the motions made by this Board in your absence. Let the Board and through
them the volunteers decide...Denying us the right to make decisions is not
right. Precedent was set last year, when you called the EC on the carpet
more than once for problems real and perceived...That should have been as
independent as the Current Committee. Are you changing the rules?"
Jim asks Maggie what positions she is referring to in her motion [00-20]
and asks if she would consider combining it with the June 1 cutoff motion
[here's a question: why was that motion out of order and Maggie's isn't?].
He says "I support giving anyone in this project that the Board affects
with it's rulings a vote. After the election we as a project, need to
examine this more closely."
GingerC compares Motion 00-19 and Motion 00-20 and asks "Can someone
elaborate on why Motion 20 is needed, since Motion 19 requires following
procedures of past elections? Is this motion referring to a different
kind of State Level Project than has been allowed to vote in the past?"
She asks for clarification before a vote is called.
===
Election News: At least two more states have indicated that they have
asked their CCs not to vote until the concersn with the election
procedures are addressed. The voting page at
http://elsi123.august.net/~usgenweb/ _still_ does not have links to the
campaign pages of Bill Oliver, Ginger Cisewski, Richard Harrison or Teresa
Lindquist [and I have _specifically_ reminded the EC Chair to link my
campaign page]. The latest poll results have been released; to the
question "Do you believe the EC has made inappropriate drastic changes to
voter qualifications that should be withdrawn?" voters responded thusly:
Aye, 49 votes, 94.23%; Nay, 3 votes, 5.77%.
Playing In His Own Yard Corner: Our Esteemed NC Tim Stowell,
apparently still smarting from his dismissal from the -DISCUSS list, has
opened a new [or reactived an old] list for the discussion of "issues".
You can subscribe to it at usgw_web-L-request@rootsweb.com.
The Mice Will Play Corner: http://usgennut.homestead.com/ is good for a
laugh. Don't miss the sing-along and the parody of the DBS!
Peanut Gallery Corner: FamilyTree Magazine has posted the results of its
poll on the RW/MyFamily sell-out. They are available at:
http://www.familytreemagazine.com/pollresults.html Some of them are very
interesting. Comments are being added every day; visit often!
Clarification Corner: Jim Powell has asked me to clarify that he believes
his email problems were probably due to his own mail server burping and
not to anything on RootsWeb's end. Consider it done!
===
Today's quote was sent in by a reader:
"Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty."
---Plato
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 Jul 3 20:48:48 2000
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:48:47 -0400 (EDT)
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.SV4.3.96.1000703073016.1614A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: O
X-Status:
A hair of the dog that bit you...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Sunday 2 July 2000-Monday 3 July 2000:
Regarding Motion 00-20, Shari Handly notes that she would like to keep
Maggie's motion separate from the issue of the cutoff date. She also notes
"I believe that Maggie's motion refers to state-level special projects,
such as individual state military projects, African American projects, and
the like. I thought initially that motion 00-19 covered these, but it
appears that the special projects mentioned in that motion could be
interpreted as only the national-level SPs. This new motion clarifies
the issue."
Maggie Stewart Zimmerman notes that Motion 00-20 clarifies Motion 00-19
and notes "Part of the difficulty with saying that you are going to
"follow the procedures of past elections" is that it is very broad and can
be interpreted many different ways...This motion specifically defines a
"group of Coordinators" that will be allowed to vote. It also gives the
future ECs a precedent on which to determine voter eligibility in future
elections."
Maggie also points out that Motion 00-20 addresses "state level special
projects that enhance the State Projects just as every county does. Those
that come to mind are the Military Projects, the African American
Projects, The Native American Projects, ect." She believes it is bad
policy to combine motions and asks "What happens if the board members
agree with one part and not the other?"
Tim Stowell, calling Jim Powell "the coup-master" says "Sorry, I didn't
realize I need to sleep, eat by the keyboard....I'm sorry that you think
that the SC subscribers are not as important as you. I've got nearly 1200
pieces of mail in the last 3 to 4 days mostly from the hoot and holler
list. There folks scream I'm not listening/answering - well duh, who can
keep up with such a flow of mail and do other productive things? Nothing
that this Board has faced has required an instantaneous response...So
please just hop right off your high-horse and go have a reality check. And
to Jim for trying to lead a coup, what kind of confidence do you provide
for the volunteers? What other brash ideas do you have up your sleeve?"
Tim compares two statements from previous posts and asks Ginger Cisewski
if what is happening now constitues "manipulating and micromanaing" the
Election Committee?
Tim says that according to Betsy [Mills?] no state level special project
members were allowd to vote last year and only two CCs per county were
allowed to vote.
Maggie amends motion 00-20 to read "I move that State Level Special
Projects with CC's meeting the cutoff date be allowed a vote in the Fiscal
Year 2000 election. The offices that the state level SP are allowed to
vote for are the National Coordinator, the rep-at-large, the CC (Local
Coordinator) reps for their state, and the amendments." Jim thanks her
for her explanation and says "this is a good motion".
Pam Reid posts an URL for some new "Friends of the USGW" logos designed by
Chip Brown and asks permission to add them to the Friends section of the
national site [http://www.rootsweb.com/~tnunion/tnchat/friends.htm]
Maggie thinks the logos are beautiful and asks who maintains the Friends
site. Pam says she does as part of her duties as national webmaster.
Jim Powell says "If my attempt to move the Board off of a standstill
yesterday was wrong, I apologize. I do not believe it was wrong. Tim has
and does use his position to slow things to less than a crawl when things
aren't going his way...There was quite a bit of support yesterday for a
secondary chair. None of us can be there all of the time. When any of us
have time to do business, there should be someway to move the proceedings
along....If somehow I am elected NC, there will be a Board member or 2
empowered to number motions and open them for discussion. Depending on
the acceptance of the Board, they may even be allowed to approve the call
the question. This is not the NCs Project, nor the Board's Project. The
Board needs to be able to serve the Project, when it is needed...I am
quite willing to work with the present system, but I do believe it should
be your right and the Board's right for the board to vote on motions made
and seconded by the board in timely manner. I don't want to take over the
Board, I want my vote on the motions made and seconded by the Board to be
counted. BTW... it was always understood that when Tim reappeared he would
chair the Board." [This statement was made in response to Tim's
accusation, made on several lists, that Jim had attempted a coup--see
below.]
Tim calls a vote on Motion 00-20. His call does not include Maggie's
amendment [which was not seconded]. He asks the Board members to send in
their votes quickly "As time is of the essence, the motion will be
declared as soon as sufficient votes are presented one way or the other."
In short order, Motion 00-20 is declared passed with 13 yes votes. The
version that is declared passed does not include the amendment. [The
remaining Board member voted "yes" after the results were announced.]
Holly Timm asks to delay discussion of the domains issue until elections
issues are resolved. Betsy Mills says she has no objection "as long as
the membership understands that it is the USGenWeb Project Advisory Board
that is causing this delay, not RootsWeb."
Teri Pettit forwards a message from Carole Hammett to the Board and
includes her comments. Carole suggests the Board act on the following
proposed motion:
"I move that henceforth in all instances where the AB has moved, seconded
and called for the question: (1) that voting can proceed, with or without
discussion, with or without a numbered motion and with or without the
approval of the National Coordinator; (2) that said motion shall be
automatically approved should it receive the number of aye votes necessary
under the Bylaws; and (3) that the only exceptions shall be when either
(a) the motion is in violation of the Bylaws or (b) the Bylaws call for a
48-hour membership notice period."
Teri says her only objection to this is the exception for when the motion
is in violation of the bylaws, since the bylaws are so often ambiguous and
open to any variety of interpretation. Teri suggests "I would rather
remove that exception, and do something like add some additional OBJECTIVE
requirement, such as a requirement that at least two Board members IN
ADDITION TO the two who moved and seconded the motion agree to call the
question. I think that if four Board members agree that a motion is
critical and urgent enough to proceed with an immediate vote, that it is
unlikely to be plainly in violation of the ByLaws. It might fall in the
gray area, but then so would several motions that have proceeded through
normal channels and even passed with a 2/3 majority." [The two also
discuss the appropriate way for Carole to sign her posts.]
Holly Timm posts the following questions to the Election Committee: "Have
provisions been made to provide VOTE ID's in accordance with the recent
motions passed by the Board? If so, what are they and how soon will those
previously disallowed receive their VOTE ID? Has provision been made for
more than one vote counter for the NC and amendment votes? If so, what
provision has been made? What provisions are in place for the privacy and
security of the votes? What precisely will the vote counters see
according to the cgi scripting in place for the balloting? Will the
preselected Abstain vote for the amendments be removed?...Will
instructions be added to the first page of the voting site so that it is
clear that to vote for a race you click on the title of the race?"
===
Election News: The voting page at http://elsi123.august.net/~usgenweb/
has been updated to include all candidate web pages.
Uneasy Rests The Head That Wears a Crown Corner: Our sometimes here,
sometimes not Esteemed National Coordinator has publicly accused Jim
Powell of trying to lead a coup to replace Tim as Board Chair. Tim, who
as we recall was more or less avoiding Board-L until the Board started to
vote in Holly as Temporary Chair, states on State-Coord-L, "Jim apparently
felt that because I'm not 24/7 that suddenly this isn't good enough that
folks have lives outside the Project. While the bylaws make no mention of
a vice-chair past precedent has been that the chair, at their discretion
hand the gavel to someone else if they plan to be away any amount of time.
Last month when I had an email crisis I made such contingency plans
passing along a note that if I was not available by x time that Betsy
would be the temp NC." Apparently the only person on the Board who was
aware of this was Rich Howland; even Betsy appeared unaware that she is
the designated heir-apparent. After Jim Powell posted his explanation of
the so-called coup attemp, Tim posted a public apology in which he
states "My apologies to each and everyone of you - Jim - foremost. There
was no coup attempt. After being confronted by a few Board members and
upon self reflection I discovered that I have not been myself for the past
couple of days and also finally figured out what it was." He then
basically blames his bad behavior on his wife, who went out of town and
left him unsupervised. [Which explains a lot. Perhaps his wife should be
the one running for NC.]
Yellow Journalism Corner: Clarice Soper, a columnist for the Hattiesburg
[MS] American published a column on July 2 regarding the acquisition of
Root$web by MyFamily.com. Not only did she mistakenly report that
RootsWeb was a nonprofit, she also managed to offer up two currently
managed MSGenWeb counties for adoption. The article entitled "Two
ancestry Web sites join in merger" states "the Forrest and Perry County
mailing list list-owner and volunteer county coordinator (both counties)
of the Usgenweb (sic) for the state of Mississippi apparently didn't like
the merger. She sent a message inviting you to join her new list, housed
at a different site. She then un-subscribed everyone on the mailing list,
in effect closing it down...". Ms. Soper also says that if one visits the
former RW home of the county pages, they are "Gone. Zapped" and instead
one gets a message that the pages have moved due to the merger. Although
Ms. Soper does provide the new URL for one of the pages, she apparently
did not visit it, as she goes on to solicit new county coordinators on
behalf of USGenWeb: "I understand Rootsweb has an opening for
Perry-Forrest mailing list owners and UsGenweb (sic) project needs a
county coordinator for Forrest and Perry Counties. Any takers?" As it
turns out, Ms. Soper is an active subscriber to the mailing lists in
question and uses the MSGenWeb county pages in question; she apparently
was aware both that the county pages and mailing lists were moved to
another server and that the current county coordinator had not left the
USGenWeb Project.
===
"He [the chair] should set an example of courtesy, and should never
forget that to control others it is necessary to control one's self."
---Roberts' Rules of Order [via Ellen Pack]
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 Jul 4 08:56:48 2000
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 08:56:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: DBS Special Report: Member Rights Voting Records
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000704085518.17875C-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: O
X-Status:
The following report was written by Scott Anderson and is reprinted by the
DBS with the permission of the author.
***************************************************************************
Summary:
In the last year the USGenWeb Advisory Board (as opposed to individual members thereof) has, in a series of resolutions, repeatedly ignored their responsibility towards individual members of the USGenWeb Project, not only failing to protect member rights but also placing unwarranted restrictions on members themselves.
Several board members who participated in these decisions are now running for reelection or are candidates for another position. Their overall records on members' rights issues are:
Name & > Powell Stowell Zsedeny Howland Cisewski
Candidacy (NC) (NC) (NC) (NE/NC Rep) (NW/Pl Rep)
Totals +12 -6 -5 -4 +16
***************************************************************************
According to the bylaws <http://www.usgenweb.org/official/bylaws.html>:
"The USGenWeb Project is an organized group of volunteers working to create an online center for genealogical research by linking every county in the United States....the foundation of the organization shall be at the local websites."
Implicit in this statement is that member rights should be paramount. The few limitations on their rights are commonly agreed to by the membership and are explicitly spelled out in the bylaws. Otherwise members should have as much freedom as possible to further the Project.
On the other hand, the bylaws give very specific responsibilities to the national advisory board. In particular, the board has the authority to enforce those few restrictions on member rights described in the bylaws, as well as protect member rights when they are violated by others.
In the last year the USGenWeb Advisory Board (as opposed to individual members thereof) has, in a series of resolutions, repeatedly ignored their responsibility towards individual members of the USGenWeb Project, not only failing to protect member rights but also placing unwarranted restrictions on members themselves.
Several board members who participated in these decisions are now running for reelection or are candidates for another position:
Jim Powell National Coordinator
Tim Stowell National Coordinator
Joe Zsedeny National Coordinator
Richard Howland Northeast/Northcentral CC Representative
Ginger Cisewski Northwest/Plains CC Representative
Below is a summary of how they voted on member rights issues, taken from links on the webpage <http://www.usgenweb.org/official/vrecords.html>.
+ means a pro-member rights position (++ = initiated it);
- means an anti-member rights position (-- = initiated it);
0 means didn't vote on the issue or abstained.
Explanation of issues follow.
Issue | Name & > Powell Stowell Zsedeny Howland Cisewski
v | Candidacy (NC) (NC) (NC) (NE/NC Rep) (NW/Pl Rep)
1) Repeal of
Census Project
Clarification + 0 -- - +
2) Table Repeal of
Census Project
Clarification 0 0 - - ++
3) Delay of Census
Project-Combining
Motion Until CP
Rep is Seated + 0 + - +
4) Delinking of
Census Project 0 -- 0 0 0
5) Override
Delinking of
Census Project + 0 + +- +
Issue | Name & > Powell Stowell Zsedeny Howland Cisewski
v | Candidacy (NC) (NC) (NC) (NE/NC Rep) (NW/Pl Rep)
6) Ratify Delinking
of Census Project 0 0 + - +
7) Sever Relationship
with USGenWeb Census
Project, Inc. + 0 - - +
8) Procedure for
Grievances Against
Board Members ++ 0 0 0 +
9) Protest Logos in
Non-Compliance 0 0 - -- +
10) Grievances Made
By C. Hammett 0 0 -- 0 +
11) Repeal of
Protest Logos in
Non-Compliance + 0 + ++ +
Issue | Name & > Powell Stowell Zsedeny Howland Cisewski
v | Candidacy (NC) (NC) (NC) (NE/NC Rep) (NW/Pl Rep)
12) April 1
Eligibility
Cut-Off Date + 0 - - +
13) Affirm April
1 Eligibility
Cut-Off Date + 0 -- + +
14) Elections
Procedures + 0 + + +
15) Use Secure
Voting System
/Motion Out of Order 0 -- 0 0 ++
16) Set Voter
Eligibility Cut-off
Date of June 1
/Motion Out of Order ++ -- 0 0 0
Name & > Powell Stowell Zsedeny Howland Cisewski
Candidacy (NC) (NC) (NC) (NE/NC Rep) (NW/Pl Rep)
Totals +12 -6 -5 -4 +16
1) Repeal of Census Project Clarification (Board Motion #00-03, 7 February 2000): Motion 99-04 clarified the responsibilities of the USGenWeb Census Project and the USGenWeb Archives, based on the bylaws. This year's motion took advantage of a new set of board members to repeal last year's motion. '+' is a vote against this motion, which passed.
2) Table Repeal of Census Project Clarification (Board Motion #00-03a, 7 February 2000): Since the Census Project did not have a Representative on the board at the time to express the position of the Census Project members, it was moved to table motion 00-03 (#1 above). '+' is a vote in favor of this motion, which failed.
3) Delay of Census Project-Combining Motion Until CP Board Rep is Seated (Board Motion #00-06a, 13 March 2000): This resolution delayed action on Motion 00-06, which would have enforced a particular solution to the Census Project issue. There was no Census Project Representative on the board at the time to even express the position of the Census Project members. '+' is a vote in favor of this motion, which passed.
4) Delinking of Census Project (Executive Order #2000-E-1, 6 April 2000):
The National Coordinator removed The Census Project link on the national web page. The bylaws explicitly give the responsibility to delink web pages to the advisory board, not the National Coordinator (Article VI, Section 5), hence the National Coordinator violated the rights of the CP members and gets a '-' for this action.
5) Override Delinking of Census Project (Board Motion #00-08, 6 April 2000):
The board attempted to override the National Coordinator's usurpation of their authority. '+' is a vote in favor of this motion, which failed.
6) Ratify Delinking of Census Project (Board Motion #00-09, 14 April 2000):
The board attempted to confirm the National Coordinator's action, which would have made it "in accordance with the bylaws" since the board approved (after the fact). '+' is a vote against this motion, which failed (due to the lack of a quorum).
7) Sever Relationship with USGenWeb Census Project, Inc. (Board Motion #00-10, 1 May 2000): The Census Project head, Ron Eason, moved Census Project files from the Rootsweb server to the USGenNet server upon discovering they had been tampered with. He also created a nonprofit organization (initially a for-profit, by mistake), USGenWeb Census Project, Inc., to help fund Census Project activities. Neither of these are prevented by the bylaws, and the Census Project continues to meet all requirements of the bylaws. This motion severs the relationship between USGenWeb and the corporation, but cannot affect the Census Project itself, as the Board is limited to only two courses of disciplinary action by the bylaws: (1) delinking and (2) removal of the Project coordinator. If this motion is supposed to be a delinking, then it fails the bylaws' requirement of a two-week grace period to bring a project into compliance. If this motion is supposed to be a removal of the Project coordinat!
!
or, then it fails the bylaws' requirement of a supporting 2/3 vote of the project staff. Nevertheless, this vote has still been used to justify the disenfranchisement of the Census Project itself and all of its volunteers. '+' is a vote against this motion, which passed.
8) Procedure for Grievances Against Board Members (Board Motion #00-11, 10 May 2000): As allowed by the bylaws, several grievances were filed against individual board members for their votes. This motion requested a fair hearing for these grievances (presumably one in which the object of the grievance does not vote). '+' is a vote in favor of this motion, which failed (due to the lack of a quorum).
9) Protest Logos in Non-Compliance (Board Motion #00-12, 16 May 2000): Various web sites displayed blackened USGenWeb logos in protest over the Census Project motions described above. This motion declared these blackened logos to be "inappropriate and in non-compliance", as provided for in the bylaws. However, the motion only allowed web sites five days to remove the logos, instead of the fourteen days specified in the bylaws. '+' is a vote against this motion, which passed.
10) Grievances made by C. Hammett (Board Motion #00-14, 3 June 2000): Carole Hammett submitted five grievances to the board, which were dismissed out of hand as "purely spiteful and meant to disrupt and cause disarray among the Project members", without even individual consideration. '+' is a vote against this motion, which passed.
11) Repeal of Protest Logos in Non-Compliance (Board Motion #00-15, 4 June 2000): Upon realizing that his motion "Protest Logos in Non-Compliance" was being used to prevent certain individuals from running for USGenWeb office, Richard Howland moved to repeal it. '+' is a vote in favor of this motion, which passed.
12) April 1 Eligibility Cut-Off (Board Motion #00-17, 5 June 2000): The Election Committee arbitrarily set a cut-off date of April 1, after which any new members will not be allowed to vote. However, the bylaws state that "All members of The USGenWeb Project, excluding Look-Up Volunteers and Transcribers, shall be eligible to vote." So any cut-off date not absolutely required to determine member status is contrary to the bylaws, and this motion instructed the EC to allow all members to vote. '+' is a vote in favor of this motion, which failed.
13) Affirm Cut-Off Date (Board Motion #00-18, 5 June 2000): Failing to overturn the Election Committee's cut-off date of April 1, the board attempted to confirm it. '+' is a vote against this motion, which failed.
14) Elections Procedures (Board Motion #00-19, 28 June 2000): When the Election Committee decided to eliminate voting rights for large numbers of co-coordinators and special project coordinators, the board instructed the committee to include these individuals, using the same procedures as in previous elections. '+' is a vote in favor of this motion, which passed.
15) Use Secure Voting System/Motion Out of Order (Board Motion Unnumbered, 30 June 2000): A motion was made to direct the Election Committee to use a secure voting system, as the system they chose does not ensure voter anonymity. The motion was declared out of order by the National Coordinator as interfering with the "independent" Election Committee, although the bylaws state that the Election Committee is a subcommittee of the board, and one of the board's responsibilities is "overseeing elections". '++' is for introducing this motion, '--' is for declaring it out of order.
16) Set Cut-off Date/Motion Out of Order (Board Motion Unnumbered, 1 July 2000): A motion was made to set the official voter eligibility cut off date as June 1, 2000. The motion was declared out of order by the National Coordinator as again interfering with the "independent" Election Committee. '++' is for introducing this motion, '--' is for declaring it out of order.
S R C A
cott obert ranston nderson
phssra@physics.emory.edu
USGenWeb Coordinator, http://www.usgennet.org/usa/oh/county/guernsey/
From merope@Radix.Net Tue Jul 4 11:29:39 2000
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 11:29:38 -0400 (EDT)
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.SV4.3.96.1000704094754.21909A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: RO
X-Status:
A real firecracker...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Monday 3 July 2000-Tuesday 4 July 2000:
Another Board member votes "yes" on Motion 00-20.
Teri Pettit moves that ""Whereas 'the great purpose of all rules and forms
is to subserve the will of the assembly rather than to restrain it; to
facilitate, and not to obstruct, the expression of their deliberative
sense' (Robert's Rules of Order), I move that henceforth in all instances
where an Advisory Board motion has been made and seconded, and is followed
by at least two independent calls for the question: (1) that voting can
proceed, with or without discussion, with or without a numbered motion and
with or without the approval of the National Coordinator; (2) that said
motion shall be automatically approved should it receive the number of aye
votes necessary under the Bylaws; and (3) that the only exception shall be
when the Bylaws call for a 48-hour membership notice period." Ginger
Cisewski seconds the motion.
Maggie Stewart Zimmerman suggests that "something that has such a far
reaching effect on the entire membership of the USGenWeb Project would
require the vote of the entire membership to be put into action." She
thinks it would be more appropriate to amend the bylaws. She also
suggests that followign the procedures in the motion would require the
agreement of 2/3 of the Board rather than two independent calls of the
question.
===
Election News: According to Board member Richard Howland, the Board is
currently in possession of yet more secret information involving possible
voter "irregularities" and therefore, he does not support revoking the
April 1 cutoff date. Despite numerous requests to do so, Richard refused
to disclose this information [probably to avoid having it immediately shot
down, like the last "evidence" of irregularities they released]. Richard
has also suggested that the EC should hand count the votes because he has
"a problem with computers and tech", and also informs us that voter
identity has never been secret from the members of the EC [although this
latter point is disputed by other former EC members].
I have spoken with several members of the EC and the following is
apparent: 1) the EC did vote on the April 1 cutoff date, although it is
not clear whether they voted on it before or after it was announced to the
project. Several members who were opposed to it were persuaded to vote
for it when they were told that there was evidence of voter roll padding.
2) The EC was not aware prior to July 1 that Roger Swafford would be the
only person counting the ballots for the NC race and the amendments, nor
did they see the ballots before they were posted. It is alleged by one EC
member that Tim Stowell did see and approve the ballots before they were
posted. 3) The members of the EC that I have spoken to do not know how
the ballot server came to be chosen. They do say the RootsWeb declined to
run the elections this year and that Roger was unable to find a server
willing to do it [yet Lynn Waterman was able to set up a fully functional
secure voting mechanism in a day]. They were told the ballot server is
somehow affiliated with the ALGW SC, who is Leigh Compton. They do not
know whether or not Leigh Compton will have access to the voting records.
4) The EC agreed at the outset to let Roger Swafford act as their
spokesperson. Many of them now regret that, since he apparently is
refusing to answer _any_ questions regarding the EC, regardless of who
they come from. Shari Handley, a Board representative on the EC, says she
is working to expedite communication from the EC to the project. Other
members of the EC note that Roger's failure to respond to questions is
reflecting poorly on the committee as a whole and on the members
personally and some have indicated they will NEVER [emphasis theirs] serve
in any function other than their county work for USGW again.
Vox Populi Corner: Results for the latest poll are in. The latest poll
question was "Which voting method do you prefer to use for this election:
The Current setup with each NC candidate having one person oversee the NC
and Amendment votes, or using votebot automated software." The results
are as follows: "The EC's Committee's current setup with one overseer for
each candidate verifying votes, 2 votes, 4.65%; Voting via Votebot
software , 41 votes, 95.35%" If you are interested in participating in
future polls, you can join the poll group at
http://www.egroups.com/group/usgwcc. Please note that the polls are only
open to USGW members, but _any_ USGW member can participate. [CCs, SCs,
transcribers, file managers, etc., and I'm told there is no voter
eligibility cutoff date <g>]
In Good Company Corner: Ginny English, the CC for Forrest and Perry
counties in the MSGenWeb, has apparently been banned from all RootsWeb
mailing lists because she removed her mailing list from RW over to another
server following the RW sell-out to MyFamily.com Ginny moved all her
subscribers on one of her mailing list and announced the new list prior to
unsubbing everyone from her RW list. In short order, she was not only
attacked in print by a local columnist for moving the list [reported
yesterday], she found herself removed as listowner from another list she
had on RW and unsubbed from all her lists, including her required state
list for MSGenWeb. Welcome to the club, Ginny!
All In The Family.com Corner: Information on the Root$web sell-out
continues to trickle in. The latest info comes from RW employee Nancy
Beach, who responded to a user's questions regarding the merger by
indicating that "1. RootsWeb and MyFamily have clearly stated their
intent to keep the information on RootsWeb available for free... we
consider this a binding agreement. We have not disclosed this
information, and as private companies, we are not required to do so....
[responding to a question about the length of the negotiations and when
the final agreement was drawn up] 3. RootsWeb has never been a non-profit
entity...There was a separate non-profit entity, GenSoc.org, but this was
never part of RootsWeb and has never been active. 4. RootsWeb is still the
oldest and largest genealogy community. [notice she left out the word
"free" from this statement] 5. Our Acceptable Use Policy... clearly
states, the contributor retains all rights to the material that they post.
So in effect, you can vote by removing your content. MyFamily has not
acquired the copyright to this content, only the right to archive it and
display it. 6. RootsWeb.com, Inc. and Myfamily.com, Inc. filed all of the
necessary paperwork with the SEC and other governing bodies."
[Interesting. The SEC concerns itself mostly with publicly traded
companies or companies that are planning on being publicly traded. Is
there an IPO in the works for MyFamily.com and/or Root$web?] [the post
this is extracted from should be in the RW mailing list archives by now,
but it is not. The Rootsweb archiver seems to be not working; there are
apparently no posts for any July messages, and the threaded mailing list
search is currently unavailable.]
Anyways, we hear from a Deep Source that its unlikely that any definitive
answers to the many questions people have asked regarding the sell-out
will be answered by MyFamily.com for another week or so. Turns out they
don't know too much about their newly acquired property and are doing some
quick "looking into things" before they respond.
Scofflaw Corner: According to information from the State of California
Corporations Code
[<http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=corp&group=12001-13000&file=12310-12316>
"No person shall adopt or use the word "cooperative" or any abbreviation
or derivation thereof, or any word similar thereto, as part of the name or
designation under which it does business in this state, unless
incorporated as provided in this part or unless incorporated as a
nonprofit cooperative association under Chapter 1 (commencing with Section
54001) of Division 20 of the Food and Agricultural Code, as a stock
cooperative, as defined in section 11003.2 of the Business and Professions
Code, as a limited-equity housing cooperative, as defined in Section
33007.5 of the Health and Safety Code, as a credit union or organization
owned for the mutual benefit of credit unions, or under some other law of
this state enabling it to do so. However, the foregoing prohibition shall
be inapplicable to any credit union or organization owned for the mutual
benefit of credit unions, any housing cooperative, the financing of which
is insured, guaranteed, or provided, in whole or in part, by a public or
statutorily chartered entity pursuant to a program created for housing
cooperatives, a nonprofit corporation, a majority of whose membership is
composed of cooperative corporations, or an academic institution that
serves cooperative corporations."
My goodness. Has the Root$web Genealogical Data _Cooperative_ been
violation of California law all this time?
===
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right
includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek,
recieve and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers."
---Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Article 19
This has been your Daily Board Show. You all have a _very_ happy Fourth
of July!
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
-------
Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Wed Jul 5 19:26:11 2000
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 19:26:11 -0400 (EDT)
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.SV4.3.96.1000705095214.632A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: RO
X-Status:
You got THAT right...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Tuesday 4 July 2000:
Jim Powell asks if the Board can cement a "chain of command" with some
stipulations, "Such as if 5 members are posting within an afternoon and
the NC is not available, that the Representative at large chairs until the
NC returns, if neither are available it falls to the SC Representative
with the longest tenure. If none of these appear, action must wait. With
any change of chair actions on the floor will not be removed from the
floor." He thinks there would be less confusion and notes "If a motion is
made and seconded and 5 members have posted and the NC has not been heard
from, the Rep at Large could post saying something like, I am using the
authority of resolution 00-0X to number this motion xx-xx and open it for
discussion. When the NC shows up, he has the floor if he wishes." Jim
says he is making this suggestion as a candidate for NC and he believes
empowerment is a useful tool to build teamwork. It is his hope that
"Empowering the Board to serve in a more timely manner in the open,
will...result in the teamwork that we had a glimpse of the other day."
Joe Zsedeny agrees with Jim that the Representative at Large followed by
the representative with longest tenure should assume the Chair in the NC's
absence. He notes "This situation probably will not arise once in 5 years
if we do our homework in the future and not accede to solutions without a
full grasp of their significance." He suggests that the first order of
business for the new Board is election overhaul and the domain names issue
and other motions should not be addressed until those two are.
Holly states that Jim's proposal is "reasonable for strictly
administrative issues such as vote numbering and opening for discussions."
Tim Stowell declares Teri's motion [which Board members are discussing
above] out of order, saying the motion "is an attempt to make a bylaws
change. The AB does not have the authority to make a bylaws change. This
also flies in the face of RRO..." [told ya he'd do it. <g>]
Ginger Cisewski appeals this ruling, noting "1. the motion in no way
conflicts with law, bylaws or parliamentary procedure as applied in a
continuous meeting 2. the motion is necessary for the Advisory Board to
fulfill its obligations to the membership as set forth in said bylaws."
Jim moves "that we, as the Advisory Board of USGenWeb, to whom the
responsibility of all actions of all Committees appointed by us do fall,
humbly request that the Election Committee revisit the issue of the
April 1 voter cutoff date." [humbly?!] He notes that this is only a
request but notes that "if it should be denied, I believe that it should
be denied by the full committee and not just the chair." He also
recommends returning the cutoff to the June 1 cutoff of previous years and
asks "each Board Member that has a strong opinion on this issue to express
it on this list."
Holly Timm says she has already made it clear that she supports "the June
1 cutoff date as being administratively reasonable and that the date of
April 1 unfairly removes the vote from innocent CC's, and in fact, no CC's
are provably quilty." She officially joins Jim in his request.
Joe Zsedeny says he understands that the April 1 date was "duly
considered and agreed to by the full EC" and notes that the Board has
twice failed to reach a consensus on the cutoff date. He says it is also
his understanding that votes for the NC race and the amendments will be
verified by the EC Chair and two EC members.
Ginger Hayes says she fully agrees that the cutoff date should be June 1
and the April 1 date is unfair. She adds that "this is also the consensus
of the project volunteers that I've heard from personally or that I've
witnessed discussing the issue in other forums."
Pam Reid remembers that in past elections the Board received regular
reports on EC activity and was kept informed as to what was under
consideration by the committee. If the Board objected to anything or had
suggestions they could easily pass them to the EC before any decisions
were finalized. She notes "This time around, there was no communication
from the EC to the Board while policies were being decided...Much of the
dissension could have been avoided if reports had been made to the Board.
I think we need to note this for the future and make certain that regular
reports are made to the Board by the EC during the process in the future."
Ginger Cisewski adds her voice to Holly's and Jim's and urges fellow Board
members to join in. She notes "This is something the membership of the
Project is clearly in support of, and they are counting on all of us to do
the right thing!"
Pam notes "It does seem to be clear that the general USGW population
supports the June 1 cutoff date." She says she now believes she made a
mistake in voting to uphold the June 1 cutoff date. She voted as she did
to show support for the EC and on the basis of the [now refuted] evidence
that members were being recruited to pad the voter rolls. She now says,
however, "our main job is here on the Board is to support the opinions of
our constituents and it would appear our constituents favor the June 1
cutoff. Therefore, I must also support it."
Tim Stowell posts revised vote totals for Motion 00-20: 15 yes votes, 0 no
votes, and no abstentions
Tim notifies the Board he will be traveling July 5 and has asked Holly to
act as temporary NC in his absence. She agreed to do so until Tim is
again in contact with the Board either on July 5 or July 6.
Wednesday 5 July 2000:
Teri Pettit thinks the "motion to expedite urgent votes" is more like
deciding how to hold meetings [email vs IRC], and does not require a
bylaws amendment. She says the motion is "dealing with the problem that
in a real face-to-face meeting, a chair is always physically present,
whereas we are essentially always in session, yet the Chair is sometimes
present, and sometimes not." She suggests spending some time tweaking the
motion and will be forwarding some suggestions from Ed Book to the Board
shortly.
Teri notes that Jim's suggestion of a "chain of command" doesn't address
the situation "of a Chair who is posting to BOARD-L (and hence presumably
"available"), but who stalls in numbering a motion, or opening the vote,
or who declares a motion out-of-order with inadequate cause. So it needs
some work on just what it means for a Chair to be "not available." She
says that "If we can work out a system based on a "chain of command"
concept rather than a "automated chairless process", that is sufficiently
objective and clear about when a chair is "not available", and that
prevents an actively present chair from engaging in enough delaying
tactics that the window for dealing with a time-dependent situation
closes, then I would be willing to withdraw my motion in favor of your
suggestion."
Joe Zsedeny says that even though he still believes vote tampering is
occurring, if a new vote on the election cutoff date is taken, he will
"vote with the majority or abstain." He suggests that they need to "get
this behind us and begin in september to address the election issues and
get them resolved before next year's elections."
Holly, acting as temporary NC, asks if there is a second to GingerC's
appeal of Tim's action in declaring the motion out of order. She says "If
a second is forthcoming, we must then vote on whether to sustain the
NC's declaration that it is out of order or to set his declaration aside
and proceed with discussion. If we do not come to a decision, his
declaration that it is out of order stands."
Ginger Hayes seconds Virginia's appeal.
===
Election News: In a chat last evening, Holly Timm shared her idea for an
Election Committee to study the election process. She plans to start
this up immediately after the new board is seated and participation is by
invitation only [as opposed to volunteers or nominations] and Holly will
push to chair this committee herself. Betsy Mills and Tina Vickery will
be included because they have served on previous ECs. Apparently this
committee will be formulating guidelines for future elections. [As a side
note, apparently Holly is in hot water with our Esteemed National
Coordinator for not only recommending her CCs not vote until the elections
concerns are cleared up, but recommending that they not vote for Tim.]
EC members Tina Vickery and Jerimiah Moerke also attended the chat, but
answered few direct questions regarding the committee and its procedures.
Tina noted more than once that the committee is doing the best job it can
and "all is being done to assure a fair election." Direct questions about
who would be verifying NC and amendment votes other than the EC Chair, why
the EC is recommending abstentions on the amendments, Leigh Compton's
relation to the ballot server, and the security of the ballot server
[which apparently was compromised again last night] were either not
addressed by the committee members, were answered with broad generalities,
or were met with pleas for understanding and patience.
A quick check of the ballot page
[http://elsi123.august.net/~usgenweb/vote-nc.html] reveals that the
amendments have been added to the front page of the ballot [so people can
find 'em], "abstain" is still the default checked option for each
amendment, and all NC and amendments votes are still going solely to the
Chair of the EC.
Wheeling and Dealing Corner: According to a recent press release
"MyFamily.com, Inc., the leading online family network, today announced a
relationship with Excite@Home (Nasdaq: ATHM - news), the leader in
broadband, that will provide Excite users with a co-branded site, Excite
Genealogy ( http://ancestry.excite.com ). Excite Genealogy powered by
Ancestry.com, the Internet's most comprehensive family history resource,
will enable Excite users to discover and document their family history
directly through Excite.com. This relationship marks the fifth major
portal relationship in the past 12 months that MyFamily.com, Inc. has
entered into to place Ancestry.com content on high-traffic Internet sites.
This portals strategy has been a key driver of MyFamily.com, Inc.'s
growth, generating revenue through a 50 percent increase in subscriptions
since the end of last year. This deal reinforces MyFamily.com's position
as the leading resource in family and genealogy online." The remainder
of this article describes Root$web as one of MyFamily.com's four Internet
sites; you can Read All About It at:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/000705/ca_myfamil.html
Some other URLs that might interest those with a morbid interest in
MyFamily.com are:
The CMGI Investor: http://www.cmginvestor.com/ [news for those interested
in companies that CMGI has invested in, such as MyFamily.com] Check the
status of MyFamily.com on the IPO page.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/is/20000622/bs/myfamily_com_branches_out_1.html
Another article about the Root$web sell-out, notable for Greg Ballard's
statement that Root$web users are "an audience we can advertise to and
attract to our paid service."
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/cn/20000621/tc/genealogy_site_myfamily_adds_branches_to_its_tree_1.html
Another article about the sell-out. You will LOVE the last line of this
article.
http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2000/06/26/companies/kodak_pictures/
Kodak, one of MyFamily.com's "partners" has some big plans
http://www.companiesonline.com/detail.asp?duns=081149523&name=ROOTSWEB.COM,+INC
A bit of info extracted from the Dun & Bradstreet report on RootsWeb.com,
Inc. Notable mostly for the very out-of-place URL associated with
Rootsweb: http://jhwiggins.com. This turns out to a crisis management
company in Redondo Beach, CA, but which is registered to RootsWeb at 1912
Teton Way, Pine Mountain Club, CA, 93222; Brian Eldon Leverich is the
administrative contact. [Wonder if MyFamily.com got this one in the
garage sale too.]
===
"Behind every great fortune there is a crime. "
---Honore de Balzac
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 Jul 6 17:20:25 2000
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 17:20:24 -0400 (EDT)
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.SV4.3.96.1000706062533.13584B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: RO
X-Status:
We are not amused...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Wednesday 5 July 2000-Thursday 6 July 2000:
Holly Timm calls for a vote to sustain "Tim's declaration of the Motion to
expedite urgent votes." She says "A Yes vote agrees with Tim's
declaration that the Motion to expedite urgent votes is out of order. A No
vote sets his declaration aside. An abstain amounts to stating you have
seen this and wish to vote neither yes nor no." Thus far, 6 Board members
have voted "no" and 3 have abstained.
Joe explains his abstention: "I have reread the Bylaws but still cannot
make up my mind on this vote....However, I feel that a motion is in order
to show a line of succession for the NC along the lines that Jim
mentioned. This should, in my mind, be invoked on an as needed basis. We
need to go slow on something like this to avoid unforeseen abuses."
Holly asks Pam Reid why she abstained, noting that she [Holly] has
reservations about it and would vote no on it in its current state, but
she has "even greater problems with it's being declared out of order so
that we may not even discuss it or have a vote and the precedent that sets."
Joe Zsedeny asks if an abstention counts towards a quorum and if they have
enough votes now can they discuss the motion? Holly tells him that yes,
abstentions count toward a quorum and points out "if the YES vote prevails
or there is insufficient NO votes, the declaration that it is out of
order will be sustained and the motion will remain out of order if the
NO votes prevail the out-of-order fails and we can discuss the motion to
expedite, amending if we so choose and then vote on it on its merits."
Joe responds that with 7 votes there is a quorum [*sigh* 9 constitutes a
quorum] and notes "Board members could sit on their hands and deny a
quorum. I, and perhaps others, just aren't sure of this one, Holly, and
shouldn't be beat on our heads because of our vote." He also notes that
discussion could take place before a motion was made and support gained
prior to a vote, but "No one should be harangued because of their vote."
[Heckling from the Chair is a bit unseemly.]
Pam says she abstained because she has serious doubts about the motion and
is still not convinced that it would not require a bylaws amendment. She
says "While I agree wholeheartedly that a system needs to be in place to
expedite voting when the NC is not available, I am not sure that this
motion is the appropriate way to handle it...Rather than hold up the
voting process while I mulled it over, I decided to abstain. Perhaps that
seems to be the path of least resistance, but I honestly couldn't decide
what was best."
Ginger Hayes notes that "What the motion does or does not say has no
bearing on the vote we are taking", but rather addresses whether or not
Tim was correct in quashing the motion. She does not understand voting to
say he was right because "it only sends a clear message to the NC that
anytime he doesn't agree with a motion anyone on this board makes all he
has to do is declare it out of order, whether it is or isn't." She notes
"If it is an illegal motion then he was right in declaring it out of
order. If it was a legal motion then he was wrong, whether or not you
agree with the motion has no bearing on the question."
Betsy Mills disagrees, stating "If we were voting on whether Tim was right
or wrong to set the motion aside then that is what the vote should have
said. All of this "hidden meaning" is a lot of what is wrong with the AB
right now. We vote on a motion only to be told later "This is what it
really means." She says she abstained for the same reasons Pam and Joe
did and notes "If this is a bylaws change, then Tim was correct to call it
out of order. If it is not (which seems to be debatable) then Tim was
wrong to call it out of order." She suggests that the Board stop making
motions without discussing them first and notes that every seems to agree
that there should be some way for a temporary chair to step in when
necessary.
Joe responds that he "can't decide whether Tim was right or wrong. The
Bylaws say that the NC presides. Tim ruled on a motion that says he
doesn't necessarily preside in all cases. Thus his interpretation that it
would require a Bylaws change." But he thinks the Board is wasting time
discussing this when they should be discussing the other ruling Tim ruled
out of order, the motion to reinstate the June 1 cutoff date for voting
eligibility. He notes "The Bylaws clearly give the Board the authority to
oversee elections. Therefore, that authority has to extend to motions
concerned with elections."
Pam agrees with Betsy that motions should be discussed before they are
made. She notes that "Often, the real meaning of the motion is somewhat
obscure - why was it made, what are we trying to achieve with the motion,
etc. " She also notes that she is confused several things: the possible
use of VoteBot, the cutoff date, the motion presently under appeal, the
domains issue. She recommends dealing with the elections issue ASAP since
many SCs have told their CCs to hold off on voting the many concerns are
addressed. She asks "what is being done to resolve these issues? We just
keep making new motions that muddy the waters. Can we clear up some of
the pending matters before moving on?" She would like answers from Roger
and the EC, noting "There has been FAR too little communication from the
EC on decisions made about the upcoming elections. In the past two, the
Board was very involved and kept up to date by the EC. Things aren't
running smoothly on this now and we need to get some issues resolved."
And then she notes one other small item: why is the Archives Amendment
still on the ballot, since according to her count it is short one
co-sponsor.
Pam says she is confused on the amendment procedure and is not alone in
this confusion. She says that many have read the pertinent section of the
bylaws "to mean that an amendment needs a total of 6 states (one sponsor
and 5 co-sponsors), while other people read it to mean 5 co-sponsors in
all (including the original sponsor)." She asks what is the Board's
official stance on this [well, the EC obviously takes it to mean 5 states
are needed.]
Joy Fisher indicates she has always taken it to mean 6, although she
believes the "framers" of the bylaws meant it to be 5, which would be 10%
of the states.
===
Peanut Gallery Corner: The results are in on the latest USGWCC poll:
"Should the Election Committee and Advisory Board post any and all
evidence of vote packing that they possess?" The "ayes" once again have
it, with 42 votes to the "nays" with 3.
All In The Family Corner: This week's New Zoo Review announces the recent
marriage of former Board member and TNGenWeb SC Bridgett Smith Edwards to
Dale "Doc" Schneider. Our congrats to the happy couple! Wedding pics are
up at: http://www.maddoc.net/wedding/ [Hmmm...wonder if that usgenweb.com
domain is now community property?]
Bigger and Better Corner: We've heard that Heritage Quest will be placing
the entire scanned census online, all 12,555 rolls of scanned and
digitized microfilm. According to our source, this service will be
formally announced at the American Library Association conference in
Chicago this weekend and will be available to libraries by subscription
this fall.
===
"There is truth, and there is untruth, and those who cling to the truth,
even against the whole world, are not mad."
---George Orwell
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 Fri Jul 7 10:28:08 2000
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 10:27:41 -0400 (EDT)
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.SV4.3.96.1000707064109.12600B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: O
X-Status:
A giant leap for mankind....its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Thursday 6 July 2000--Friday 7 July 2000:
Regarding the necessary number of sponsoring states required to get an
amendment on the ballot, Holly Timm says she reads it as either 5 or 6 and
thinks "that we must go with the lower number since this was not clarified
ahead of time and let the electorate decide on the amendment itself." She
notes "This is yet one more *interpretation* of the bylaws that needs
clarification."
Regarding the motion to expedite votes, Holly states "Whether the motion
on its merits should die or not is not the question of the appeal being
voted on. The sole question in the vote now before the Board is whether or
not Tim's ruling the Motion to Expedite out of order was correct." She
says that she has "qualms" about the motion's wording and whether it is
the best way to handle situations when the NC is not available and would
probably have voted no on it, had she been allowed to vote.
Holly denies that she is "beating anyone on the head" and she in fact
meant to send her previous message [asking Pam why she abstained]
privately.
Holly tells Betsy she thought her explanation of the appeal vote was clear
enough as it indicated precisely what a "yes" or "no" vote meant. She is
also in complete agreement that topics should be discussed before motions
are made and notes that the Board has "often been placed in the position
of voting for a motion whose wording we are not happy with because we
agree with the spirit of it."
Jim Powell says that his understanding is that RRoO requires that
something be on the floor before it can be discussed. RRoO also requires
an agenda, which would tell the Chair how to proceed. He notes that
although it would be difficult for the Board to have an agenda, "the Chair
could promote the timely handling of issues by placing them in front of
the Board and asking for action." He also notes there can be
"presentations" in which "the chair can bring in an expert or ask a member
to present a topic. If afterward there was to be discussion, there would
have to be a motion."
Joe reminds Jim that if there is a motion and a second, then the Board
usually votes within 48 hours. He notes the Board "move to discuss"
issues of interest, second them, and then discuss them until such time as
they decided a "voting motion" was in order, then they would withdraw the
"discussion motion". He notes "It is hard to follow RRs precisely in
online meetings unless everyone sits down to their computers at precisely
the same time. And that is hard to do with so many time zones."
Jim notes that the Board is technically "out of order" as they discuss the
appeal of Tim's decision to deny voting on the motion to expedite votes.
He asks "Have we really ever come close to following Robert's Rules?" He
also comes up with the following suggestion: "We could mingle Board
Business with the Volunteers, sort of the opposite of Board-Exec. We
could also set up a polling place and ask for input. With the technology
available, we could create one awesome example of ... Of the Volunteer, by
the Volunteer, for the Volunteer representative assembly." [oh, wow. What
a novel concept! <g>]
Pam Reid notes that in most groups a lot of discussion goes on before
decisions are made and that not all this discussion needs to be formal,
but may be "for informational purposes and offer members a chance to
express an opinion on a topic, present additional info, etc." She says
she has had to abstain on several motions "because I felt that not nearly
enough information had been presented for me to form an opinion."
Ginger Cisewski asks a question of the Election Committee, regarding
ballot verification. She notes that after the polls are closed, ballot
IDs and votes will be posted so that members may check to see if their
vote was included. She points out that "Since the balloting system
doesn't provide receipts, there is no way for anyone to know whether their
vote was even received until after the polls have closed." She asks "In
cases where a vote was not received, how will this be handled? Will these
people be allowed to re-vote even though the polls are closed, or will
they join the ranks of the disenfranchised? Will the Election Committee
give us a guarantee that these people will be allowed to cast their vote
even though the polls have closed?" [So, let's see...after the polls are
closed, those of us that didn't vote can claim we did and then get to vote
after the fact and perhaps change the results. Hmmm...]
Ginger Hayes also has a question for the EC: We all know that some folks
are still waiting for voter ID's, but what about those folks that have
received 2 oer 3 ID's. It was my understanding that everyone only received
one voter ID no matter how many regions they voted in. Has that changed?"
===
Election News: The ballot at
http://elsi123.august.net/~usgenweb/vote-nc.html has been edited to add
the email addresses of Election Committee members Jeremiah Moerke and
Carol Montrose to Roger Swafford so that all three will now receive
copies of ballots cast for NC and/or the amendments. Also, the amendment
ballots are now no longer automatically checked for "abstain". This latter
issue was causing no little degree of consternation among some project
members. Under our bylaws, only "participation" in the election is
required when determining whether or not the 2/3 majority of
"participating" members has been reached. Including abstentions as
"participation" biases the results against accepting the amendments [and
IIRC, Roger Swafford was publicly opposed to both of them]. It also does
not give project members the option of "not participating" in the vote.
Several protests about this irregularity were forwarded to the Board and
the EC changed the page sometime this morning. [Of course, the amendments
are still tied to the NC ballot, so that anyone who casts a vote for NC
but not for the amendments can still be counted as a "participant" in the
election. So it might be prudent to ask the EC how exactly amendment votes
will be counted and how the 2/3 majority will be determined.]
Candidate Ellen Pack has publicly asked the eight Board members who voted
yes on Motions 17 and 18 and the National Coordinator to give up their
votes. She says "My personal feeling is that a good leader would not ask
anyone to do that which he would not do himself. Would those eight AB
members listed above who, in effect, voted to arbitrarily deny a segment
of our membership their right to vote, as guaranteed to them in the
By-Laws, agree to give up their right to vote, as well? Tim, as National
Coordinator are you also willing to set an example, and support your Board
by giving up your right to vote? I am a lowly CC nominee, but as a show of
good faith I personally will be willing to give up my vote, if the NC and
each AB member named above, who supported the voter cut-off, agree to make
the same sacrifice. My election to the Advisory Board is not nearly so
important as is the integrity of an election, and our members guaranteed
right to vote. I would make public my voter ID so it can later be verified
that I did not vote. Are each of you willing to do the same?"
Joy Fisher [who is one of the Eight] has indicated that she is in fact
already ineligible to vote under the EC's rules. [Which is interesting,
since she's been around since before God, and is an SC.]
Another interesting concern regarding the balloting method has appeared.
Each voter is supposed to receive one ID. Apparently, these numbers are
generated by Roger Swafford and are being by the EC members. Since no
vote receipts are sent, not only do members not know if their vote was
received, they also don't know how it was counted. So until the votes
are posted, they won't know if their ballot was received in the same way
it was sent or if it was intercepted and possibly changed. It also does
not prevent people who know the ID numbers/name combinations from voting
in the place of people who did not vote to begin with or from re-voting
and overriding the true vote of the member. The issue of multiple ID
numbers being issued exacerbates this problem. This concern has led to
a small movement within the project to publish unused voter ID numbers in
order to prevent sham voting using known ID/email combinations.
I took the plunge and voted [for myself, natch!], and you do get a receipt
of sorts. It basically consists of a "thanks for voting" webpage but it
does say who you voted for. Unfortunately, its not date- or time-stamped
and doesn't include your ID number, so it is nearly useless as proof of
when and for whom one voted. But it might be the best you get, so save
those receipts!
===
"Vote early and vote often"
--Al Capone
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 Jul 8 12:05:43 2000
Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2000 12:05:42 -0400 (EDT)
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.SV4.3.96.1000708081152.11765B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: RO
X-Status:
Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Friday 7 July 2000-Saturday July 8 2000:
Holly Timm notes that she considers herself to be temporary Chair and not
not temporary and thus has not lost her vote. She votes "no" on the
appeal of Tim's action, declares the appeal passed, and puts the motion to
expedite votes back on the floor [7 yes votes, 3 abstentions]. Tim
Stowell almost immediately calls upon the Board Secretary to show why the
motion to expedite is improper. [He also notes that it was improper for
Holly to vote; she was in fact acting NC and he nullifies her vote.]
Jim Powell disagrees with this, saying that Holly must vote in order to
represent her constituents. He says "Only the person elected as NC does
not have a vote unless it is a tie. You can not disenfranchise those that
voted for her by taking her vote."
Tim disagrees with this, saying he does not recall circumstances in which
past temp NCs have voted. He notes that nullifying Holly's votes does not
changes the outcome, only the totals. He also notes that if Chairs wish
to vote the proper procedure is to hand the gavel to someone else, vote,
and then reclaim the gavel.
Holly reposts and recounts the vote records and totals. [Apparently when
she decided its OK for temp Chairs to vote, she was under the impression
hers would be the deciding vote. Convenient.]
Rich Howland posts a long excerpt from RRoO dealing with appeals.
Tim Stowell notes that MDGW sponsored the Special Projects amendment,
followed by four other states. Shari Handley interprets the bylaws to
read that proposed amendments need a total of 5 state sponsors. Shari
also counts out the 5 cosponsors and notes "If another state were
required, that would make 6, which is not what the Bylaws say." Ginger
Hayes, however, reads that section as requiring 1 sponsor and 5 addition
co-sponsors. She once again asks her question about the Tombstone project:
"Does this mean that if it passes the Tombstone Project will be absorbed
by the Archives? It is my understanding that the Tombstone Project has
always been a stand alone project, yet if this passes it would fall under
the auspices of the Archives leadership wouldn't it?"
GingerH posts a long message from Sue Soden in which Sue denies being part
of or knowing about any conspiracy to interfere with the election or to
pack voter rolls. She offers to give up her legal vote as a CC "IF this
board will force the election committee to drop this April voter
eligibility cutoff date." She does not want to be the reason that voters
are denied their rights. She also offers to send her voter ID number to
the Board so that they can be assured she didn't vote.
Regarding vote receipts, Tim notes that voters do get a screen saying
"something to the effect - Congratulations you just voted for x." He
considers that to be confirmation and suggests "Perhaps folks need to save
that screen for their own verification."
Joe Zsedeny believes it is wrong for any temporary chair to give up their
vote since it would be difficult for them to manipulate voting [well,
Holly _did_ think she was casting both the last vote necessary for a
quorum and the one that made the 2/3 majority as well]. Joe noes "This
small group should not need a Philadelphia lawyer to conduct it's
business."
Tim's off again; this time he appoints Joy Fisher as the temporary NC.
===
Election News: The EC Chair has released the following announcement:
"The EC has approved the following by 9-0 vote; "State Level Special
Projects with CC's meeting the cutoff date be allowed a vote in the Fiscal
Year 2000 election. The offices that the state level SP are allowed to
vote for are the National Coordinator, the rep-at-large, the CC (Local
Coordinator) reps for their state, and the amendments." The following is
offered to clarify questions from the membership. 1. The EC as a whole
discussed and voted on the April 1st cutoff date. 2. The decision
regarding the state level SP's was a ruling by the EC Chairman.
Parliamentary procedure allows for rulings by the chair of any assembly
when necessary. On occasion due to available time or situation rulings by
a chairman are necessary for resolution of questions. The above is the
outcome of that ruling and leaves "no question" for future election
committees to struggle with. SC's may be requested to provide additional
information regarding state special projects very shortly in order that
Voter ID's be sent to those members. 3. The matter of more than two cc's
per/county/state sp is currently under review by the EC."
[to summarize: the April 1 cutoff date stands, the EC did not vote on the
Special Projects ruling originally but has since done so and overturned
it, and the EC is now reconsidering the rights of co-CCs to vote.]
Ellen Pack has updated her campaign page and invites you all to visit it
at: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~binkley/ellen_pack.htm
New Faces Corner: The NCGenWeb has a new State Coordinator. Her name is
Sharon Williamson and the DBS wishes her luck!
Tempest in a Teapot Corner: There's more trouble brewing over at the
WorldGenWeb these days, specifically in that little corner of it concerned
with Ireland and Scotland. And once again, it involves GenConnect. It
seems that one IGW coordinator has asked for and received an entire suite
of GenConnect boards [births, wills, deeds, etc] for _every_ county in
Ireland and Scotland. [by one estimate, over three hundred boards]. In
addition he is providing a link back to every IRGW and SGW county page.
This has surprised and upset a substantial number of IRGW and SGW
coordinators, who believed they had the first right of refusal for GC
board created for their counties. Although Root$web employee Joan Young
first acknowledged that USGW and WGW _used_ to have first crack at boards,
she noted that policy had changed some time ago [although when pressed for
details such as when, she backed off her statement and referred all policy
questions to Nancy Trice]. In response to complaints, Nancy has indicated
that GC board are given to whoever asks for them first and they will not
be reassigned unless that person wishes to give them up. A formal
complaint has been lodged with both GenConnect and with Root$web, and we
hear, with MyFamily.com
===
"When spiders unite, they can tie down a lion."
---Ethopian proverb
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radxi.net
-------
Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Sun Jul 9 07:46:43 2000
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2000 07:46:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: DBS Gone Fishin'
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000709073911.6174B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: RO
X-Status:
Hi everyone,
Since the ListBot server is down for maintenance and may not be back for a
while, we're taking the DBS staff to the beach for a little R and R.
Depending on the weather and local dialups, we may not be publishing for
the next few days.
See you when we get back!
-Teresa
merope@radix.net