From merope@Radix.Net Mon Jul 19 21:27:14 1999
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 21:27:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
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Stranger than fiction...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Saturday July 17 1999:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date.
Election Update: The Election Committee has posted a webpage at:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~mogenweb/election/state.htm, wherein is included
an interesting description of how votes are handled and counted by
Root$web staff member Tim Pierce. It also contains copies of the
ballots for each race, and a list of regions and their EC reps. We
thank the Election Committee for making this information available.
Interesting Question o' the Day Corner: A poster to the GenConnect list
has asked: "If admins, we for whatever reason, don't get a post removed
that proves to be a legal problem for Rootsweb, are we, then, as Board
Admins legally responsible for any legal ramifications that RW may
encounter because of the post, either in part, or whole?" So far the
only response from RW staff has been "We cannot give official RootsWeb
policy here."
Expanding Assets Corner: We hear that Joan Young, who occasionally
presents the Root$web view of the world on USGenWeb project lists, has
finally been offered a paying job as a spokesperson for Root$web.
Congrats to Joan!
"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more
justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would
be justified in silencing mankind."
---John Stuart Mill
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
------------------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Tue Jul 20 20:35:48 1999
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 20:35:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
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Subject: Daily Board Show
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Living a life of danger for the FBI...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Sunday 18 July 1999:
Election Committee Chair Jim Powell posts the URL for "for information on
the Voting Software, etc." The site includes "a rundown of the way the
software works and the human interaction with it." The URL is
http://www.rootsweb.com/~mogenweb/election/state.htm
Good News Corner: Except for random sightings of the Page Police, its
been a quiet day!
"The censure of those who are opposed to us, is the highest commendation
that can be given us."
---Seigneur de Saint-Evremond
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
--------------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Wed Jul 21 22:33:43 1999
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 22:33:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
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Subject: Daily Board Show
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Manna from heaven...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Monday 19 July 1999:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date.
Out of the Mouths of Politicians Corner: Holly Timm, candidate for
At-Large representative has written to request a clarification about a
news item from a few days ago. You will recall that a guest correspondent
wrote about a chat log posted at:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~ohmahoni/chat/990713.txt
which contained a discussion of someone who requested that their
copyrighted files be removed from the archives. In this discussion, new
Board member Maggie Stewart-Zimmerman states, "Linda said to pull them and
have someone else proof the material and resubmit." Holly wishes it to be
made clear that she was not present in this chat during this conversation.
[As a voter, I asked Holly what she thought of this discussion; her
response was "I find insufficient information in the lines quoted to make
any sort of determination about what is or is not occurring. If I had
been present, I perhaps would have asked some questions seeking
clarification and explanation of what precisely was meant." Again, as a
voter, I urge Holly to pursue this clarification and explanation with her
friends and share her findings with the rest of us.]
Now You See It, Now You Don't Corner: We've been informed by a little
bird that the aforementioned chat log, which is still posted at the above
URL, has been edited since last we wrote about it. The _entire_
discussion of copyrighted files has been removed. Apparently, some people
believe that will make it like it never happened.
Missing In Action Corner: Census representative Kay Mason has not been
present for a Board vote since early June. Is another resignation in the
works? [If so, it provokes an interesting question: which Census project
will get to forward names for the position?]
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of moral
crisis, do nothing."
---Dante
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
--------------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Fri Jul 23 09:38:14 1999
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 09:38:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: Daily Board Show
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This gun for hire....its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Tuesday 20 July 1999:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date.
Wednesday 21 July 1999:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date.
Shell Game Corner: As reported in this week's RootsWeb Review (vol 2, no
29), the owners/operators of the for-profit RootsWeb.com, Inc. have
incorporated a _new_ company, called GenSoc.org, Inc., that is
not-for-profit. The genealogical community is once again told that the
501(c)(3) status is in the works. According to the article, by
Rootsweb.com, Inc. CEO Robert Tillman, they "expect to file this
application with the Internal Revenue Service by the end of July 1999."
Also according to the article, they "plan to run the day-to-day activities
of RootsWeb under RootsWeb.com, Inc. and to use GenSoc.org to help fund
volunteer projects on RootsWeb, such as the USGenWeb Archives, FreeBMD,
the Immigrant Ship Transcribers Guild, various census transcription
projects, and others." Funding sources for Root$web will continue to be
"user contributions, advertising/sponsorships, and electronic commerce
(including auctions of genealogy related items on RootsWeb and
participation in third-party affiliate programs)" [auctions?]
[It will be interesting to see how Root$web uses its new not-for-profit
company. Perhaps it will be similar to the foundations formed by many
large companies to channel their charitable giving; although its my
understanding that those foundations usually have separate boards and
officers. In any case, Root$web will still need to generate the revenue
to fund its new company, so its not likely, IMO, that banners ads will be
disappearing from USGW-affiliated resources any time soon.]
Wrench In The Works Corner: We've been informed privately that an
extensively documented complaint alleging violations of copyright law
and possible discrimination towards users by the RootsWeb Genealogical
Data Cooperative has been filed with the California Attorney General's
Office and the Federal Communications Commission. The complainant is a
former Root$web supporter who has been unable to reach agreement with
Root$web regarding the removal of their copyrighted posts from Root$web's
server.
Blast From The Past Corner: From a post by Brian Leverich to USGENWEB-ALL
27 Sept 1998: "The USGenWeb Archives have amazing value to researchers.
They have no commercial value at all in and of themselves. You could
never publish or sell them because ownership is wildly dispersed. They do
have some value from an advertising standpoint and, if some sleazeball
were hosting them, they could make a lot of money putting banner
advertisements on them." [how true it is.]
"... The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the
government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can
effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the
responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the
government from deceiving the people...."
--Justice Hugo Black, New York Times v. Unites States (Pentagon Papers)
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
----------------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Sat Jul 24 20:32:08 1999
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 20:32:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: Daily Board Show
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Where the deer and the antelope play...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Thursday 22 July 1999:
There is no Board-L activity on this date.
Election Update: The polls close one week from today. Don't forget to
vote! Remember, candidates are listed at:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~tnroane/nominate.htm and you can visit their
webpages from links available on that page.
Malicious Mischief Corner: We've received the following from a reader
[with minor editorial changes]: "There are three different malicious
events that have occurred recently: 1. The posting of anti "Rootsweb.com,
Inc" messages to GenConnect Boards; 2. Bogus queries being submitted with
the forged names and e-mail addresses of our volunteers; 3. Bogus
subscriptions being submitted to Twisted Humor (online joke mailing
service) with the forged e-mail addresses of our volunteers. Even RW lists
were subscribed, but the jokes bounced."
My correspondent suspects that #2 and possibly #3 as well were done by
someone who apparently has a running fight with the USGW Archives, over a
file removal problem. According to the writer, the disagreement does not
involve Linda Lewis, other than bogus queries have appeared in her name.
[I have heard privately that RW staff member Tim Pierce is pursuing the
identity of the person or persons who submitted bogus subscriptions to the
joke lists with the owner of that service. The identity of the person
posting bogus Genconnect queries using the names of USGW volunteers is
believed to be known, but will not be printed here, since I don't know how
good the evidence is. The person(s) posting "anti-Rootsweb" messages used
an anonymous proxy service; his, her or their identity is also being
sought by RW.]
Get Out The Popcorn Corner: An interesting slideshow prepared by Audience
Profiler [which ran that little survey for RW a couple of months ago] has
been posted at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~ftpstaff/finalreport/index.htm
It purports to describe RW's user base in terms of their wealth, hobbies,
internet usage, and RW usage, among other things. This is the info RW
uses to attract the ad sponsors whose banners now gracefully decorate
RW's pages. [OK, 'fess up out there, how many of you took this survey
more than once, and as a different person each time?]
"There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government
working for you."
---Will Rogers
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
--------------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Sun Jul 25 21:00:26 1999
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 21:00:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: Daily Board Show
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Where seldom is heard a discouraging word...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Friday 23 July 1999:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date.
Strange Goings On Corner: A researcher writes that while trying to do
research earlier today he found a couple of interesting anomalies in
ILGenWeb. The first one is that the Peoria county page has disappeared
and has been replaced with a RW cluster page. The second one is that the
Tazewell county page has disappeared entirely; the only thing the URL
leads to is a blank directory page. See for yourself at:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~iltazewe/
Big Enough To Drive A Truck through Corner: In a message posted
last night to STATE-COORD-L, Brian "Slack" Leverich admits that Root$web's
security precautions are nothing to write home about. According to Mr.
Leverich "By deliberate decision, security on WWW.ROOTSWEB.COM has always
been fairly lax." Apparently, Root$web's security is so lax that they
have been keeping PASSWORDS to new accounts in places where anyone with
ftp access to their servers can view them. This has happened at least
once, and several CC accounts have been compromised, according to Mr.
Leverich. Mr. Leverich indicates that they've now closed the gaping holes
in their security and are trying to identify the person who has been
merrily traipsing through Root$web's staff, draft, and personal files,
as well as the password files. I'm sure these CCs [and others] who's
accounts were allegedly compromised by Root$web's poor security will sleep
easier knowing that Roots$web has closed the barn door _after_ the cows
have escaped and eaten the neighbor's roses.
"Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship."
---Benjamin Franklin
This has been your Daily Board Show.
--Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
----------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.