From merope@Radix.Net Mon Jun 26 07:52:23 2000
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 07:51:54 -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
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The fly in the ointment...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Sunday 25 June 2000:
Tim Stowell forwards the following snippet from an email he received June
21 from Charles Merrin, Vice President of RootsWeb.com: "I would like very
much to discuss the implications for USGenWeb. In short, we are still
100% committed to the USGenWeb Project. You will not see anything
change."
Tim forwards his email to Charles Merrin, which reads in part: "I've not
seen or heard anything regarding today's announcement to make me believe
anything contrary to Rootsweb's committment to the USGenWeb Project. I do
know that some of the more vocal members of our Project will see things
that are not there but I am confident that things will stay as they have
been for the known future. I'm also confident should that relationship
change we would be given ample notice of such action."
Tim provides a brief synopsis of his telephone conversation with Mr.
Merrin: "First of all he assured me that nothing concerning our Project
would change other than the possibility of new tools. The files of the
Project are safe from commercial activities. The files still fall under
the copyright protection of the US Government and under Rootsweb's AUP
policy. No advertisement will be required on any of our pages or the
individual county or state pages without our express permission. This
includes files located in the Archives. The truth of the matter is that
Rootsweb has lots of unsold advertising space....Mr Merrin said that Brian
and Megan would do as the Project wished with the domains. For the domain
that Doc owns, we'll have to contact him seperately. I believe he will
pass it along to the Project but under his conditions."
===
Election News: Ken Short has published his campaign page:
http://www.staplesplus.com/election.html.
Amendment News: IAGenWeb has voted to co-sponsor the Recall Amendment and
has voted not to support the State's Rights amenement and the Archives
Amendment.
Hide And Seek Corner: This domain name issue is getting to be interesting.
Over on State-Coord-L, Our Esteemed National Coordinator is stating "They
were not part of the sale. Megan owns the .net domain, Doc owns the .com
domain. The other domain .org was bought by Brian and donated to the
Project. Thus NONE of them were part of the sale." Interestingly enough,
I also received a letter from Mr. Merrin, and in it he stated that
"Regarding the USGenWeb.org domain, we have offered to do whatever the
USGenWeb Board wants with it. I have been working with Tim Stowell to
determine the appropriate strategy. Regarding the .com and .net domains,
they are both in the hands of individuals and thus are not "owned" by
RootsWeb." So apparently, in spite of Tim's belief that "Brian gave the
domain to the Project", Roots$web, as opposed to an individual, owns the
domain and is free to negotiate with USGW regarding the usgenweb.org
domain, but not the other two, even though Tim states it wasn't sold and
in fact belongs to the project. Megan has indicated that she has also
instructed Charles Merrin to "deal with .net on my behalf with Tim and the
board in the same fashion that .org is being dealt with."
===
"Freedom for supporters of the government only, for members of one party
only - no matter how big its membership may be - is no freedom at
all. Freedom is always freedom for the man who thinks differently."
---Rosa Luxemborg
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 Jun 26 11:24:46 2000
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 11:24:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: DBS News Flash
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Thought you all might be interested in this:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 08:15:25 -0700
From: Charles Merrin <cmerrin@flashcom.net>
To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Subject: RE: FW: Recent acquisition of RootsWeb.com, Inc.
Dear Teresa:
I am glad I was able to put some of your concerns to rest.
On the issue of banned individuals, we don't envision the need for any broad
changes. When appropriate, we will revisit the issue on case by case basis.
Again, thank you for your interest in RootsWeb and online genealogy.
CSM
Charles S. Merrin
Vice President, Marketing
RootsWeb.com
-----Original Message-----
From: merope [mailto:merope@Radix.Net]
Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2000 7:40 PM
To: Charles Merrin
Subject: Re: FW: Recent acquisition of RootsWeb.com, Inc.
Dear Mr. Merrin,
Thank you so much for answering my questions. I really do appreciate it.
I think they put a lot of our concerns to rest.
I notice that you are responding to my email using an address other than
your RootsWeb address, so I presume you are aware of my status with
RootsWeb and that I can neither send email to nor receive email from
anyone with a rootsweb.com email address.
I have one further question for you. Will MyFamily.com honor the various
bans that have been placed on several USGenWeb project members by
RootsWeb's former owners?
Thanks again!
Sincerely,
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
From merope@Radix.Net Tue Jun 27 13:37:10 2000
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 13:37:09 -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
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Deja vu all over again...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Tuesday 27 June 2000:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date.
===
Election News: There are two new campaign pages up:
Bill Oliver: http://home.att.net/~ohiobuckeye/candidate/
Teresa Lindquist: http://www.radix.net/~merope/election2000/
Amendment News: The PAGenWeb has voted to sponsor the Recall amendment.
It also voted on the States' Rights amendment and the Special Projects
amendment, but did not vote to sponsor them. Current sponsors of each
amendment are as follows:
Recall: CO, OR, OH, NE, TN, MS, IA, PA
States' Rights: TN, OR, NE
Special Projects: MD, GA, AL, VI, WI
Liquid Assets Corner: According to a message received by Project member
Debbie Axtman, Charles Merrin has assured her that "the USGenWeb.org
domain is not considered a RootsWeb asset. It is considered to be the
property of the USGenWeb Project."
Winner's Circle Corner: Cathy Hall has defeated Tim Stowell in the
election for the TNGenWeb Asst. State Coordinator. Congrats to Cathy!
===
Today's quote was lifted from a sig file:
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a
revolutionary act."
---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 Wed Jun 28 15:48:29 2000
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 15:48:28 -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.SV4.3.96.1000628112355.17810A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Status: O
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Warp 10, Mr. Sulu...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content, laid on thick. Read at your own
risk!
Tuesday 27 June 2000:
Joe Zsedeny says "At Popular request from so many, let me put my money
where Don's mouth has been. Go to this
URL:http://www.rootsweb.com/~jzed/pointers/vtepoint.txt and decide for
youself." He says he is just an old country boy and asks someone to
"enlighten him". [The page that he posted was removed after outraged
protest and the debunking of every single "irregularity" in it.
Incidentally, this is the "evidence" that the Board and the EC are using
as the basis for the April 1 cutoff date. For more on this, see below.]
Joe responds, on Board-L, to a post from a CC likening the above
"evidence" to the Salem witch trials by suggesting she is a witch.
===
New Blood Corner: John Rigdon has announced that he has registered the
domain http://www.usgw.org and it is currently accepting applications for
web space from USGW members. A handful of counties have already moved
over there. The site is currently very basic, but has potential. Check it
out! For further information, please contact John at JohnR238@aol.com
Election News: Richard Harrison has posted his web page:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/artdept
The EC has most of the announced campaign pages listed at:
http://www.usgenweb.com/elections/candidates.html [For some reason Ginger
Cisewski's page is not listed.]
Roger Swafford has released the following explanation of the voting rules
in place for the upcoming election. Of note, the April 1 cutoff date will
stand. Also of note, localities with more than assistant or
co-coordinator will have to decide which of them gets to vote, and no
state-wide special project members will get to vote either.
"Voting within USGWP has always, to my knowledge, been one person /one
vote. Within the bylaws we find; Article II ..."foundation of the
organization shall be at the local websites (county, township, parish,
town, etc.)" This generally describes localities, therefore state level
special projects would not qualify in national elections. Article VII
Section 6 "All members of The USGenWeb Project, excluding Look-Up
Volunteers and Transcribers, shall be eligible to vote." The decision of
the EC that being eligible does not constitute the right to vote. The
issue made of the cutoff date was the subject of an AB motion to declare
it contrary to the bylaws failed. The decision stands. Article XI Section
2. "Each local project shall have a Local Coordinator who is appointed
according to whatever rules/guidelines are appropriate for their state."
Note "Local Coordinator" (singular). This section makes no mntion of any
assistant or co-coordinators. The EC does not desire to completely break
with tradition, and in that other articles allow for an assistant such as
for the SC, one co-cc or acc will be allowed. More than one co-cc or acc
per CC/county is not considered appropriate, and will be disallowed. When
two or more persons are listed as co-cc's for a county, one is considered
the CC and one as co-cc. Specifically how these cases are handled is
dependent upon the SC following up with the EC. Regarding CC's having a
vote in each region in which they have a county specifically for the CC
Rep position, yes, that has been the practice and has not been the subject
of any EC review."
As might be expected, Roger's announcement has started a fresh round of
anger at the EC's disenfranchisement of whole swaths of the project's hard
working members. Here are a few comments:
"Voting within USGWP has always, to my knowledge, been one person /one
vote. Within the bylaws we find; Article II ..."foundation of the
organization shall be at the local websites (county, township, parish,
town, etc.)" This generally describes localities, therefore state level
special projects would not qualify in national elections. Article VII
Section 6 "All members of The USGenWeb Project, excluding Look-Up
Volunteers and Transcribers, shall be eligible to vote." The decision of
the EC that being eligible does not constitute the right to vote. The
issue made of the cutoff date was the subject of an AB motion to declare
it contrary to the bylaws failed. The decision stands. Article XI Section
2. "Each local project shall have a Local Coordinator who is appointed
according to whatever rules/guidelines are appropriate for their state."
Note "Local Coordinator" (singular). This section makes no mntion of any
assistant or co-coordinators. The EC does not desire to completely break
with tradition, and in that other articles allow for an assistant such as
for the SC, one co-cc or acc will be allowed. More than one co-cc or acc
per CC/county is not considered appropriate, and will be disallowed. When
two or more persons are listed as co-cc's for a county, one is considered
the CC and one as co-cc. Specifically how these cases are handled is
dependent upon the SC following up with the EC. Regarding CC's having a
vote in each region in which they have a county specifically for the CC
Rep position, yes, that has been the practice and has not been the subject
of any EC review."
"Article IV, Membership, Section 2. "The USGenWeb Project is an equal
opportunity organization and will not tolerate discrimination in any form
because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital
status, disability, sexual orientation, etc." In TNGenWeb at least, your
decision to eliminate state-level special project coordinators
disenfranchises all our Afro-American and Native American Coordinators in
one fell swoop."
---Carole Hammett
These are not things which have occurred before. Might it not be prudent
to allow a vote of the members of the project before issuing such sweeping
edicts as not allowing for TC's to vote..not allowing cc's who host a
county to each have one vote, etc.. Since when do you as Elections Chair
have the authority to act in this arbitrary manner?..First Unfounded and
erroneous allegations of vote padding, now a total change in the voting
structure and qualifications? I move that Roger Swafford be disqualified
as Elections Chairperson due to malfeisance."
---Debbie Axtman
"BTW, I served on last year's elections committee and Jim Powell would
NEVER have done the things you have done. I'm frankly appauled and
shocked. What happened to ethics and fairness"
---Debbie Axtman
"I beg to differ. In The MSGW there are several Special Project
Volunteers, among these are A Civil War Page, Mississippi African American
Resources, Keely's Korner (Genealogy 101) and The First MSGW SC Rich
Holler who fills in as needed within the State. Are you saying that these
people who devote and volunteer their time not be allowed to vote? They
have always been allowed in the past and they have all been with the
Project LONG enough that I can say with no reservations that they are NOT
any part of any takeover attempt, real or imagined. I as SC of MSGW will
defend to the end ANY of my CC's, & Special Project Coordinators right to
vote. EVERYONE in MSGW was in before the Cutoff date of April 1, 2000 and
therefore by Board motion eligible to vote. I will check with all my
people and make sure they receive voting instructions and/or a ballot.
And I WILL contact my EC contact if they don't."
---Linda Mason
"It is appropriately left up to the state to determine what, if any,
"special" projects are necessary and helpful to that state. A local sp
coordinator who works hard to maintain a local specialized site is no less
a USGW member, no less important, and no less a part of this Project than
one who coordinates a county project...The fact that a special project is
in a particular state automatically implies that it deals with research
within a specific location, be it state, county, city, or township, etc.
Why in the would should a special projects coordinator be arbitrarily
stripped of his/her right to vote just because the special project does
not contain the name of a location?...If local special project
coordinators are not allowed to vote, the EC will have, in effect and in
one fell swoop, tossed them out of the Project."
---Ellen Pack
"Roger, has it ever occurred to you that SOME of us put RAW DATA on line
instead of just court house addresses and queries? Why not go visit some
of the pages and see for yourself why some counties have more than one
cc."
---Carol Dean
"It is my belief that the EC has the job of running the election and
trying to deal with ambiguous situations. I don't think they are doing a
good job with ambiguous situations... they should be leaning over
backwards to *include* voters rather than exclude them. I agree in theory
that we should limit the number of co-cc's so that in the future we don't
find someone adding 20 people as co-cc's. But now is not the time to come
up with that ruling. Similarly a cutoff date is not a bad idea, but it
shouldn't be announced after the fact....I would like to focus on the
special projects ruling. That one needs to be changed back now and the
way to do that is to get the board to vote on it. The board's vote is not
binding on the EC, but I suspect the EC would pay attention to such a
vote."
---George Waller
Debbie Axtman has started a poll regarding her "motion" above. You can
access the poll at http://www.egroups.com/group/usgwcc. You need to be a
member both of egroups and the list to post a vote in the poll [joining
both is a simple process]. The current poll question is: "Should Roger
Swafford be disqualified as Elections Chairperson due to malfeasance?" The
poll closes 7:00 P. M. Eastern time on 6/29/00.
Hunting Witches Corner: For those of you who missed it during its brief
life, Joe's page included information supported by little more than
snippets of emails that Sue Soden, Lynn Waterman, Stacey Orchard, Sandra
Sanchez, Bonnie McVicar Briggs, "B.J." [a new NCGW CC], Debbie Axtman, and
various unnamed CCs in TNGW adopted counties for the purpose of stuffing
ballot boxes. Within a short time of his posting the url, here's what
some USGW members had to say:
"I find it very sad that with serious issues needing desperately to be
dealt with you instead allow your insecurity to reach such proportions as
to foster this kind of paranoia. Stacey Orchard is indeed my co-CC in
Boone County, NE. She first requested a Nebraska county well over a year
ago...I recently adopted a county in Ohio, although I first asked for one
months ago.....I have considered Bill Oliver a close personal friend since
January of 1997, when I joined USGenWeb as a Nebraska volunteer. During
all this time I have never seen Bill do anything less than honorable, nor
have I seen any indication from him that he wished to do anything less
than honorable...The post you have used was a small snip among a group of
messages, and the "Lori" he was responding to is a Nebraska CC... She did
not become involved in Census transcription until fairly recently....Sue
Soden was answering a question that several had asked her, and nothing
more...I certainly didn't realize that answering questions would make
either of us part of a subversive plot, nor did I realize that the
information was forbidden to volunteers of the Census Project. In the
entire time I have been subbed to the CP-Issues list, I have listened to
the transcribers thoughts and feelings, feelings of betrayal by the
USGenWeb Project they have supported and endorsed. They were hurt, angry,
frustrated, and felt much abused by this Board and by the Project in
general. Most people say a lot of pretty outrageous things when in that
frame of mind, but as the feelings become less intense few of those things
are ever acted out, and such is the case here. If so many of the Nebraska
folks are involved in padding the voter lists, why is it that Nebraska
still has counties that are adoptable and we have added no new CCs that
are part of any of the Special Projects. If there was truly an evil plot
afoot, wouldn't we be padding Nebraska's voter rolls first?"
---Virginia Cisewski
"Elizabeth Harris just asked that NC be removed from the list. She
verified that the two replacements mentioned by Terria were genuine due to
illness of a CC. Done. My apologies, Terria and B. J. for missing this one
in my verification. But remember, no one has been accused of anything.
Only irregularies are listed."
---Joe "McCarthy" Zsedeny
"I find it ironic that you posted the misinformation about me to your
website. You, who are one of those so concerned with the forwarding
information from private places. And make no mistake, MIGenWeb's mail list
is private and not accessible unless you are a CC there....I am the Co-CC
of Shiawassee Co. and I was reinstated in May, but not on the date or by
the post, to a closed state mailing list, which you have posted...You are
well aware of the date I was officially reinstated to Shiawassee, because
it was included in a formal protest I sent to each and every board
member....No where in this, is there any evidence that I, or anyone else
for that matter, became a CC to pad the votes....I have stayed out of all
of this because I didn't want to get involved in the politicals again....I
recently wrote two complaints to the board about my right to vote since I
hardly fit the defintion sent by Roger Swafford, as the reason for my
exclusion, "as an unknowledgable newbie who didn't understand the issues
well enough to vote"...The fact that I am a Co-CC in three different
places has nothing to do with vote padding. I signed on to help a friend
in one place and I have deeply rooted ties to the two other places I
volunteered...How dare you imply that because I have volunteered, that I
am a cheat and a liar...What you know about me is that I don't share your
views on the census project, the archives and rootsweb and that I resigned
as a board member after last years election because I was made aware of
Tim's secret list that didn't include any of the board members who opposed
his view of the above stated views or any other matters facing the
board...I demand that an apology be forthcoming immediately...Next time
you want to know something about me, have the decency to ask me about
it...Don't label me a cheat again unless you have absolute stand up in
court evidence. I am getting more than a little angry about this.
---Bonnie McVicar-Briggs
"From what I've read (scant, as it may be), there is no "irregularity"
there, fanciful or otherwise. :-) You may remove OHGenWeb's webmasters,
Bill Oliver, Debbie Axtman and Lynn Waterman, from your (time-consuming)
list, as you've done with NCGenWeb's folks."
---Allen Richmond
"Barring any evidence at all, and much evidence to the contrary, I have to
feel there is/was no take-over attempt, and certainly nothing that should
prevent an entire group of innocent CCs from voting. The motion to uphold
the voting cap should be re-visited. This is not right. As for padding
an election, that can occur at any time, regardless of what cap one
decides to set in place. Four months? Six months? A Year? No problem.
This has been a red herring."
---Ellen Pack
"In regard to the Iowa CC and ACC named in the above link: Joan Ackerman
has been an IAGenWeb CC of two counties for a very long time. There is no
question of her commitment to the project. Sandra Sanchez applied to be
Linn County CC in response to a notice I placed on various lists. Sandra
posts to the USGW-CC and other lists frequently. Most often I disagree
with her viewpoint. But I have absolutely NO complaint about her
performance as Linn CC or doubt about her interest in the county. Since
signing on she has redesigned and updated the pages, posted to the
IALINN-L seeking additional information
for the county site, participated in statewide discussions and observed
the IAGenWeb rules and procedures."
---Richard Harrison
"In addition to 96 counties, TNGen has numerous special projects,
including pre-1796 (East and Middle), Cherokee by Blood, Civil War,
Letters, Land, Maps, Newspapers, People of Color, Records Repository and
Recipes...Last year TNGen had 100 volunteers. This year, we have 105. I
wish we had 200. What are you telling us, Joe Zzzzz? To stop
volunteering? I thought the goal here was doing good work, not political
control."
---Fred Smoot, via Carole Hammet
"Lynn, Lynn where have I accused? My URL only lists an eyebrow raiser. I
will be glad to publish a list of all CCs who have become co CCs since
April 1. Just be sure it is verified as my list has already taken its toll
of my limited free time."
---Joe "McCarthy" Zsedeny
"In addition to Sandra Sanchez and Joan Ackerman, another IAGenWeb CC was
mentioned on Joe's "no-conspiracy-after-all" website. Sue Soden is one of
IAGenWeb's earliest CCs, and is still with Benton Co, IAGenWeb..."
---Carole Hammett
After the numerous errors and incorrect assumptions were pointed out to
him, Joe removed the page. Not to fear though; its been archived safely,
and if you want a copy, you need only ask.
===
"Men are ruled, at this minute by the clock, by liars who refuse them
news, and by fools who cannot govern."
--G.K. Chesterton
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
-------
Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindqusit, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Thu Jun 29 12:55:02 2000
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 12:55:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: News Flash!
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000629125339.2609A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: RO
X-Status:
Looks like RootsWeb will still be collecting fees for its services.
-Teresa
>Dear [name deleted]
>
>Thank you for your e-mail. As part of the MyFamily.com network of sites,
>the RootsWeb.com site will continue to function as before. There will be
>no changes as to where you send your RootsWeb payment.
>
>If there is anything else we can assist you with, please let us know.
>
>Marta
>Customer Solutions
>Ancestry.com
>e-mail: support@ancestry-inc.com
>"Connecting and Strengthening Families through the World Wide Web"
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From merope@Radix.Net Thu Jun 29 16:31:51 2000
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 16:31:50 -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.SV4.3.96.1000629062354.239A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: O
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In your dreams!...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Wednesday 28 June 2000--Thursday 29 June 2000:
Ginger Cisewski asks "In view of the uproar caused by the latest post from
the Election Committee Chair, is there anyone on the board who knows
whether this was a singular decision made by Roger Swafford or whether an
actual vote was taken by the Election Committee to decide these things?"
She believes there are many project volunteers who will be disenfranchised
by this latest decision by the EC and notes that they want to know how the
decision was reached and what the Board is going to do to protect their
right to vote. She asks "Can we agree to allow the voting rights to stand
as they have for every other election and to overturn this ruling from the
Election Committee?"
Holly Timm states that "this is a serious matter and I feel very strongly
that the EC has overstepped its *job*."
Jim Powell moves "that we state that the status quo that was upheld by the
recent motions, regarding the determination of eligible voters, to be the
precedent has been set in past elections, not the changes made by the
current Elections Committee." GingerC seconds the motion.
Teri Pettit agrees with Holly and Ginger and notes "This is the third
election we've had, and neither of the past two election committees made
any rulings about what categories of Project members were to be allowed to
vote." The Board's "oversight" of the election included selecting the
servr and voting system, and running the nominations and voting process,
but not deciding eligiblity requirements. She doesn't see this as the job
of the EC and notes "Just because something is related to elections
doesn't mean that making rules about it falls under "overseeing"
elections." She suggests introducing a motion to void the most recent
announcemenc, feeling this has a better chance of passing than a broader
motion that might rescind the April 1 cutoff date.
Betsy Mills moves to amend Jim's motion to read "I move that the Election
Committee be directed to follow election procedure as was followed in
previous elections -- one State Coordinator and one Asst. State
Coordinator per state/special project and any County Coordinator/Assistant
County Coordinator/Town Coordinator/Special Project File Manager be
allowed to vote."
Jim accepts Betsy's amendment and notes that he would like to address the
April 1st cutoff separately.
Tim gives Betsy's amended motion [with Jim's second] number 00-19 and
opens the floor for discussion.
Holly asks for clarification that "Special Project File Manager" refers to
state level project coordinators.
Joe Zsedeny proposes that Tim Stowell "poll the Board asking that the
discussion period be suspended for this motion so we can get on with a
vote." Joy Fisher concurs and points out that voting starts in two days.
===
Election News: The EC has announced that voter ID numbers will be mailed
starting today. The announcement reads:
"Today members will begin receiving their Voter ID's via email from the EC
members. It is very important to use the ID and address to which the ID
was sent in order for your vote to be properly tabulated. This year
ballots are online forms which are set to require an email address and a
voter ID entry before submission. When you vote you will get a
confirmation and your completed ballot will be emailed to EC team members
for tabulation. Voters may change their votes, only the latest dts
(date/time/stamp) will be used in the final result tabulation. The URL for
the Ballots will be announced when the polls open.
It appears from this message that EC members will be hand counting the
ballots. It also appears that the server these ballots will reside on
will remain a big secret until its actually time to vote. [The EC Chair
has not responded to numerous questions regarding the identity of the
server except to say it is "non-genealogical".] Why all the secrecy?
It also appears that the troops are beginning to rebel. At least two SCs
have publicly announced that they will not be removing Special Project
coordinators from their voting rolls and challenge the EC to prevent these
project members from voting. And at least one member of the Election
Committee has resigned in protest, saying " When I volunteered, I had
hoped to assist, in any way possible, with the election process. However,
in light of the creation of arbitrary (and in my opinion, improper) cut
off dates for voting eligibility for new CC's, contriversy as to the right
for special project members and assistant CC's to vote, etc. I do not
feel that I can be associated with the EC in any way."
Here's some more comments from project members:
"I will not go so far as to say malfeasance in office of Roger Swafford,
but I will say that I think the EC has greatly overstepped its bounds in
the decisions it has made as to voter eligibility, making drastic changes
from all prior elections and that these decisions should be immediately
rescinded. That IF any drastic changes are to be made to eligibility
rules, they should be made separate and apart from an election period with
input from all levels and positions within the project and well in advance
of an election, not sprung on the project within days of the election
itself."
---Holly Timm, State-Coord-L
"Ain't a whole bunch of us lucky that whoever interpreted the Local
Coordinator as being singular did not also interpret the word 'Local' as
meaning that one had to actually be local in order to maintain the right
to vote?"
---"Jim", CC-L
"I as SC of MSGW will defend to the end ANY of my CC's, & Special Project
Coordinators right to vote. EVERYONE in MSGW was in before the Cutoff
date of April 1, 2000 and therefore by Board motion eligible to vote. I
will check with all my people and make sure they receive voting
instructions and/or a ballot. And I WILL contact my EC contact if they
don't."
---Linda Mason, State-Coord-L
"What in the world is going on here?! Has the EC completely lost their
mind!?! We should be trying to *keep* our CC's and Co-CC's. What I
wouldn't *give* to HAVE two Co-CC's to back me up. Instead of changing the
*rules* by excluding certain people, they should be trying to get everyone
who might not vote *to* vote."
---Valerie Crook, State-Coord-L
"Have no fear Linda, probably by tomorrow the EC will throw up a list of
those USGW members it considers "pure" enough to vote. Then everyone can
just go see if the their name is listed among those 40 or 50 folks. And
all this in the name of preventing vote padding.....? I keep thinking of
that old expression about "the pot calling the kettle black", wonder why?"
---Ginger Hayes, State-Coord-L
"I too am dissappointed--dissappointed at the fact that the volunteerism
that got this ball in motion is beginning to run into factions that have
an agenda--or for that matter--a total lack of agenda. Seems to me that
anarchy is coming back into fashion as a means of creating the familiar
"tyranny by the minority" in raising non-issues. This is diverting
necessary attention from the charter goal we all signed on for. All this
smoke is an attempt to turn our heads away from the purpose of the USGW,
WWGW--free information for all....I guess what I am concerned about is
witnessing individuals trying to politicize what we are doing. I've heard
all the arguments, I've seen all the personalties....In my stint as Acting
NC SC, I witnessed polarization within the state. During the week I was
ASC, the majority of my time was directly related to fighting fires. Is
that what this has gotten down to?"
---Derek Hartshorn, State-Coord-L
"I have submitted the list of voters for MOGenWeb. It includes every
variety of CC, TCs for the two city-counties in Missouri, and the
coordinators of our state Special Projects. I shall not change that list,
because I believe that every person who is willing to work toward our
supposed goal of helping folks find their ancestors deserves a vote....Mr.
Swafford, my suggestion to you is that you either: 1. Decide that your
arbitrary changes to voter qualifications was an error, admit the error
and correct it before the election period starts. 2. Make a "public"
statement on this list regarding your reasons for making the changes, and
convince the apparent majority that the changes are needed. 3. As we used
to say in the Navy, "Stand by for heavy weather"."
---Larry Flesher, CC-L
"Roger, are you saying our votes will be received and counted by HAND
where each member of the EC can see who voted and the candidates they
voted for?? What ever happened to the confidentiality of the voting
"booth"?? Even in national elections we have confidentiality... As a
former elections committee member, I'm frankly appauled at this. Last
year when I served on elections (and this can be verified by former EC
members) we did not see the individual votes of voters. They were
tabulated using voter software, and we only saw a random sampling when the
election results came under public scrutiny. I formally would like to
register a protest to the above, as it is yet another irregularity in the
actions of this year's EC."
---Debbie Axtman, CC-L
"There is not even any plausible reason why eliminating whole classes of
volunteers who were always considered voting members in the past could be
considered mere mechanics of overseeing an election."
---Teri Pettit, CC-L
On The Bandwagon Corner: Long time project member Bob Maley has recently
acquired the http://usgenweb.ws domain and is now offering cheap webspace
to USGW CCs looking for a place to house their pages. Check it out at
http://usgenweb.ws or send email to Bob at bob@Maley.net.
Blood From a Stone Corner: According to "Marta" at Ancestry.com's
helpdesk, "As part of the MyFamily.com network of sites, the RootsWeb.com
site will continue to function as before. There will be no changes as to
where you send your RootsWeb payment." Sure enough, the "how to become a
sponsor" and full fee schedule are still posted on Root$web's home page,
and their credit card link still brings up a form. The more things
change, the more they stay the same.
===
"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in
doing it."
---G.K. Chesterton
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 Jun 30 14:40:43 2000
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 14:40:42 -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.SV4.3.96.1000630085953.18042A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: RO
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More of the same...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Thursday 29 June 2000--Friday 30 June 2000:
Teri Pettit crossposts her response to a thread between "Kelly" and
"Debbie" regarding the online poll that was conducted regarding the
removal of the EC Chair, Roger Swafford. Teri notes that there is an
issue of the wording of the poll and points out "When people vote "no" to
the original question, there is no way to tell whether they are voting no
because they agree with the decisions of the Election Committee, or they
are voting no because they expect that no matter who the chair is, the
Election Committee is going to be voting the same way, so it's pointless
to replace the chair." [Some posts from Debbie and Kelly responding to
Teri's posts are also forwarded, apparently by Tim Stowell.]
Teri forwards a post from Elizabeth Harris, SC of NCGenWeb, who states "If
the Board revisits the authority of the election committee and the
question of voter eligibility, I would like to go on record as supporting
what Teri has recently said on USGW-CC-L. Specifically, I think the EC
has overstepped its authority, that there should be no more than a 30-day
cut-off date to allow for processing the voter lists, and that state level
special project volunteers etc. should be eligible to vote as they have
been in the past."
Tim Stowell says "Whereas Joe's message this morning agreed to by Joy is
in effect a 'call the question' type message - please cast your vote on
Motion 00-19 by sending along your equivalent of yes, no or abstain."
[Hmmm...aren't they supposed to vote on the call first?] Thus far, 8 Board
members have voted "yes" and one [an EC member] has abstained.
Pam Reid forwards a message from a CC who says "After the announcement by
the Elections Committee Chair that the ballots would be counted manually,
I contacted VoteBot (www.vot.bot.com), a highly-reputable organization
with no ties to the Internet genealogical community. It took some
sweet-talking, but they finally agreed to set up a custom electronic
voting booth for up to 3,000 voters - for FREE - solely because we are a
nonprofit. I have been working with the manager of the site all day
setting this up, and ask that the Election Committee, Board and Membership
give this option your most serious consideration. Their procedures are
totally confidential, using password-protected email and the manager is
ready to go when we are: All that needs to be done is set up the ballots
for the regions and special projects and enter the emails for voting
privileges. This would be a truly neutral "hands-off" process with no
possible question of vote-tampering, and I urge all concerned to please
accept this solution in the spirit in which it is offered." Pam asks her
colleagues what they think of this option. She notes "It is kind of late
in the game to be changing anything the EC has set up, but it does sound
like a great system of running voting process."
Holly Timm notes that she would like an explanation of the voting process
and an indication of whether or not voting will be anonymous before she
comments. [And just where are those two Board members who sit on the
Election Committee who could presumably answer those questions. They've
been mighty quiet...]
===
Election News: EC Chair Roger Swafford has released the following
announcement:
"Voter ID's are being sent via email from the EC members. The ID is
required on the ballot form along with the email address to which it was
sent in order for votes to be tabulated correctly. For members who have
counties in more than one region the ID is good for all those races in
which the member is qualified to vote. The server which is hosting the
ballots does not have a lot of bandwidth so please be patient. The URL
will be announced when the polls open."
A few members have reported receiving their ballots already. [I got
mine!]
Amendment update: KSGenWEb has notified the Board that it will be
co-sponsoring the States' Rights Amendment.
Vote of Confidence Corner: The informal poll has closed and the results
are as follows:
Poll question: "Should Roger Swafford be disqualified as Elections
Chairperson due to malfeasance?"
Results: 40 votes: 35 votes (87.5%) aye // 5 votes (12.5%) nay
[The poll results were certified by Debbie Axtman, George Waller, and two
unnamed people.]
A new poll has been opened at http://www.egroups.com/usgwcc:
Question: Do you believe the EC has made inappropriate drastic changes to
voter qualifications that should be withdrawn?"
This poll will close on Saturday, July 1, 2000 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern
Standard Time.
Disappearing URLs Corner: An interesting development regarding USGW URLs
has played itself out over the last couple of days. Yesterday TNGW SC
Fred Smoot asked about the following URL:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~tngenweb/xyz.htm. If you visited that URL
yesterday, you would have gone to a page called "The Tennessee Kin Club",
which had no information about who the Tennsee Kin Club is, no webmaster,
no webhost, etc. It had little other than a page of county links. As it
turns out, someone asked for and acquired that URL from RW last October.
The TN Kin Club page was put up by a usually disgruntled TnGW CC named
Chip Brown. It has since been taken down but not before an interesting
anomaly was duly noted. Most urls of the construction
http://www.rootsweb.com/~xxgenweb go to USGW state pages that are housed
on RW. For those states that are not housed on RW, such as CA and KS,
those URLs forward to the appropriate XXGW state page. There have been
only a few known instances where this wan't the case: 1) the ohgenweb url
was given to Maggie Stewart Zimmerman and now goes to a clickable map of
OHGW counties; and 2) the cogenweb url was given to some COGW CCs who were
unhappy about the move off of RW and put up their own page of COGW county
links [COGW is now back on RW]. As of this morning, the tngenweb url
forwards to an index page, and the url above returns a "file not found".
Here's an interesting thing though. There are 12 states not on RW, by my
count. Here's a list of where those ~xxgenweb urls took you yesterday and
and where they take you today [yesterday / today]:
1. AK: empty / same
2. CA: redirect / same
3. CT: redirect / same
4. KS: redirect / now empty
5. MT: redirect / same
6. NH: redirect / same
7. NJ: redirect / same
8. OH: OH map / same
9. PA: redirect / same
10. SC: redirect / same
11. TN: file not found / empty
12. VT: index of Rutland Co, VTGW / same
So, enquiring minds want to know. Why was the redirect removed from the
~ksgenweb URL? Are they about to give it to someone else? And what kind
of name for a home page is xyz.htm anyways?
Follow The Bouncing Ball Corner: Many of you may know that Yahoo
announced a day or two ago that it had acquired eGroups, a free email
service used by many project members. Here's an interesting thing about
that. CMGI, an investment group, had a significant investment in OneList,
which was subsumed in to eGroups some time ago; thus CMGI now has an
interest in eGroups. CMGI also had a significant interest in Geocities,
which was acquired by Yahoo a while back. Under the terms of the
acquistion "Yahoo! will issue approximately 3,428,136 shares of Yahoo!
common stock in exchange for all outstanding eGroups shares, options, and
warrants." [imagine that! Publishing the terms of an acquistions
agreement.] So, CMGI now has an even greater investment in Yahoo!. CMGI
also has a significant stake [around 30%] in MyFamily.com, which recently
bought Root$web. As it turns out, the same person at CMGI, Peter Mills,
who managed the eGroups/Yahoo! deal also led the CMGI investment in
Ancestry.com/MyFamily.com. Think we might see some sort of
Yahoo!/MyFamily merge here? Or perhaps with AOL, which also owns a
significant part of MyFamily.com?
Yahoo!/EGroups press release: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/000628/ca_yahoo.html
CMGI: http://www.cmgi.com
About Peter Mills: http://www.ventures.com/team/bios/mills.html
CMGI's @Ventures: http://www.ventures.com
Who Wants My Money? Corner: Despite messages sent from Ancestry.com
yesterday indicating that Root$web customers would need to coninue sending
their payments to Root$web, the Root$web Help Desk is still tellign people
they aren't processing contributions anymore. According to Joan at the RW
Help desk: "we are no longer accepting donations. Additional details will
be available soon, but I can definitively say at this time that we will
not be accepting further donations." [and yet, that subscription page is
still up at http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html]
Last But Not Least Corner: Our Lamentable Excuse for a National
Coordinator got himself kicked off the -DISCUSS list for misbehaving
[repeatedly] and is now crying to anyone who will listen that he has been
banned. [oh, the humanity.]
===
Today's quote is sent by a reader:
"All bad precedents began as justifiable means."
---Julius Caesar
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 Jun 30 16:09:24 2000
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 16:09:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: DBS--News Flash!
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000630160602.29413A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: RO
X-Status:
The latest from Charles Merrin, Vice President of marketing for Root$web
and soon to be its General Manager:
"Bob Tillman, unfortunately, will not be staying with RootsWeb as he is
going to pursue other opportunities. Brian Leverich and Karen Isaacson
will remain involved as consultants. The rest of the RootsWeb team will
remain largely unchanged."
The DBS wishes Bob well, and hopes he made out a like a bandit on his more
than four million shares of Root$web stock. Not bad for a year and a
half's work.
-Teresa
merope@radix.net