From merope@Radix.Net Mon Jun 7 06:23:42 1999
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1999 06:23:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: Daily Board Show--apology
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As I am reliably informed that Rootsweb's mail archives search engine is
down and was down most of yesterday, there was not a DBS yesterday and
may not be one today.
We'll all be caught up when the archives are available again.
-Teresa
merope@radix.net
From merope@Radix.Net Tue Jun 8 14:13:48 1999
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999 14:13:46 -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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Banned in Bostson...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Friday 4 June 1999:
A long cascade of posts concerning the nomination of Tim Stowell for NC is
posted. It appears that a Board member has nominated Tim for NC and
Ginger [Hayes, then Nomination Committee Chair] told him she was waiting
to hear from the Board whether he was eligible or not, as the bylaws say
his term is for one year. [If he is not eligible to run based on this,
then no sitting Board member would be allowed to run for their seat
either once their term is up] The nominator points out in response, "When
I receive messages like this from the then Nominating Committee Chair
while noting no such requests to the Board, I become quite concerned."
The Board Secretary responds that he may be "as concerned as you like",
but he's seen nothing on the Board either about the NC's qualifications,
and "this must have all been done privately." To which the nominator
replies, "I shall remain concerned until I get to the bottom of this and
get some straight answers. Would you not agree that Board business is the
business of all and not for a few to conduct privately...?" To which BS
Bill finally replies that he doesn't know where Joe is going with his
statement, "and it leaves me in confusion".
One further note is posted by the nominator, in which he says the "found
note in Ginger's message" solves the problem and alleviates his concern,
and should resolve the BS's confusion. [I have no idea what he means by
'found note']
[Since this might be confusing, a brief recap: Someone nominated Tim as
NC. The then chair of the Nominations Committee indicated she was waiting
to hear from the Board whether he could run again. But no such request
has come up before the Board for discussion, at least not publicly. And at
least one Board member wants to know why.]
[To confuse you further: BS Bill and Ginger Cisewski, Chair of the
Elections Committee, support Census II. Tim and his erstwhile nominator
most definitely do not. BS Bill is himself running for NC. The bylaws
are silent about term limits. Even though individual term lengths are
stated, there is nothing that says you can't run again.]
Saturday 5 June 1999:
BS Bill forwards a message by Pam Reid concerning the nomination of Teresa
Lindquist for At-Large representative [the message has already made the
rounds, and won't be repeated here]; Bill indicates that it expresses his
sentiments exactly.
A Board member votes "aye" to Motion 99-15E [more about this later].
A Board member notifies the group that Kay Mason, Census rep, will not be
available for the next 10 days or so, due to personal obligations.
Sunday 6 June 1999:
The Nc declares Motion 99-15E passes with 10 ayes and 5 not yet voting.
The full text of the motion has already been forwarded and will not be
repeated here. This is the nomination decreeing that Jim Powell and
Bonnie McVicar-Briggs will be allowed to serve out the rest of the terms
of the people they were elected to replace. [The "E", btw, denotes that
the motion was done in 'executive session.' Guess they didn't want us to
know about it, huh? Especially interesting, since this sets a precedent
and is important enough to warrant a 48 hour comment period by the
membership at large.]
The NC forwards to the list some questions from this [potential] candidate
concerning the ramifications of RW's ban on her ability to campaign
effectively. Summarized, these questions are: 1) Will my candidate web
page be linked to from the Nominations web page?; 2) Will information
regarding my candidacy be allowed onto project lists,if forwarded there
by persons other than myself, without repercussion to those persons?; 3)
what does the Board plan to do? How will they address the possibility
that a duly elected representative of the USGW Project may not be allowed
to fulfill the duties of the office to which she was elected?; 4) Is
Rootsweb going to allow me to vote in this election?
A Board member responds with her opinion on the answers to these
questions, as follows: 1) Yes; 2) "the Board would in no way be party to
attempts to impede or obstruct dissemination of information about any
candidate so long as the messages are neither offensive nor obscene"; 3)
they should wait until after the election to decide what to do if Mr.
Leverich won't allow me to participate; 4) "Something can certainly be
worked out to allow Teresa to vote."
[As an update, I have also asked the Board if my name will appear on the
ballots if RW is once again handling our election; this new question and
the others have been forwarded to Mr. Robert Tillman, new CEO and
President of Rootsweb, who is probably the correct person to give RW's
official response. As of yet, no official response from the Board, RW, or
Mr. Tillman.]
[I would also like to say that I received a very nice personal note from
the same Board member. I'm sure she and the Board will understand that
given the circumstances I will need something more official than their
best assurances. Brian has, after all, threatened me with both civil and
criminal action if I violate his ban, and he has also threatened sanctions
against anyone who helps me use the mail lists.]
BS Bill posts the "final" vote count for Motion 99-15E. At the time he
posted it was 11 "ayes" and 4 not voting.
Two more Board members vote "aye" on Motion 99-15E. One of them
notes that this motions "sets a precedent for the future". [these both
appear to have been posted after the "final" tally mentioned previously,
so the new tally is 13 "ayes".]
Election Update: Someone has put a VERY nicely organized and designed web
page for the Elections. Go visit it at:
http://www.usgenweb.com/elections/election-central.html.
Candidates include:
NC: Fred Smoot, Bill Oliver
At-Large:
Archives: Joe Zsedney
NE/NC SC rep: David Young, Ginger Hayes
NE/NC CC rep: Nate Zipfel, Ron Eason
NW/P SC rep: Lynn Waterman
NW/P CC rep:
SE/MA SC rep: Valerie Crook
SW/SC CC rep (2 open): David Morgan, Gloria Mayfield
Since two Board members managed to win re-election to their seats without
running <g>, those positions (NE/NC CC rep, SE/MA CC rep) have been taken
off the ballot.
Interesting Factoid of the Day: Did you know that if you substitute
"usgenweb" for "rootsweb" in the urls that go to the state and county USGW
pages on Rootsweb, the urls work just as well? Meaning that we can all
now clear up some of the confusion about USGW projects belonging to RW by
using urls that have "usgenweb" in them.
Batten Down the Hatches Corner: The url for signing up for the so-called
Surname Resources has been published. The RW staff welcomes you to "help
them administer" [note, not "own", "manage", "adopt", or any term
that might imply you actually have any control over them] these amazing
new clusters of search engines. Go here if you are interested:
http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/sponsors.html
and be sure and follow the directions!
Blast from the Past Corner: A reader sent this in. Its from a December
1997 list post in which fundraising is discussed extensively. The reader
felt it was appropriate in light of the already announced Surname
Resources [and the possible soon-to-be announced US county equivalents?]
"Genealogists are a remarkably trusting and supportive community, and we
want to be worthy of that trust by being perfectly clear about what we're
doing."
---Brian Leverich, 27 Dec 1997
It has how been 5 days since I requested information on these alleged
county boards seen on GenConnect from the GC/RW staff. No answer yet.
"Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off."
--Samuel Johnson
This has been your Daily Board Show, all caught up!
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
-------------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Wed Jun 9 06:42:01 1999
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1999 06:41:59 -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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Only her hairdresser knows for sure...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Monday 7 June 1999:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date.
Election update: New candidates include Tim Stowell for NC, and Terri
Pettit for SE/MA CC rep.
[I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the new webmaster for adding
clear and easy to find links to the Elections, Nominations, and Bylaws
pages right on the main USGW home page, and for keeping the vote pages up
to date. One small caveat though: the "upcoming votes" page still
indicates that the Board is about to vote on the webmaster position <g>]
Today's quote is from a reader:
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common.
They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to
fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you are one of the facts
that needs altering."
---The Doctor, Doctor Who, The Face of Evil
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 Thu Jun 10 08:33:27 1999
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 08:33:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: Daily Board Show
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.990610062914.23143B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
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I told you so...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Tuesday 8 June 1999:
BS Bill forwards the Nominations Committee's report to the Board list.
[its been circulated to other project lists, and won't be repeated here.]
What Took You So Long Corner: As expected, Rootsweb has announced its
"County Resource" pages, created for every county in the US. These
"clusters" include mailing lists and GenConnect Boards created expressly
for this purpose, as well as links to various search engines for the
different resources housed on RW. If they are true to their policy for
the Surname Resource boards, you WILL NOT be allowed to link directly to
your own USGenWeb county page if if is not on Rootsweb.
You Read It Here First Corner: We knew this was coming. Mr. Leverich
threatened the Project with this months ago, and just recently a project
member got a brief glimpse of these "resources" before they were locked
away from public view. However, I don't believe its so bad. USGW will,
IMO, be less negatively affected by these things than the surname
listowners are by the "Surname Resources". After all, when surname
researchers come to RW they are looking specifically for surnames and will
go right to the "Surname Resource" link and bypass whatever other
resources there are. They may never know that other resources exist, off
of Rootsweb, because RW apparently won't allow them to be mentioned on the
page, EVEN IF those resources are part of a suite of resources managed by
family associations, big RW subscribers,etc. USGW visitors, on the other
hand, mainly get to our pages from the map. The map links to states which
then link to counties, bypassing the clusters. If a visitor goes to RW
first and uses the cluster pages, he or she will either find lots of info
[in those clusters built around existing USGW resources already housed on
RW] or very little, in which case they will most likely go looking for the
USGW page. I'm guessing RW would very much like for these cluster pages
to replace the USGW county pages, but that doesn't have to happen.
Don't forget, this is a business decision for RW. They are positioning
themselves to be a major player, attract the big advertising dollars [see
below], and compete with Ancestry, Broderbund/Learning Company/Mattel, and
FamilySearch [leave aside for a moment how ludicrous competing with those
companies and the LDS Library is]. In their behavior and words since the
Surname Resources were announced, RW has made it abundantly clear that
this decision has been made, and it won't be changed. There is nothing
you can do about it, except ignore them.
Now You See It, Now You Don't Corner: The
http://www.usgenweb.org/~xxgenweb URLs, described here a day or two ago,
no longer work.
Your Information Wanted Corner: Rootsweb is running a survey and
apparently has money to burn to do it:
http://www.audienceprofiler.com/survey/submit.html
A quick trip over to AudienceProfiler reveals that "Audience Profiler can
help your web site sell advertising space by creating accurate demographic
and psychographic profiles of your site visitors." [psychographic?] It
further reveals that Rootsweb probably shelled out out $4000 for this
survey [maybe more]. The survey asks questions concerning internet usage,
whether or not you buy stuff online, information on personal purchases,
time spent on genealogy, employment, age, education, income, and marital
status. Its anonymous, until you get to the bottom, where it asks for
your email address [voluntary]. Yes, RW wants to know all about YOU!
"Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount.
And the tigers are getting hungry."
---Winston Churchill, While England Slept, 1936
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 Jun 11 07:30:29 1999
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 07:30:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: [USGENWEB-ALL-L] For Profit Organization (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.990611072932.6961B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
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Forwarded with Sandy's permission. I know many of you have probably
already seen this, but some of you may not have.
-Teresa
merope@radix.net
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 19:05:43 -0500
From: Sandy <teylu@home.com>
To: USGENWEB-ALL-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: [USGENWEB-ALL-L] For Profit Organization
I am one of many who have been seeking information concerning Brian's
stated intent of organizing RootsWeb as a nonprofit and then seeking
"charitable" (i.e, 501(c)(3) ) tax-exempt status.
I think many people are under the mistaken impression a business is "for
profit" by some sort of "default," ... in this case the impression seems
to be RootsWeb is "for profit" only because it has not yet filed its
application for "charitable" status from the IRS.
That is not the case with any business.
You organize as nonprofit or as for profit.
Specifically, in California you have two choices: for profit or non profit.
To organize the business *as* a nonprofit, you are required to state the
tax exempt status you *intend* to seek.
This is why I find it misleading to respond to "Are you nonprofit?" by
offering details of your preparation of an application for 501(c)(3) tax
exempt status.
The response does not answer the question, and obviously can cause
people to believe the only reason you are not nonprofit is because the
application must be approved.
I believe it is clear many people believe this is the case for RootsWeb.
Brian has stated he plans to form two corporations, one for profit and
the other non profit.
The specific identifying names of those corporations have not been stated.
However, according to the California Secretary of State's Documents
Filing Office, Rootsweb.com, Inc., qualified for incorporation within
the past 10 days (of June 1999) under its earlier Delaware qualifying.
In other words, Rootsweb.com, Inc. originally incorporated in Delaware.
I do not know the date of the Delaware incorporation, the CA Secty of
State doesn't record that information.
The various papers including officers, etc., have not been received by
the CA Secty of State's Document Filing Office because the qualifying is
so recent (within the past 10 days).
However, the agent for RootsWeb.com, Inc. is Robert Tillman.
The type corporation is clear regarding for-profit or nonprofit.
"Rootsweb.com, Inc. is definitely NOT a nonprofit," according to the
Documents Filing Office of the California Secretary of State.
No record was apparent of another corporation by similar name of
Rootsweb/RootsWeb having filed incorporation in California.
If another corporation exists concerning RootsWeb, particularly if it is
organized as a nonprofit, I respectfully request Brian Leverich inform
us of this.
A requirement for obtaining IRS 501(c)(3) tax exempt status *is* being
organized as nonprofit. The structure of Rootsweb.com, Inc., as
currently qualified by the CA Secty of State, would preclude obtaining
this status.
Sandy
--
==== USGENWEB-ALL Mailing List ====
The USGenWeb Project is not a commercial project.
From merope@Radix.Net Fri Jun 11 11:56:16 1999
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 11:56:14 -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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Seen it all...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. read at your own risk!
Wednesday 9 June 1999:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date [although we hear they're
wrangling over the "rules" for the election.]
Election Update: so far, these are the nominees:
NC: Bill Oliver, Fred Smoot, Tim Stowell
At-large:
Archives: Joe Zsedeny
NE/NC SC rep: David young, Ginger Hayes
NE/NC CC rep: Nate Zipfel, Ron Eason
NW/P SC rep: Lynn Waterman
NW/P CC rep:
SE/MA SC rep:
SE/MA CC rep: Terri Pettit
SW/SC CC rep: Larry Flesher, David Morgan, Gloria Mayfield
There's only 5 more days to submit nominations, so please get them in as
soon as possible!
The Big Brass Ring Corner: As reported yesterday on various lists, by an
intrepid newcomer to the -ALL list, Rootsweb has just incorporated as a
FOR-PROFIT corporation in California, under the name "Rootsweb.com, Inc.
Some Rootsweb staff members have indicated that both NON-profit and
PROFIT corporations would be formed. Its interesting that the Rootsweb
name was applied to the for-profit one. As someone noted elsewhere: "
"To the best of my knowledge, "RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative"
remains active, and operates as a for-profit, sole proprietorship, owned
by Brian and Karen. The fictitious business name of RootsWeb Genealogical
Business Cooperative is active and registered with the county clerk of
Kern County, CA...I have been unable to identify any record in California
of "Rootsweb Genealogical Data Cooperative," or any business similarly
named "Rootsweb" as being organized or operating as a NONprofit."
Rootsweb.com, Inc., incidentally was originally registed in Delaware, for
some reason. Maybe its easier to file there, maybe there are tax
purposes, maybe they just didn't think anyone would look there. If there
are any business people out there who can shed light on this, I'm curious.
Show Me The Money Corner: This week's RWR is worth a view for those of
you that aren't among the 300,000 or so people that get it spammed to them
each week. Rootsweb.com, Inc.'s new President and CEO, Robert Tillman,
formally introduces himself and presents a long summary of Rootsweb's
cumulative finances over the last three years. It is of course larded
with numerous references to the many many sacrifices Rootsweb's management
has made over the last few years. It makes no reference at all to the
thousands of list owners, board managers, transcribers, editors, web
designers, sponsors/donors/customers, county and state coordintors,
archives and census file managers, resource-donating companies, and
volunteers, who spend their own money and possibly millions of hours of
their time to make RootsWeb what it is.
[My guess would be that this extensive set of financial information was
compiled as part of their corporate filing. The sob stories were probably
added for our benefit.]
We Will Bury You Corner: Many folks have wondered over the last few
months, why the growing emphasis on competition? Why the many references
to needing to compete with ALHN, Ancestry, or Broderbund, or even
[heavens!] the new FamilySearch website put up by the LDS? It has begun
to appear that our quiet goal of providing a county page for every US
county, simple to find, simple to use, created and maintained by people
who know the county, linked to resources wherever they may be found, is
not good enough anymore. Its not _competitive_ enough. Instead we must
be the "premier geographically-oriented genealogy project" on the web, and
we must "continuously improve the range and quality of services it
provides to the genealogical community." [both quotes from Brian Leverich,
9 Jun 1999]
Why must this be so? Well, apparently it must be so because
Rootsweb.com, Inc. needs to make money. Their generous "offer you can't
refuse" of surname and county "resources" will increase page hits to RW
and siphon off data and subscribers from already establihsed sites and
lists, which will make RW more attractive to advertisers. Banners will
exist on all the new GC/RW pages created for the clusters. The Surname
Resource boards were created, so I have heard, to compete with GenForum [a
division of Borderbund/Learning Company/Mattel, whose ads are currently
prominently featured on RW pages. We can compete with them AND take
their moeny!]. We learn from Brian "Emporer of All Genealogy" Leverich
that they will be looking into an SSDI search facility, when one already
exists for free on Ancestry and elsewhere. They are apparently spending
thousands of dollars on a survey to find out what your hobbies are and how
much money you have to spend on them. How soon before they start setting
cookies before they'll let you use the pages [they already do on the
threaded archives]?
Many many surname list holders and county coordinators are feeling
considerable pressure to "help administer" the new boards and lists,
simply in order to keep them out of the hands of others and to insure that
proper links exist to the original and established resources. RW is
actually encouraging listmanagers and CCs to adopt the extraneous lists
created for the "resources" and use them solely for directing subscribers
to the "real" lists, thus asking them to take on the extra burden created
by RW. No lists or boards created for this exercise will be deleted or
merged with other lists. Large numbers of errors are being reported on
both the Surname and County Resources pages, particularly missing links to
already existing resources, and links that go to the wrong place. The RW
home page has been extensively reworked, so that, on a smallish monitor at
least, the links to the County Resources and Surname Resources are the
only links you see.
And one other thing. Although RW staff keeps saying that CCs will get
first crack at the new lists and boards, they are actually 3rd and 2nd on
the priority lists posted yesterday.
Funny Thing of the Day: did anyone notice that the SysAdmin messags posted
on the new GC/RW board created for the County Resources all bear a date of
June 16, 1999? You don't suppose they rushed these boards to market a
little earlier than they expected, do you?
"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."
---Ralph Waldo Emerson
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 Jun 12 10:18:07 1999
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 10:18:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: Daily Board Show
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.990612090439.9901D-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Bringing out your finer nature...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains enough editorial content to stun a moose. Read at your
own risk!
Thursday 10 June 1999:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date. [hmmm...its too quiet...]
The Continuing Crisis Corner: Events of note in the current flap over
"County Resources" and "Surname Resources":
Brian "No One Loves Me Enough" Leverich posts to the USGenWeb-All list his
opinion that "USGW has always treated RootsWeb less well than any other
server." Apparently, his feelings are hurt. Hmm...lets see...I don't see
anybody from Geocities, USIT, Skyways, or wherever sitting on our Advisory
Board. Yet Rootsweb.com, Inc. has two staff members on the Board. I
don't see the representatives of Geocities, USIT, Skyways, or any other
server posting at will to whatever USGW list they choose, yet Brian and
others on his staff routinely post to our lists. I don't see
representatives of other servers using their power [derived from hosting
our main pages and a huge number of state and county pages] to influence
the USGW project through the use of threats and intimidation, yet in just
the last few months RW staff members have made several statements to the
effect of [paraphrased]: "if USGW doesn't control its membership, RW
will", "USGW must be the premier genealogy service online and this is
how you should accomplish that", and "if USGW doesn't use these resources,
we'll give them to competing projects". I haven't seen anyone at any other
server slam a project member for choosing someone else to host their
pages, but its rare that RW misses an opportunity to take a swipe at other
servers, and sometimes at the CCs that use them. RW runs our elections,
counts our votes, decides who CAN vote [ultimately] and attempts to
exercise influence over who can run for Board positions. USGW tolerates
all of this from RW and probably always will, yet we now stand accused of
not being nice enough to RW?
[Apropos of nothing: Someone pointed out to me today that Brian is
a very shrewd man indeed. He has his dependable supporters - and he knows
how to weaken his adversaries: he hires some and bans others.]
In another area entirely, if you visit the RW Help Desk at:
http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/help.cgi
you will find that the board has been taken down. Apparently the board
has become a target of abuse by someone pretending to be Mr. Leverich.
They've been responding to the posters with abusive replies [sheesh,
how could they tell? <g>]. Anyways, to get help with Rootsweb
problems, you now need to send private email to one of his staffers.
Here's an interesing conversation that's been taking place on various
lists: How to Beat The Cluster Boards. Suggestions so far include:
1) Sign up for the mailing list, make it announce-only and whenever anyone
subs direct them to your established list elsewhere.
2) Adopt the new GC/RW boards, make them read-only and post a message to
each directing visitors to your county webpage elsewhere.
3) Sign up for a RW county page, and use it to redirect to your real USGW
county page [sorry, folks, this one has been kiboshed by Nancy "Gone Over"
Trice; if you try it, they'll close the account.]
If anyone has any more ideas, send 'em in and we'll print them.
At least one SC is directing her CCs to either adopt the clusters or tell
her they are not, so she can drum up volunteers to take them over, and
thus establish some kind of USGW control over the resources for her state
[amazing, isn't it, how some people play right into it?]
Unquestioned Answers Corner: Some questions have been floating around and
I haven't seen answers for them:
1) Will CCs that adopt the new mailing lists be able to set them to not
archive posts? [archiving in both the standard and threaded archives is
now the default, btw]
2) Will USGW CC's be allowed to prominently place links to their non-RW
county pages on the _front_ page of their Cluster Page? And if not, will
the link that says "get your own RW webpage here" remain if there's a
county page already operating elsewhere? [in regards to the surname
clusters, it appears that you will be able to add your off-RW webpage
using Rootslink, which managed to develop problems right around
the time the clusters were announced and was taken down. However, cluster
reps will not be able to link to their own home pages from the _front_
page of their cluster, but only through RootsLink. We don't know if the
same holds true for county cluster boards. Be happy, though. The
Surname Resource pages say "There currently is no XXXXX Surname Web Page
for RootsWeb Researchers at this time", which manages to imply none at
all anywhere. At least the one for the county pages specifies there is
no page _on_ RW.]
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power."
--Abraham Lincoln
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 Jun 13 12:07:40 1999
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 12:07:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: Daily Board Show
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.990613102813.15381D-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: O
X-Status:
Desperately waiting for rain...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Friday 11 June 1999
There is no traffic on Board-L on this date [still, although they've been
very busy.]
Unfinished Business Corner: We note that the Board has not yet taken
action on Trey Holt's resignation.
Election update; Election Committee Chair Ginger Cisewski has resigned
from the committee, stating, "Lack of leadership by this Board has so
crippled the membership's faith in the Board's ability to lead that a call
for election volunteers yielded a mere handful of members willing to help
with elections." She cites numerous difficulties she's had with various
Board members which hamper the effective functioning of the committee and
says "It has become increasingly obvious that while the Board was more
than willing to appoint me to this chairmanship, they are unwilling to
support the Committee and the Chair in a timely enough manner to allow it
to function effectively and properly." Finally, she states, "I refuse to
submit to further verbal attacks and cannot function effectively under
these conditions, therefore I tender my immediate resignation as Chairman
of the Elections Committee. In other words, fellow Board members, you have
created this situation so now you can figure out how to fix it." [the full
test of her message has been forwarded to numerous project lists, so will
not be repeated here]
This is a sad event for the Project. With only two weeks to go until the
start of the election, our election committee is leaderless and apparently
has very few volunteers. There is no information forthcoming on how the
balloting will be accomplished and by whom [RootsWeb handled our elections
previously]. The Advisory Board appears fragmented and ineffective and
incapable of resolving its differences in order to ensure the smooth
functioning of the election. We have so little time before the election;
let us all do whatever we can to help it work [nominate, run for
office, volunteer, at the very least, vote!]
Funny Paradox of the Day: On some USGenWeb Project lists, people have
been asking questions regarding the relationship of the USGW Archives to
Rootsweb. Linda "Doyenne of the Archives" Lewis has posted the agreement
reached between the Archives [meaning her] and Rootsweb in July 1996.
Item #2 of that agreement states:
"2. RootsWeb will promote the USGenWeb Archives via Rootsweb's Web pages,
the RootsWeb Review, and other media as practicable."
The Rootsweb Review began publication June 17 1998, nearly two years after
this agreement was "signed". What a remarkably prescient bunch of folks!
Which leads to another question: Since this agreement was reached with
the for-profit sole propietorship known as RootsWeb Genealogical Data
Cooperative, where does the agreement stand now that the owners of that
company have incorporated as the for-profit Rootsweb.com, Inc.? Will
Rootsweb.com, Inc. be assuming the agreement with the Archives? Will the
Archives need to renegotiate the agreement with this new entity? Or will
nothing change since the for-profit entity Rootsweb Genealogical Data
Cooperative still exists?
Funny Quote O' the Day: sent in by a reader:
"I welcome folks who disagree with me."
---Brian Leverich, 24 June 1998
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 Jun 13 16:07:18 1999
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 16:07:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: DBS Election Update
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.990613152142.6852A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: RO
X-Status:
This Just In...
Motion 99-16E [the "E" denotes that it is being done in "executive
session" and we'll hear about it after its over] includes the following
rules to be followed for the election. It is claimed that these proposed
rules simply perpetuate the status quo and were followed in previous
elections.
=====
1) the "regions" remain as they are for another year.
2) An eligible voter in good standing is eligible to hold an advisory
board position for the region for which they volunteer.
3) Nominations for regional advisory board seats must come from an
eligible voter FROM THAT REGION.
4) In addition to the positions of National Coordinator and Member at
Large, eligible voters will vote for their choice of nominees for the
vacancies for the region in which they volunteer.
=====
Number 3 in particular is not familiar to me, and is not supportable based
strictly on a reading of the bylaws. However, the bylaws also do not
explicitly say that anyone can nominate anyone else, and this does not
seem a hugely unreasonable rule for the nomination of regional reps. The
only real concern I might have with rule #3 is that if they are going to
have such a rule concerning nominations, it would have been nice to have
told us about it sometime sooner than 2 days before the nominations period
closes. So those of you who've been nominated and really want to run
might want to drop a note to the Nominations Committee nominating
yourself, just to be on the safe side. <g>
In Other News:
I have spoken privately with someone on the Board who has explained in
more detail the reasons behind the abrupt resignation of the Chair of the
Elections Committee, Ginger Cisewski. This person does not wish to be
quoted directly, but has given permission to summarize the reasons Ginger
resigned:
1) She feels the NC has been acting improperly given his status as
a candidate in the upcoming election . He has requested the passwords to
the election lists and has asked to know who has nominated which of the
nominees [traditionally this information is kept strictly confidential],
and generally, she feels he is not conducting himself appropriately for
the duties of his office, specifically by being very oftne unavailable for
Board business. [I invite the NC to address these concerns and will be
happy to publish any statement he might wish to make].
2) A simple ruling was requested on Rule #3 above since several
nominations were received from persons not in the region they were
nominating someone for. Rather than a simple ruling or vote, the Board
was not able to come to consensus on this and at least one Board member
wanted to take it to his constitutents before he concurred. This seemed
excessive to the Elections Committee Chair, as she was merely requesting
to clarify that the rules in force for previous elections were also in
force for the upcoming election.
3) The Election Committee itself has very few volunteers to handle the
enormous amount of work that must be done prior to the election in two
weeks, and is further hindered by some unavoidable absences by volunteers.
Delays by the Board in addressing Committee procedures and rules further
add to the confusion and workload.
As of this writing I am given to understand that the Board has taken no
action with regard to Ginger's resignation or to appointing her successor.
There are two weeks to the election. The clock is ticking, people.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net