RADIO FREE USGENWEB....broadcasting live from pirate satellite! The following information represents summarized information from the minutes of the Advisory Board of the USGenWeb Project, obtained from the publicly available archives at Rootsweb. The original messages are no longer available at that site, and I have been placed under a threat of lawsuit if I post them. Thus they are here summarized for your information; all quotations from the original material are clearly marked and fall under the fair use' provision of U.S. Copyright law. If you want to see the originals, petition the Board for them. Message ID numbers have been provided to make this easier for you. Material in brackets constitutes editorial comments. All the following material represents the personal opinion of this author, based on my understanding of events and on the original material. As always, there are two sides to every coin, and if anyone wishes to clarify or rebut anything below, I will be happy to post it. 11 DECEMBER 1998 Highlights: The Board responds to the posting of the Board-EXEC material; Making fun of members; Replacing a Board member ++++++++++ Holly Timm posts that she has now received a dozen or so messages demanding answers as a result of the posting of the Board-Exec material. Since some of the messages have been forwarded to a state list, she feels that "just ignoring it is not much of an option for me." She also asks: "Can anyone give me a clue what direction we're going with this so I can reply to some of these? (not all are the ugly people)." [Ah, but Holly, the ugly people were your constituents too. And even if these had been received privately, how would that justify ignoring the people you represented? Ed.] She also forwards to the Board excerpts of some of the messages she's received from one of her constituents [who is apparently one of the "ugly people." Ed.]. The first reminds the state list that the Board previously voted to make their meetings public and now has gone private again. He is concerned that the project is in danger due to the Board's actions on Board-EXEC. The second reads in part, "I think the board has probably just been exposed. Does this call for an emergency election so the USGW can vote in an honest set of board members?" (Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 06:23:27 -0500; From: Holly Timm ; Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19981211062327.04106600@mail.bright.net>; Subject: [Board-Exec-L] i've got mail :-(() Bob Bamford notes, "Two messages from on [sic] person... a groundswell, other than the usual, most of what I've seen on the ALL list is: so what,' boring,'" [although Holly clearly indicated that these were only a sample of a dozen or so messages she had received. And apparently not so "boring" that the Board didn't feel a need to threaten to sue the poster. Ed.] He then suggests forwarding a quote taken from the posted Board-Exec material. The post he quotes is his "welcome" message to Board-Exec, which states in part, "This closed list is used for discussions and information transfer. We discuss an issue and once we reach a relative consensus, someone proposes a motion to be placed on the board list. Assuming their is a second we then call for a vote. If their is further disagreement it is discussed HERE.... It is very simple! ANYONE violating the sanctity of this list will be unsubbed by the listowner... ME." [Note that this response essentially stonewalls the members who sent messages to Holly. The Board does not feel obligated to respond to its constituents, to answer their questions, or to acknowledge the issues at hand. Its all a secret and none of our business. Ed.] (Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 07:02:11 -0500; From: Bob Bamford ; Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19981211070211.007b4e60@citrus.infi.net>; Subject: Re: [Board-Exec-L] i've got mail :-(() Kay Mason posts a message that "defaulted" to her and asks Holly, "does anyone take this guy seriously?" She then launches into a discussion of her personal politics (lifetime Democrat), and says she hasn't voted for one in years. Then she tells the Board a story about her Great-Aunt Cora "who always said that the Democratic candidate was always the best, but if you knew that he was a liar and a thief and had no morals, you could always vote for the Prohibitionist candidate because you knew that at least he had high moral principles." Cora, it seems, had lived in a Prohibitionist state where the local politicians finally realized they were losing out on millions of dollars in tax revenue and had the law enforced for one month prior to the election, "and cold sober voters repealed the law." The post she forwards states, "There's no excuse for your treasonous acts, you must all be democrats (ROTFLMAO)" and is from the same poster Holly quotes above. [I'm not sure what point Kay was trying to make with her story, but it seems to say that if you KNOW someone is dishonest, vote for someone else. Good advice. Ed.] (Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 06:33:31 -0800; From: "Kay Mason" ; Message-Id: <199812111436.GAA23895@mail.networkone.net>; Subject: [Board-Exec-L] (Fwd) Treason) Kay forwards a message to the Board that she received from Multimedia Marketing Group, Inc, regarding a new project to put people's life histories on "a site that will be here for the next 1000 years." [Seems a little optimistic. Ed.] The proposal is called Infinity Humanity, it opened December 10th, 1998, and it charges fees ranging from $5 to $20 for individuals to post their life histories. Kay compares it to "the *paid* obit thingy that USIGS was talking about a year ago (wonder what happened to that?) except living people." (Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 06:56:37 -0800; From: "Kay Mason" ; Message-Id: <199812111459.GAA19869@mail.networkone.net>; Subject: [Board-Exec-L] (Fwd) Millennium Spurs People of the World to Tell Their Stori) Kay posts the results of the Northwest/Plains region from the last election (July 1998): Gary Martens 31 Virginia Cisewski 39 Two Year Term Michael Andrews 22 Margot Hill 16 Patrick Hayes 28 Debbie Wafford 35 One Year Term Lucy Dill 24 [Since the topic of the message is "Debbie's temp successor..." I assume she was posting this information to assist the other Board members. To fill other vacancies they had selected the next highest vote getter for that region in the last election. In this case, Gary Martens was eventually appointed the position just in time to adjourn for the holidays. Ed.] (Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 16:11:10 -0800; From: "Kay Mason" ; Message-Id: <199812120218.SAA13023@mail>; Subject: [Board-Exec-L] Debbie's temp successor...) Betsy posts that since the election starts in less than a month, "do you think it would be okay to leave the position vacant??" (Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 21:11:55 -0600; From: Betsy Mills ; Message-Id: <199812120308.TAA23005@bl-3.rootsweb.com>; Subject: Re: [Board-Exec-L] Debbie's temp successor...) Ginger posts that since the Board is planning to be "on vacation" for much of the remaining time before the election, "IMO it seems foolish to me to appoint a temp for a 2 - 3 week period." (Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 22:53:50 EST; From: ; Message-ID: ; Subject: Re: [Board-Exec-L] Debbie's temp successor...) Teresa Davis posts that she agrees with Ginger on this issue. She thinks "It would seem a bit foolish to fill the vacancy with only a few weeks left." She is sure that she and Ginger can handle things for the remaining time before the election. (Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 22:39:24 -0600; From: Teresa Davis ; Message-Id: <199812120439.XAA02576@mail.msy.bellsouth.net>; Subject: Re: [Board-Exec-L] Debbie's temp successor...) Kathy posts "Frankly, Darling I Don't Give a Damn ;o} I am going to use this List, I didn't say a thing on the BEL about Teresa that I would not say to her face given the chance. Now Eric, well I would find it frightening to face him. I don't cotton to bully's [sic]. But I find the CCing thing slow and difficult." [Apparently the Board members had switched to a more cumbersome form of communicating, requiring using reqular email and cc'ing each other. This was probably done to leave former Board member Debbie Wafford out of the loop, as they suspected her of being the leak of the Board-Exec material. By the time this post had appeared Deb had been unsubbed for a day and the Board members were beginning to use Board-Exec again. Ed.] (Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 23:47:12 -0600; From: Kathy Welch Heidel ; Message-ID: <3672035F.24FCB69D@tri.net>; Subject: [Board-Exec-L] Hummmm) ------------------------------ Radio Free USGENWEB, 1999, Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.