APRIL 2006 DBS

Friday, April 28, 2006
Twisting In The Wind

Like a pea in two pods...its Your Daily Board Show!

PLEASANTRIES: The only two members who apparently give a good goddamn about the Voter
Fraud Committee report continued their dance of minor-tweaking. Phyllis harped about adding a
clause allowing the Board's chief inquisitor to call the case closed if the accused is able to
provide a reasonable explanation of the charges. [This would be the "our friends get out of jail
free" clause.] She begged, "Please do not leave this to possible interpretation of 'intent' when a
'case' does come up," but then continued to express misgivings about explicitly giving the
accused any benefit of the doubt, because to do so might imply that the Board cannot be trusted.
Agreeable George was amenable to all her suggestions, and there were no other comments on the
report. [No lie, watching these two is like watching those old cartoons with the chipmunks.
"Pardon me!" "No, pardon me!" "You first!" "No, you first!"]

On another front, NC Linda posted a proposed agenda for May. It includes the usual carryovers
from previous months, but no mention of the Bylaws Committee. Jeff, however, suggested
adding a report from those sneaky folks, on the off chance they make any progress. No other
Board members commented on it.

VOTE EARLY, VOTE OFTEN: The EC has sent out the first of its annual reminders to register
to vote for the upcoming national election. In order to exercise your right to vote, you need to be
registered on or before May 31, 2006. If you have been around awhile or voted in a previous
election, you may or may not be registered to vote, so we recommend registering again, just to be
sure. You can register here:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgwelections/registration.htm

WE DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE BROKEN: For those of you who are interested in these sorts
of things, a little bird sent us a link to a "sneak preview" of the the "new and improved"
Root$web and Ancestry.con message boards. Apparently, they'll be just fabulous but its hard to
tell that from the corporate-speak cheerleading message from the Community Relations gulag of
the monopoly. Among the improvements listed are a new admin tool that "simplifies the process
of accessing and reviewing abuse reports and new posts," as well as additional tools that will
permit locking threads and improve spam blocking, and a new interface. [Yes, the Evil Empire is
finally catching up to the rest of the message board universe.] These wondrous new boards will
be rolled out in upcoming weeks, but if you want to see what they look like now, go here:

http://workshop.rootsweb.com/boards/announcement1.html?o_iid=23988&o_lid=23988

Apparently, the ad at the top is not intended to actually frighten people.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Eating our words since 1998

Posted by merope at 6:00 AM 0 comments    

Thursday, April 27, 2006
Once More Unto The Breach

Hotwiring the revolution...it's Your Daily Board Show!

DISTRACTED BY SHINY THINGS: Now that the other, more compelling business of
appointing a newsletter editor has been gotten out of the way, two Board members discussed the
Voter Fraud Committee report for about five seconds. Phyllis Rippee suggested some new
wording that will codify the years-long established policy of allowing each Project a vote in each
race or question for which they are eligible to have a vote. She also went to some pains to clarify
that her objection to allowing accusers to remain anonymous to all but those to whom they send
their rumors and innuendo was not in order to protect the rights of the accused, but was more to
benefit the Board itself. After specifically noting that it's more important that the accuser be
protected, lest they decide not to accuse after all, she suggested choosing one Board member who
would be privileged to know the identities of accusers. Phyllis noted that this, "...would serve to
keep someone from tying up the system, thus possibly blocking/delaying action on legitimate
information, by simply sending accusations about various members to different AB members,
plus the NC...none of whom would be able to recognize that someone was up to mischief."

[Our apologies to our readers. Our assumption that our unelected representative actually cares
more about her constituents than she does about the comfort and ease of the exclusive club into
which she was recently welcomed back was entirely off the mark. Our bad, of course, but we
aren't too surprised.]

George Waller, cribbing some ideas from this sad rag, then suggested the following change to the
report, to "beef up" the rights of the accused: "The person(s) being investigated will be accorded
the benefit of doubt if reasonable explanations are proffered, and they will be given the
opportunity for review and comment at each point of the investigation."

While we appreciate the shout-out and the whole "benefit of the doubt" thing is nice, we really
don't think this goes far enough. We still think that the accused should have the right to know the
identity of their accuser. Why the great concern that people won't accuse their fellow volunteers
of perfidy if they can't do it anonymously? Why should the accuser be protected from having
their name dragged through the mud when the accused will not be afforded the same courtesy?
[Really, we've had our name dragged through the mud once or twice. It doesn't hurt.] Someone
who is going to accuse a fellow Project member of a serious crime that could result in permanent
loss of membership privileges should be willing to do that publicly, or at least as publicly as
permitting the accused to know the identity of their accuser. People in this project have all sorts
of ulterior motives and if an accuser is comforted and cosseted and protected from the
consequences of their actions, the Board or whoever else investigates these things may never get
the opportunity to learn any extenuating circumstances that might exist between the accuser and
the accused. Besides, our momma always taught us that people who secretly whisper things about
other people in the dark are tacky and generally speaking not to be trusted.

As far as being permitted to "review and comment" during the investigation, we think this should
be expanded to explicitly include the right for the accused to actually see all the evidence against
them. They should be permitted to see the original accusation itself, any results of the EC's
investigation, any findings of the "Technical Advisor", and any deliberations of the Board on the
evidence. Additionally, the Board should be required to accept and dispassionately review
evidence submitted to it on the accuser's behalf, including expert testimony and rebuttals to the
Board's evidence.

People seem to forget that it is very difficult to "prove" that any crime of this sort actually
occurred and it is not uncommon in this Project for an assumption of guilt to follow immediately
upon an accusation of wrongdoing. Not to mention that the Board's record on dispensing justice
is spotty at best. The last time it had trials the Board relied on its friends and fellow travelers to
provide "evidence", accepted that evidence uncritically, and convicted members of various
made-up crimes against the Project. They were able to get away with this because they were of
one mind against the accused and were willing to run over everyone and everything to get them.
They bent over backward to protect those who accused the leadership of GAGenWeb, but
afforded no protections to the accused whatsoever and in fact stripped them of their positions and
membership privileges without benefit of a trial [those came later, to gloss their shame with
respectability].

If the Board is now going to establish an official crime in USGenWeb, then it should work
diligently to ensure that the accused is afforded all due benefit of the doubt [innocent until proven
guilty and all that claptrap] and all due process in the matter up front. They should have the right
to collect and present their own expert testimony and witnesses. They should have the right to
confront and question their accusers and to seek outside counsel on evidence presented against
them [especially any technical evidence, which can be arcane for the uniniated]. No steps should
be taken against them until the matter is closed and appeals finished. No membership privileges
should be lost until they are convicted, if they are convicted. Punishments should fit the crime.
But, you say, none of this is enumerated in the proposal? Well, it should be.

BTW, our unelected representative doesn't think that giving the benefit of doubt to the accused is
necessary. Our Phyllis thinks that will all come out in the wash eventually.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Enumerating the rights of the accused since 1998

Posted by merope at 6:20 AM 1 comments    

Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Nothing To See Here Folks

No, really, we're serious...it's Your Daily Board Show!

SMOOTH TRANSITION: Although there was some small amount of confusion as to who voted
and who did not, Motion 06-08 was declared passed with 13 YES votes and no dissension.

Dawn Wells is now officially the Editor of the newsletter. Let's hope she has better luck getting
the monthly newsletter out on a monthly basis than her predecessor did.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH: There has been no discussion of the Voter Fraud
Committee's report for 5 days. Apparently the issue isn't as important as we thought it was.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Charmed since 1998

Posted by merope at 5:30 AM 0 comments    

Monday, April 24, 2006
New Zoo Revue

Comin' right at you...its Your Daily Board Show!

MUSICAL CHAIRS: In a bit of completely unsurprising non-news, Ellen Pack has been restored
to the Chairmanship of the Election Committee. NC Linda is currently advertising Ellen's old
Board Secretary position on the various project lists. For those of you who don't know, this
position is a simple appointment and there will most likely be little to no pretense of getting
"member input" for it. If you are interested in the position, you can apply to NC Linda or your
regional representative.

Over on the newsletter side of things, NC Linda also announced that the "newsletter committee"
[whoever that may be] has selected Dawn Wells as its new editor. Karen moved to appoint Dawn
to the position, Bettie seconded, NC Linda gave the motion number 06-08, and opened it for
discussion. Nine Board members have indicated that they have no discussion on this motion, so
we imagine that it's pretty much a done deal at this point. Dawn will be replacing long-time editor
Sharon Rhodes.

And last but not least, NC Linda decided to round-file Richard Pettys' request for indefinite
MNIGS status, noting "Because Richard's request doesn't comply with the conditions[of the
kangaroo trial]...and with the concurrence of the AB members, I find that Richard's request is
without merit."

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
And then some since 1998

Posted by merope at 6:25 AM 0 comments    

Sunday, April 23, 2006
I Can Feel One Of My Turns Coming On

Tight as a tourniquet...its Your Daily Board Show!

HERD OF BUFFALO: Richard Petty's innocuous request to have his MNIGS status extended
indefinitely consumed the Board yesterday. Ten of the 12 members weighed in on this vital topic,
and all of them either declined to discuss the issue, recommended giving Richard what he wants,
or dismissed the request as having no merit.

Some pertinent quotes:

"I don't believe the request should even be entertained." --Jan Cortez

"If Richard does not want the status lifted then it will stay until he does. The AB does not have
the right to extend this even at the Richards request." --Karen de Groote-Johnson

"I see no need for discussion if he desires the status quo, although I think the request to be a little
odd." --Jeff Scism

"I do not believe that Mr. Pettys request as any merit or purpose." --Darilee Bednar

"I can see no need for discussion or anything else until Pettys requests the
MNIGS be lifted." --Bettie Wood

"The ruling states that after 1 year Mr. Petty's can request the MNIGS status to be removed. He is
not doing that, therefore the status stays by default and there is nothing to extend." --Cyndie
Enfinger

"I suggest...that the request by Mr. Pettys be tabled without action. The requirements for him to
ask for reinstatement in the original determination of MNIGS is clear...That he chooses on his
own impetus to ask that his MNIGS be extended indefinitely is opposite of the original
ruling...there is no appropriate action by the board...Doing nothing is the logical solution." --Jeff
Scism

And on the very important but somewhat more difficult topic of establishing crime and
punishment in USGenWeb? They said absolutely nothing. Which apparently is the logical
solution.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Ignoring the elephant in the room since 1998

Posted by merope at 6:45 AM 3 comments    

Saturday, April 22, 2006
Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Barely able to contain ourselves...its Your Daily Board Show!

INERT MATTER: NC Linda finally posted the long awaited [or not] report of the Voter Fraud
Committee, which she's been sitting on for a month. As a first matter of business, the committee
apparently decided to narrow its focus from the broader area of "voter fraud" to the more easily
grasped area of "fraudulent registrations" and changed the title of the report accordingly. The
report itself is a model of understatement. All the folderol about handling voter fraud via the
Grievance Committee [which we don't have] is gone, and has been replaced with some verbiage
that can be boiled down as "anyone who is suspected of registering more than once will get
reported to the Board and they'll handle it." Either the NC or someone on the Board who
volunteers will run the "investigation" and the Board as a whole will vote on whether to remove
the person's name from the voter registration rolls. They will rely heavily on the crack
investigative powers of the Election Committee but, other than notifying the accused and their
SC that they have been accused of a crime, no rights for the accused are enumerated in the
document. The report gives the Board extraordinary leeway to handle each individual case
entirely differently, based on the whim of the volunteer investigation leader and/or the NC. Other
than a most noncommital opportunity to "provide input", the accused is afforded no right to
respond to the accusations or to any evidence provided by other parties. The accused has no right
to even see the actual charge or any evidence compiled by the EC's completely unbiased and
thoroughly competent [or not] investigative arm, or any evidence collected independently by the
investigation leader. The Board would be meeting the terms of this report if it merely contacted
some poor volunteer and his SC and said "hey, someone secretly accused you of registering to
vote more than once; what do you have to say about that?" and then voting to ban them when
they wrote back "I have no idea what you are talking about." The issue of punishment is also left
wide open, which of course gives the Board leeway to drop the book on some people and slap the
hands of its friends.

Not all is gloomy though. In what must be the hugest oversight of all time, the VFC failed to
insert a gag clause in its report and no one involved the investigation, from the lowly accused all
the way up to the exalted NC, is required to keep their mouth shut about any aspect of it. We're
sure that will be corrected in short order though.

HEADS IN THE SAND: You might think that the people about to establish the only official
crime in USGenWeb would discuss it a little more, but you'd be wrong. There has been very little
interest in or questioning of the report thus far. Jeff Scism, who is off rewriting the bylaws to
transfer all power to the Board anyways, thinks the report as written is just hunky-dory. Phyllis
"Back From the Beyond" Rippee noted a technical flaw in the report and objected strenuously "to
someone being allowed to accuse a member of fraudulent registrations and remain anonymous to
all but the person initially contacted." [Yes, the right to openly face your accuser is one of the key
rights we enjoy in this fair country, but USGenWeb is different. Secrecy is paramount here, and
the rights of the accuser to "confidentiality" far outweigh the rights of the accused to any sort of
fair hearing.] But there's been nothing but silence from everyone else.

THE MORE THE MERRIER: The VFC also recommended that the Board appoint a "Technical
Advisor" to "provide advice as requested in topics including but not limited to Domain
Registrations, IP Addressing (TCP/IP), Routing, Electronic Mail, FTP and General Internet
Technology. This position will of course require that the appointee agree to the gag rule, since
they may be asked to advise on fraudulent registrations, grievances, and the like.

If this proposal is accepted, and we imagine it will be, this will be the fourth appointed Board
position. If we keep going at this rate, we'll have more appointed positions than we will elected
ones.

BUZZING AROUND: To be fair, the Board was distracted from the important business of the
VFC report by a request from Richard Pettys, whose MNIGS status expired a month or so ago, to
be indefinitely reinstated as a Member Not In Good Standing. Richard's request has garnered as
many comments as has the voter registration issue, and on the formal list no less. We are not sure
that Mr. Pettys has any USGenWeb counties any longer, since the Board managed to steal all his
old counties away. If he does not, the Board has no business declaring a non-member MNIGS [if
that even makes sense]. If he is still a member, they have no business declaring him a MNIGS if
he has met the terms of his sentence [and he has], even if he wants to be MNIGS. MNIGS status,
of course, is serious and should be earned, and we here at the DBS believe that if Mr. Pettys
wishes to retain that status, he should be required to give the Board some excuse to accuse him of
crimes against the Project or its members, go through yet another secret kangaroo trial where he
is not permitted to see the evidence against him and in which his actual crimes will change to suit
the circumstances, and after several months of being hung out to dry have the status properly
bestowed upon him by full vote of the Board. Any less, and the status has no meaning
whatsoever.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Only right and proper since 1998

Posted by merope at 7:10 AM 1 comments    

Thursday, April 20, 2006
Up To No Good

Taking vacations where we find them...its Your Daily Board Show!

NOTHING TO SEE HERE FOLKS: Other than the last two baboons agreeing to keep "what
goes on in Las Vegas in Las Vegas" and a handful of congratulations from the more senior
baboons, the Board has been eerily quiet for days now. So either the turmoil of appointing the
new members just clean whore 'em out and they are taking a rest in the middle of a very
agenda-heavy month or they are doing their business in sekrit again. [But that couldn't be, could
it? NC Linda promised us way back in September that they would only use the Sekrit Sandbox
for a limited number of things and the membership would be informed before they went off to
play, rather than after. Or never.]

FOUND ITEMS: In one of those strange and magical twists we find so charming about
USGenWeb, we have suddenly been permitted to receive the Project's official rag direct to our
inbox. Of course, our vigilant spam sniffer routed it to the junk file, but that's easily remedied and
we look forward to receiving the USGenWeb Not Necessarily the Newsletter on a random basis
in the future.

This month's issue, only the second published this year, has a couple nice blurbs about some
project sites, some mention of the new faces in various places in the Project, and tucked away at
the bottom where we also missed it, a mild exhortation from Josh "Really Works for FGS"
Taylor encouraging us all to spend our hard-earned money to attend the conference in Boston in
August. Because you know, schmoozing with the likes of Betsy Mills is certainly what we want
to spend our vacation doing.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Hibernating since 1998

Posted by merope at 5:35 AM 2 comments    

Sunday, April 16, 2006
An Apple For The Teacher

Back up to speed...its Your Daily Board Show!

MAN THE TORPEDOS: After a couple of days of not discussing the two proposed new
members [Scott Burow for RAL, Phyllis Rippee for SWSC rep], the Board proceeded to
unanimously vote to seat both of them [Motion 06-06, Motion 06-07, respectively]. Moving
immediately to the most pressing business on the Board's plate, NC Linda asked both of them to
adhere to her gag rules for the Sekrit Sandbox and any other list she might feel should be kept
secret in the future. Thus far, neither of the two new members has publicly agreed to the speech
restrictions.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
They come and they go since 1998

Posted by merope at 7:55 AM 4 comments    

Thursday, April 13, 2006
Hard Out Here For A Pimp

Duck, duck, goose...its Your Daily Board Show!

FOREGONE CONCLUSION, PART DEUX: With all 12 Board members reporting in and all
voting to accept the EC's proposed slate of new members, NC Linda announced that Motion
06-05 had passed.

Moving along to the next popularity contest on their dance card, NC Linda asked the Board
members to publicly announce the results of their secret preference polls for the vacant RAL and
SWSC rep seats. With 9 members reporting in so far, the results are unanimous for Scott Burow
for the RAL seat and Phyllis Rippee for the SWSC seat. Both Scott and Phyllis are former Board
members. [Interesting choice, that last one. We thought the Board members would go for Betsy
Mills yet again. Apparently, however, crazy is preferable to mean.] After they have finished
posting their choices, the Board will be formally appointing these two to their respective seats, so
we'll go out on a limb and welcome them both back to the big sandbox a bit early.

LOST IN THE MAIL: We asked a couple of days ago why the newsletter was no longer
publishing to the national website. We don't know how many issues have come out since
December 2005, but nothing has been posted since then. NC Linda, who has apparently decided
that answering questions is part of her job description after all, kindly let us know that
somewhere in between Sharon Rhodes riding off into the sunset and Denise Wells taking
temporarily over, posting the newsletter "fell through the cracks." That at least explains what
happened to the most recent issue; why any intervening issues weren't posted isn't clear, unless
there weren't any issues between the December 2005 issue and the March 2006 issue.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Different day, same faces since 1998

Posted by merope at 5:45 AM 2 comments    

Wednesday, April 12, 2006
When No News Is Good News

Got nuthin'...its Your Daily Board Show!

FOREGONE CONCLUSION: After a few more Board members indicated they had no
discussion whatsoever on Motion 06-05, NC Linda called the vote. Thus far, four members have
voted to accept the proposed slate of EC members.

In other Board news, the EC forwarded its first quarter report for 2006. NC Linda is still sitting
on the Voter Fraud Committee Report and from what we can tell the Grievance Procedures
Committee, while still holding active discussion, is nowhere near submitting its report.

SHE SELLS SEASHELLS: Acting newsletter Editor Dawn Wells put out a call for stories. She
says they'd like to publish "on or about April 15" [happy tax day!], which is just a few days away,
so get those stories in!

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Humdrum since 1998

Posted by merope at 5:25 AM 0 comments    

Monday, April 10, 2006
All Shook Up

Dog-tired...its Your Daily Board Show!

ANOTHER FINE MESS: The EC's silly little mixup with volunteer names was dragged about on
the Discuss list for most of the day yesterday. As we suspected, the explanation turned out to be
entirely benign. Apparently, someone on the EC "cut and pasted" the wrong information and
mixed up Cristy Fisher and Crystal French [or was it Cristy French and Crystal Fisher?] and
failed to catch the error before multiple members of the peanut gallery found it.

We're gonna go out on a limb here and guess that it was Nola "Why Use 5 Words When 5000
Will Do Just As Well" Duffy herself who made the boneheaded error that got this whole thing
started. Nola spent much of the day griping on DISCUSS about how hard it is to be an EC
volunteer and how no one could possibly understand her suffering until they've walked a mile in
her orthopedics. Yet in all that huffing and puffing and high horsing, nowhere could she manage
to actually explain how the names came to be mixed up. We do wonder how someone who
apparently spends every waking minute toiling for the Project also manages to find the time to
write the lengthy emails she puts out on a regular basis. Our file of "Nola-grams" to various
people who've stumbled into her sights is so huge it's threatening to form its own gravity field. In
short, when faced with a simple question asking her to explain how the mixup happened, she
spewed out not one, not two, not three, but four long messages that did everything but answer the
question. In the last one, she simply declared victory and went home.

Thankfully NC Linda finally stepped in and explained that the simple cut and paste error was
from the EC's mailing list and not from the volunteer's application letter. While this is entirely
understandable, if Nola's description of the EC as basically hell on earth is accurate it does lead
us to wonder what other sorts of "mistakes" are being made that aren't being caught.

MEANWHILE BACK AT THE RANCH: The Board dealt with this latest teapot tempest by
thrashing about aimlessly for much of the day. Jeff tried to amend the current motion by
substitution a few times and after some prodding by NC Linda, Bettie and George eventually
withdrew their motion. Bettie twice tried to second one or the other of Jeff's attempted
amendments but NC Linda told her that wouldn't work because Jeff's amendments were to a now
withdrawn motion. Bettie then made a motion to accept the corrected slate, which George
promptly seconded, leaving us more or less where we started. After all the dust settled, NC Linda
numbered the motion 06-05 and opened it for discussion, and thus far four Board members have
both indicated they have no discussion and that they accept the slate as is.

The March minutes were posted, timely as usual. It will really be a pity to lose Board Secretary
Ellen Pack to the EC. Although, come to think of it, the EC hasn't had a quarterly report on time
since she left it.

OUT THE DOOR: Denise Wells announced yesterday that long-time newsletter editor Sharon
Rhodes has abandoned ship. Denise will be serving as Acting Editor until a permanent
replacement can be found.

BONUS QUOTE: "There is no conspiracy." --Jeff Scism

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Walking the line since 1998

Posted by merope at 5:55 AM 0 comments    

Sunday, April 09, 2006
New Places, Same Faces

Keeping track...its your Daily Board Show!

FIXING THE HOLES: After a few days of quiet, wherein the Board was theoretically at least
conducting 12 individual secret polls to determine who among the many worthy and not so
worthy candidates is worthy to join their company, NC Linda posted a brief proposed slate of
volunteers for the EC. They are: Ellen Pack, LaRae Halsey-Brooks, and Cristy Fisher.

[Funny thing about that last candidate. In the qualifications that NC Linda posted, she's listed as
the CC for the Ashe county, NCGW page, but a check of that page actually shows the CC as one
"Crystal S. French." Cristy is also listed as the CC of Wilkes county, NCGW, and "Cristy" and
"Crystal" have different email addresses. We are sure its just an oversight with a perfectly
reasonable explanation that doesn't involve more than one registration to vote, but wouldn't it be
a hoot to have an alias actually sitting on the EC?]

Anyways, Bettie Wood moved to accept the slate and both George Waller and Jeff Scism
seconded it. We imagine this will be over in short order and the new members safely ensconced
in no time. Word on the street is that the EC intends to return Ellen Pack to the EC Chair
position. Of the three EC Chairs we've had previously, her reign was probably the least
disastrous, and bringing in new blood clearly didn't work out. Also, since Betsy resigned so she
could run for another Board seat, none of the tiny handful of people who actually own and
operate USGW have a seat on the EC anymore. So we can see how it is imperative to restore the
natural order of things to the world, so that all may proceed in surety to the upcoming national
elections.

IN OTHER NEWS: Greta Thompson, the SC of IAGenWeb and a former Board secretary, has
replaced Debra Beheler on NC Linda's secret bylaws committee. [We actually are kind of glad
that the same people are selected for these things over and over again. It saves us having to learn
any more names.]

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Needing stronger caffeine since 1998

Posted by merope at 7:10 AM 0 comments    

Thursday, April 06, 2006
By Hook Or By Crook

Not handling the time change well...its Your Daily Board Show!

HAVE IT OUR WAY: Having decided for expediency's sake to substitute an appointment for a
preference poll, the Board commenced to privately polling their constituents for their preferences
among the several candidates for the vacant seats. Although Board members have solicited input
on all four regional lists, the SWSC list is the only on on which any public voting has occurred.
Thus far, Scott Burow is the unanimous favorite for the RAL seat and Phyllis "Wet Hen" Rippee
appears to be the favorite for the SWSC seat. Only a handful of people expressed an opinion,
however, before Bettie told people to express their opinions privately to her rather than on the
list.

When she announced the appointments on the Board list, NC Linda gave no indication of how
long the Board would be soliciting member input. So, while she could allow the opinion-taking
to go on for a bit, she could just as easily cut it off at the knees tomorrow, so don't delay in
sending your opinion to the Board members.

TAKING THE SHORT WAY HOME: Last night NC Linda announced the formation of yet
another in a long string of failed bylaws committees. In something less than a surprise, Jeff "My
Way Or The Highway" Scism is the Chair of the committee. Having failed utterly to have his
way via all other methods of putting his bylaws revisions in front of the membership for a vote,
he was apparently able to convince Linda to exercise her prerogative as NC to establish a
personal committee for him to try yet again. [Because, you know, he knows better than the rest of
the Board and the membership, few of whom have expressed any interest whatsoever in revising
or even amending the bylaws.] His minions on the committee, hand-picked by himself and NC
Linda without any public call for volunteers, will be Mike Peterson, Sue Tolbert, Josh Taylor,
Debra Beheler, Trey Holt, and NC Linda.

This new committee will operate in secret and is charged with creating "a revised set of by-laws
and operating procedures to supplement the revised by-laws." No mention is made of any regular
reporting mechanism or any mechanism for [or even interest in] obtaining member input. Since
Jeff has already written his bylaws, and since the committee is NC Linda's creation and will
expire with her, expect to see Jeff's pet revisions coming to a ballot near you soon.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Kept in the dark since 1998

Posted by merope at 6:00 AM 0 comments    

Tuesday, April 04, 2006
If This Is Rome, It Must Be Tuesday

The elephant in the middle of the room...its Your Daily Board Show!

THE PEOPLE'S BUSINESS: Yesterday bright and early and three days into the month, NC
Linda adjourned the March meeting and called the April meeting to order. She published the
same agenda as previously and moved immediately to the first order of unfinished business, that
of filling the vacant RAL and SWSC rep seats. She noted, "In March the AB decided...to hold a
preference poll for the vacant RAL and SWSC CC Regional Rep seats. However, it has been
suggested that the AB not hold a preference poll and move directly to appointment due to the
delay caused by addressing the challenge of the EC report and the EC being 3 members short. It
has also been suggested that the AB not fill the seats at this time...and let the seats be filled by the
annual election."

NC Linda then asked the Board members to indicate their preference among these three choices.
And one by one, they fell into line and noted they'd just as soon appoint the replacements after
all. [You ever get the feeling that these things have already been decided in sekrit before they are
"discussed" in public?] A few of them pretended they'd get constituent input first and one of them
said she'd rather do a preference poll but would "side with the majority" instead. Most of them
cited the fact that the EC is down three people as a factor in their change of heart, even though
the EC has repeatedly assured them that it is capable of running the preference polls.

So, it seems that in short order the Board will choose among five candidates for RAL and five
candidates for the vacant SWSC seat. Unless of course, the decision has already been made
unfettered by that pesky public opinion thing and they just have to go through the motion of a
public show.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Tossing peanuts to the gallery since 1998

Posted by merope at 6:10 AM 0 comments    

Monday, April 03, 2006
Driveby Blogging

When no news is good news...its Your Daily Boardshow!

OH, BY THE WAY: Turns out that those recently announced vacancies on the Election
Committee included that of EC Chair. Lori Thornton lasted all of three months in the position,
although NC Linda announced somewhat belatedly on Board-L that she "took on a hard, time
consuming job and handled it well." The other two vacancies were created when Betsy
"Limelight" Mills and Donna Allen quit to run for public office. Both Betsy and Donna joined
the EC only recenty [November or December, IWRC]. Apparently the quiet, thankless, endless
toil of the EC wasn't working for them.

YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW: Daryl "Man Without A State" Lytton has finally found
someone to take him in. After several weeks of his trying to find someone anywhere [actual
genealogical interests not necessary] to give him at least a co-CC position, we are sorry to report
that our own fine state of Kansas has allowed him to adopt a county. While we think this is a
little like giving the fox the key to the henhouse and setting out the good silver for him to use
while he dines on your chickens, we can hope for the best. Meanwhile, we are laying in
provisions and moving to the cellar in preparation for the nearly inevitable storm.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Nothing to see here since 1998

Posted by merope at 6:00 AM 1 comments    

Saturday, April 01, 2006
April Fools

Kicking and screaming...its Your Daily Board Show!

ONWARD AND UPWARD: With 8 NO votes and 4 members not voting, NC Linda declared
Motion 06-04 failed. She implied in her post that it failed outright and did not mention that it
failed due to the lack of a quorum. Possibly she didn't want to set some kind of precedent or
acknowledge the non-voting protest. Who knows? The outcome is the same, however, and Daryl
Lytton has been declared ineligible to hold office on the Board.

Shortly after the vote was cast, Darilee publicly attacked the four Board members who did not
vote on Motion 06-04:

"This may be the first time in 3 years that the "I don't like this motion" group has reared their
ugly heads. The fact that two of the 4 posted to lists and one actually said she wasn't goin' to
vote...is a sad indication of the state the AB is in...I thought we had honorable people on the
AB...but to not vote...is to let their CCs down."

Shortly after that George posted to say he had heard from NC Linda, who ordered them all to
immediately cease further discussion of Motion 06-04.

CART, HORSE: As soon as Daryl was hacked from the list of eligible RAL candidates, NC
Linda opened the topic of whether or not the Board should act to fill the SWSC and RAL seats at
all. Thus far, no one has publicly commented on this topic, but we can't imagine why they
wouldn't. The yearly election is still three months away and new members won't take their seats
for five months. Do they really propose to let those seats sits empty for that long?

MEA CULPA: We have no idea what we were smoking yesterday when we suggested that the
"CC rights" faction on the Board might manage to pass Motion 06-04 by not voting on it at all.
For some reason we got it into our heads that would somehow have the effect of reversing the
effects of the vote, but of course that was just plain dumb. No more high-sugar cereal for us first
thing in the morning. Anyways, all due props to Darilee and George for coming up with such an
elegant win-win strategy. Politics is a beautiful thing.

ALL HAT, NO CATTLE: With his defeat at the hands of his elected representatives still fresh,
Daryl has now taken to outlining his next steps, which will apparently take place on the
momentous day of April 4. After some prodding, Daryl shared his plans with the members of the
DISCUSS list:

"The first step in due process is to send the AB a certified letter, telling them what I think they
have done wrong, and what I think they owe for it. They will have 14 days to answer it. If they
don't, it goes to the second step, the judicial system who may not rule on my contentions until I
have exhausted our internal processes to resolve issues, and I have certainly gone way overboard
in giving them the time and opportunity to do so...They don't want to play the game fair, I'll have
their marbles taken away from them, and the Project will be under court order to treat everyone
fairly and everyone must play by the rules...The AB maintains that their rules don't allow for
treating members fairly, and their rules don't allow for justice within the Project...they do have a
rule for due process, 'If any of the associational, property, or parliamentary rights of a member
are violated, legal action may be taken against the organization.' My OHGenWeb SC gets the
same kind of letter, except worded slightly differently."

Wow. This would be scary and stuff, but something tells us April 4 will come and go just like
any other day.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Just another blithering idiot since 1998

Posted by merope at 6:05 AM