From merope@Radix.Net Thu Aug 9 21:04:55 2001 Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 21:04:54 -0400 (EDT) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, 8/9/2001 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Tuesday 7 August 2001: No Board activity for several days. === Election News: With the runoff election more than half over, the latest disturbing news to come down the pike is that at least one [Archives] Census Project volunteer [and Board Secretary], Sundee Maynez, voted twice. Although she publicly denied having two email addresses, Election Committee records indicated that she is registered twice and has not only two email addresses, but two name variations. Thus, she received two ballots, and despite numerous instructions from the EC posted to lists to which Sundee is subscribed, she proceeded to vote both of them. After an examination by the EC [which is _not_ happy about this], it has been determined that _all_ her votes will be discarded, in both the first election and the run-off. There have also been some questions raised about the ability of members from the Census Project [www.us-census.org] to vote, since Maggie's project members were apparently given ballots. The members of the original CP, which was removed from USGW last year, were not allowed to vote unless they also hold positions in other parts of the project as they are not considered to be members of USGW. There is now some question as to who exactly informed the EC that the Census Project volunteers were not allowed to vote; according to Linda Haas Davenport "The EC was informed by the AB that Census Project [www.us-censur.org][sic] volunteers were not eligible to vote since this CP is not a part of the USGenWeb Project." Maggie Stewart's project however is in an interesting limbo. She was asked for a list of eligible voters, and the EC obviously considered her members as eligible to vote. However, her Census Project has _never_ been approved by the Board as the Special Project listed in the bylaws. So the question has been asked, why are her members allowed to vote in the NC and Rep-at-Large races, but not Ron's people? Her CP is no more part of USGW than his is. Note that this issue probably only affects a handful of people; most if not all of the coordinators in both census projects hold positions in other parts of the project and the CP seat was not opened for nominations this election. It is however an interesting issue; although no one has publicly suggested it so far, an undercurrent of support for deleting _all_ votes from Maggie's CP members [if they do not otherwise participate in the USGW] is gaining momentum. We would prefer instead that the EC allow the members of the original CP to vote in the run-off election, but we doubt there is time for that to be arranged. Interesting Reading Corner: From yesterday's Washington Post: http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/01/salmon0731.htm USGenWeb is mentioned, but as usual, only as something that you can get to from Root$web. Third Time's a Charm Corner: Linda "Won't Stop Til I Get It Right" Lewis has been making noises about starting yet another Archives Census Project. This will make number three; she's threatening to coordinate it herself so it will stay in the family this time. Sayonara Corner: A few days ago, Jake Gehring, current Grand Poobah of Root$web.com fired at least four long-time Root$web staffers, including people who had been instrumental in easing the GenConnect-to-Ancestry message board change-over. And just a few days later, he published this: "In passing I would like to thank our RootsWeb staff, developers, and Help Desk volunteers for all their hard work in the past few weeks. This transition has been made much easier by the hard work of these good folks. A special thanks goes out the Message Board admins, who have not only given us great feedback and support during the switch, but have also been major supports to their individual boards in terms of answering questions, explaining the new system, and passing along comments. Thanks very much!" We love a man with a well developed sense of irony. ;) Thanks For the Memories Corner: You may have noticed that the Missing Links newsletter is no longer being issued in tandem with the New Zoo Review. Readers of ML noticed last week this small blurb at the top of the newsletter: "This is the last issue of MISSING LINKS that will be sent to everyone who receives ROOTSWEB REVIEW. Plans for the future are not firm, but until further notice, to receive MISSING LINKS, subscribe to SOMEBODYS-LINKS-NEWSLETTER-L-request@rootsweb.com ." The proximate cause for this is that Julia Case was one of the people unceremoniously dumped in last week's staff purge. Myra Gormley is now listed as the sole editor of the RWR. She and Julia started the RWR together over 3 years ago; they started Missing Links together almost exactly 5 years ago [the first issue went out 16 Aug 1996]. We don't know if RW just flipped a coin and Julia lost, or if Myra's higher visibility in the genealogical community made her a more valuable commodity. === "People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking the responsibility for what they know." ---Brooks Atkinson This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Sat Aug 11 18:56:15 2001 Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 18:56:14 -0400 (EDT) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, 8/11/2001 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: As the world turns...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! 11 August 2001: Still silence out of the Board, at least officially. === News From the Secret Cabal Corner: Whenever it is claimed that BOARD-EXEC is just a friendly chat list and little of importance occurs there I can be assured that something refuting this claim will make its way to my inbox. This time is no different. In recent days on the USGENWEB-ALL list, it was revealed that members of the USGenWeb Census Project were not allowed to vote. Maggie's census project, however, got full voting privileges. Linda Haas Davenport, Chair of the Election Committee, confirmed that "The EC was informed by the AB that Census Project [www.us-censur.org] volunteers were not eligible to vote since this CP is not a part of the USGenWeb Project." Since this topic was never discussed on BOARD-L, some project members began to ask publicly who made the decision and when and where it was made. The assumption, of course, was that it was made on BOARD-EXEC. Yesterday, Kelly Courtney Blizzard sent the following request to the Board: "I am respectfully writing on behalf a numerous CC's to find out if the decision to include one CP and exclude another from voting in this election was a decision made by an individual on the AB or was this a group decision? If this was a decision made by one member and not the group then what action will the AB take to correct this? If this was a group decision then why was the vote not held on Board-L so the public may view it? IOHO One CP have been discriminated against while another CP has been shown favoritism and we feel that this situation should be addressed immediately by the AB that we elected to represent us." A handful of Board members responded to this request: Teri Pettit: "Since everyone subscribed to Board-Exec has given their word of honor not to forward, describe or paraphrase anything said on Board-Exec, it puts me in a quandary. Describing what questions the EC asked the AB, or which eligibility decisions were made by the Advisory Board as a group and which were not would require describing at least one Board-Exec discussion. I will say that I agree that volunteers of the two Census Projects should not have been treated differently, and that the voter eligibility of both Census Projects is something that should have been discussed entirely on Board-L...I think it is a very safe assessment that the Advisory Board does not currently contain the 2/3 majority that would be necessary to force any changes in the status quo...I, at least, am not intending to make any futile attempt to get the AB to "correct this" even though I personally agree with your position...I am, however, voting for those candidates whom I feel are most likely to be equally welcoming to the volunteers of BOTH census projects. At this point I believe that is the only pragmatic approach available." Pam Reid: "It was my understanding the the EC requested voter lists from all SPs, including both CPs...While there are strong feelings concerning the two CPs, no volunteer should have been excluded based on which of the CPs they volunteer for." Richard Harrison: "To the best of my recollection the matter was not directly discussed on Board-L or Board-Exec and it certainly was never voted on. In discussions related to adding links to both CPs to the USGenWeb pages, I gave the opinion that NEITHER of those projects were Special Projects of The USGenWeb Project. If that's the case, NEITHER of them should have been allowed to vote for project-wide offices...this should be addressed by the Board, but I think by the new Board. However, if there are a significant number of voters involved..than it should be brought up before the present Board." [Note the "directly" in Richard's response.] Shortly after these messages appeared, a little bird sang outside my window and told me this: The Board did not vote directly on the eligibility of members of the Census Project to vote; the issue was discussed only very briefly and no decision of any kind was made. They did, however, vote on the eligibility of a member of the Census Project to run for office. At the end of June the Board voted secretly on BOARD-EXEC to deny this person the opportunity to run for office. This is the statement they agreed on and supported by 11 yes votes to 3 no votes: "As it appears [name deleted]'s affiliation is only with http://www.us-census.org/, a group to which the Project only provides a link to, she is not a member of the USGenWeb Project and therefore is not eligible to run for the At-large position." This statement was forwarded to Linda Haas Davenport on June 28, 2001. National Commander Tim Stowell appended this statement, which was not voted on or agreed to by the Board, to it when he sent it: "Since the AB's position is that Ron Eason's group is not part of the Project just because we link to his site, the EC is correct in not acquiring the addresses of persons who work there exclusively." So what we have here is basically the Board voting secretly to deny someone the opportunity to run for office and the NC deciding on his own initiative to extend their decision to include denying a certain group of people the right to vote. Those Board members who do believe the discussion and decision should have been made publicly are now constrained from discussing it in all but the broadest terms by Tim's farcical secrecy rules. Once this message hit the public airwaves, we hear that some confusion set in over at the Election Committee, who apparently believed that the message was sent only to them and not to BOARD-EXEC. They were, shall we say, "assisted" in this belief by Tim, who allegedly told them he never sent it to the Board-Exec. I _assure_ the members of the EC who are reading this that BOTH copies of this email in my possession have BOARD-EXEC headers; we apologize for any confusion. We are at a loss to understand Tim's thinking in this circumstance; what could he hope to gain by lying to EC about something that 14 people can dispute with evidence? In any case, we are given to understand that the outcome may not be entirely what he expected. More on this as it developes. === "When he said we were trying to make a fool of him, I could only murmur that the Creator had beat us to it." ---Ilka Chase This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.