From merope@Radix.Net Mon Nov 15 14:00:19 1999 Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 14:00:17 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: The truth is out there...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Saturday 13 November 1999: Maggie Stewart-Zimmerman proposes the following motion: "Due to concerns expressed by some County Coordinators in my region that Alaska and Hawaii are not represented by the current USGenWeb Logos, I move that The USGenWeb Project adopt the logos as shown on the following URLs as "approved" logos: http://www.rootsweb.com/~coriobla/logos/ (For Light Backgrounds) http://www.rootsweb.com/~coriobla/logos/index1.htm (For Dark Backgrounds)" Jim Powell seconds the motion. Pam Reid notes that she likes the logos and says, "You [Maggie] did a great job and have my support in this. It has always bothered me that AL and HI weren't represented. Plus, I think we need an updated logo!" Jim posts that he has asked for comments on the logos and has "received many comments all positive." He shares one comment with the group, in which a project member suggests "setting up locations on several servers with the logos and ask page designers link to these rather than placing the logos in their county directories." Maggie posts that this is a good idea and she suggests making "a directory on those servers where folks could link to the logos if they have space restrictions on their sites." Voices Crying In the Wilderness Corner: a number of SCs and CCs have responded to the "new logo" proposals, and while most people seem to like the logos, the general consensus seems to be that something as radical as a logo change needs to go before the project for a vote. One respondent noted that the new designs are rectangular rather than square and will necessitate extensive page redesign by many CCs and SCs. The SC for Alaska, supposedly one of the states that has complained about the current logo design, has stated that "I have had no CC's contact me with this problem. I do know that these same logos have been floated by the author a couple of times this year." The SCs that have commented also are supportive of putting the issue before the voters in a general election, rather than allowing the Board to change the logo on its own, and there is at least one Board member [Teri Pettit] who also states she supports a general vote on the issue. Your Voice Counts: Dick Eastman, author of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, has announced the third annual "Best Genealogy Site On The World Wide Web" award. For instructions on how you may vote for the best genealogy site on the internet, you must follow these instructions EXACTLY: "To cast a vote for "Best Genealogy Site on the World Wide Web," send an email to: bestsite@rootscomputing.com The subject of the message must contain the full Web site address and nothing else. The message subject (some e-mail programs will say "Message Title" instead of "subject") MUST start with: http:// For instance, any of the following would be proper message subjects: http://www.ancestry.com http://www.rootscomputing.com http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/roots/ http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dsucha/schuetz.html http://ynot.netgrp.net/~tursky/ Please list the exact address in the message subject, but do not add any other words. Do not say, "My vote is..." or anything like that in the subject; simply list the actual URL beginning with the letters "http://". None of the following three examples will work. None of them begin with "http://" and therefore the computer program that tabulates the vote will ignore them: www.xyz.com My vote is for www.xyz.com My favorite Web site is xyz.com If you do not send your vote to the right e-mail address, or if you do not use the proper message subject, your e-mail will disappear into the Internet dark hole and will not be counted. If you do send it properly, you will receive a reply acknowledging the receipt of your nomination." [Excerpted from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, Vol. 4 No. 46 - Nov. 13, 1999] Cooking The Books Corner: Also reported in this week's Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter is this snippet from the Wall Street Journal" "A Web site called Ancestry.com had 880,000 visitors, the highest number of visitors in the Internet genealogy category, during the month of September, according to Internet tracking firm Media Metrix. RootsWeb.com had 877,000 visitors while Genealogy.com had 441,000 visitors." [So where Brian "Fantasy Island" Leverich gets his notion that "RootsWeb.com alone supports roughly three (3) times the traffic of both Ancestry.com and FamilyTreemaker.com combined" is a mystery to me.] Update on the News Corner: After being down for over six weeks, the soc.genealogy.surnames newsgroup hierarchy is once again functional. The Way We Were Corner: The third and final installment covering the "Dill Episode" and its aftermath is now available. You can read it at: http://www.radix.net/~merope/history/chaptr6c.htm. Enjoy! "Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; ere long she shall appear to vindicate thee." ---Immanuel Kant 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 Tue Nov 16 15:28:38 1999 Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 15:28:36 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Truth is beauty, and beauty truth...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Sunday 14 November 1999: There is no Board-L traffic on this date. Tomorrow's News Today: The National Coordinator recognizes the motion to approve the new logos, gives it Motion number 99-27, and opens the floor for discussion; Maggie Zimmerman assures everyone that her suggested logos are meant only as alternates. No Go On The Logo Corner: Discussion of the logo issue remains brisk today on the SC list. Maggie's message to Board-L was forwarded to the State Coordinator list yesterday. In it she says "I want to clarify that these logos are only meant to be alternates?" [Yes, the question mark is in the original] She says it was not her intent to cause everyone extra work and that she tried to add HI and AK to the current logo, but "the results were not even worth showing to anyone." She suggests altering her motion to read, "I move that The USGenWeb Project adopt the logos as shown on the following URLs as "alternate" logos." Interestingly enough, several SCs have taken this opportunity to indicate how much they don't like the current logo while they continue to passionately defend it. Susan Tortorelli points out, "What does that big G on a cereal box tell you? It is made by General Mills! Would you see the Kodak logo and think Minolta? And wouldn't you expect an Aunt Jemima bottle to contain pancake syrup instead of Cola or something???? I think our present logo is ugly, always did, didn't vote for it but it is what the project voted for and it is what our researchers recognize." She also indicates that she knows her CCs and they won't change, regardless of what the Board decides to do. She notes, "Shouldn't the board and the entire project be worried about 100% coverage of the present logo before they ever start thinking about alternates? This is so stupid! I am left sitting here wondering why I was so stupid, I lost CC's when I told them national said they had to have the old spider web logo and lost more when not long after I said they had to change to the present logo...Yet a state is allowed to use the old logo and the last time I looked another state is still allowing their CC's to display the old logo?...Board members... have some backbone PLEASE! If you can't get only logo going project wide why are you even looking at an alternate one????????????????" A number of other SCs discuss the pros and cons of the current logo and the alternate "Millenium" logo [the one with the bird one it]. Although one SC has noted that even old and respected corporate logos are changed over time, others point out that those logos usually bear some relationship to their predecessor, rather than being wholesale redesigns. Megan Zurawicz argues in favor of the Millenium logo; Linda Lewis argues against it. In response to the NC's question "How many logos or alternative logos should we have", a few respondents respond that one is plenty and "alternates" are not necessary. Over on the -ALL list, Jen "Send Money" Godwin thinks that "re-designing the logo is a wonderful idea and one that is long since overdue." She, at least, likes the new logos and also seems to find requiring a couple of thousand project members "to spend a little time rethinking their page design" just a peachy idea. Update On the News Corner: Today, eight months after the Board requested that the administrative contacts on the usgenweb.org and usgenweb.net domains be changed to Tim Stowell's name, and two months after Brian "Shortsless" Leverich said he would do it, the contact information is _still_ in Nancy Trice's name. Town Crier Corner: GenConnect's "advertising guru" is looking for someone in or around Hartford, CT who has had some success doing family history research on the internet. It is not specified that the success must have involved RW or GC. If you have a "personal interest" success story of that nature and are in that area, you can contact him at stwalsh@pacbell.net "Hear him, ye Senates, hear this truth sublime; He who allows oppression shares the crime." ---Erasmus Darwin 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 Wed Nov 17 13:38:55 1999 Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 13:38:53 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Runs with scissors...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Monday 15 November 1999: The NC "recognizes the motion by Maggie Zimmerman and seconded by Jim Powell" to approve new logos for the USGWP; he numbers it Motion 99-27 and opens the floor for at least 48 hours of discussion. Maggie Steweart-Zimmerman posts, "I want to clarify that these logos are only meant to be alternates? I would not want to cause the many CC's that have spent hours designing their sites for a certain size logo to have to redo them. This is for those folks that want to use them whatever their reasons." She says she tried to rededign the current logo to include AK and HI, but was not succesful. She suggests that , "the wording of my motion be changed to: "I move that The USGenWeb Project adopt the logos as shown on the following URLs as "alternate" logos." Jim Powell, who seconded the original motion, approves of Maggie's change in wording. He notes, "the response I have received from the everyday volunteer has been overwhelmingly in support of these "Alternate" logos. Most of the respondents would use the new logo...One respondent said that they believed that there should be a project wide vote. So I asked some of those that responded if they agreed. The responses boil down to this "if" you get rid of the old one, yes, if this is just an "Alternate" then no." It is also his opinion that "in these sorts of polls, Negative responses come more easily. It takes much more for someone to take the time to write "I like that" than "I hate that"." Board Members With Spine Corner: Teri Pettit responds to a State Coordinator's request that the Board members have a little backbone by noting, "One person's "backbone" is another person's tyranny. If the Board makes a decision on something on our own, anyone who disagrees strongly with the decision protests that we had no right to make it at all." The current motion on alternate logos came about because a SC asked the Board to consider an alternate logo that would include AK and HI. She states, "I'll introduce any motion anyone asks me to, as long as it is within the by-laws and is a general policy matter rather than targetted at a specific web site or individual. That doesn't mean I necessarily support the motion. I might introduce it, and then vote against it, if the input I received indicated that most of the Project members were opposed to it." She says finally, "The board members are here to be "employees" of the SC's and the CC's, not to be their boss." Logo Issues Corner: Some respondents to the logo issue so far [on the SC list and apparently also in private to Jim Powell] are not in favor of the new logos because it uses the U.S. flag as part of its design. Says Terry Davis, "I'm really not for using our flag in any logo either. Though the alternate logos are nice looking, I just don't think that is the route we need to go." Susan Tortorelli notes that though she herself is a spring chicken at age 39, most of her page visitors are elderly, and "I was raised to believe that our flag & country should be held sacred and the only thing that should ever come before them are God and family. To me this proposed logo equals right up there with dropping a flag on the ground and dancing a jig on it! If I feel that way what would the old folks who visit our sites think?" [dancing a jig?] Count Your Blessings Corner: A World GenWeb member writes to tell us how lucky we are in the USGWP: "You guys on USGW should be glad at least that you were asked for input... in the spring the WGW changed the logo with no input from anyone but the board from a nice one to a hideous one..... too light and can't even tell what it is... is it a tree or a pedigree chart or a globe... huh? Despite numerous complaints, the WGW chair admits that they made a mistake, and need a new logo, but are "so busy" with other matters it won't be gotten around to in a long time." [ellipses in the original] Uneasy Rests the Head That Wears the Crown Corner: We hear from a number of sources that resigning MIGW SC Joan Brausch has nominated Denny Zank for the SC position. The nomination was allegedly seconded by Pam Reitsch and Donna Hoff-Grambeau. Denny is a long-term USGW member, and is very active in the Archives. He is also currently ASC for the MIGW. Sources report that he's been chummy with Maggie Zimmerman and Joy Fisher of late, so its likely he'll get the nod for SC. Sleight of Hand Corner: A reader writes to tell us that over on Rootsweb-Help-L, Leigh Compton [working for RW these days?] has announced a new "perk" for Root$web webmasters--a calendar. Now some of you may remember that RW made calendars available some months ago, and may ask "how exactly is this new?" Not to worry, the RW-H members are on it. One notes, "I presume this is the same calendar which houses the amazingly convenient and effective "reunions calendar" - in which if you wanted to stroll around and see if there were a Harvey Wallbanger Reunion, one would have to start in January, and paw thru every month in every USGW county ...cause the num-nums at RW couldn't think of how this would be used... Can you just see them, sitting around chatting: We can't get the search engines to work, we lost all that Rootslink data, we can't get the usenet groups to work, the LUSERS are getting tired of the Upstream Provider excuse....what can we throw at them?" Another wonders if it is asking too much for RW users to have reliable access to the ftp and web pages and a search engine that works rather than more useless "goodies". New Name, Same Face Corner: Some readers write to let us know that Ancestry.com has announced that it is officially changing its name to MyFamily.com today [Nov 17], and consolidating the large variety of family-related services it offers under that name. According to president Curt Allen, "The broader corporate name of MyFamily.com, Inc. more effectively unifies these services under one master brand, and communicates our vision." According to the press release, "The corporate name change does not affect the Ancestry.com brand, nor its independent functionality as the premier resource for tracing family history online." "I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes." ---Henry David Thoreau 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 Nov 18 06:17:14 1999 Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 06:17:13 -0500 (EST) From: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: News Flash! Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Late [or early, depending where you are] Breaking News: It appears that Kay Mason has left both her position on the Board and the coordinatorship of the Census Project [Census II, for those of you keeping score]. Yesterday, I received an anonymous tip that her email address is bouncing off the Board lists. This morning a source who wishes to remain confidential informed me that Ron Eason is now officially the National Coordinator of the Census Project. According to my correspondent, the vacated Census Project representative seat may or may not be up for grabs: "we are still waiting for the NC to allow us access to our seat on the Board. Seems they have to talk about it first, and decide whether the bylaws pertaining to the Special Projects representation should over rule the bylaws that allow the Board to make the choices for Board seats." [Hmmm...with an easy majority on the Board in Linda Lewis' pocket, is there any doubt which way _that_ discussion will go?] More News As It Develops! -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net From merope@Radix.Net Thu Nov 18 16:36:53 1999 Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 16:36:51 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Making hay while the sun shines...its Your Daily Board Show. *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Tuesday 16 November 1999: There is no Board-L traffic on this date. Out In The Cold Corner: As reported earlier today, there has been an upheaval in the ranks of Census II. Kay Mason, the long-time coordinator of that project, has apparently stepped down and Ron Eason has taken over the helm. Kay has also apparently vacated her Board seat, opening an interesting can of worms. According to sources, the Board is currently deciding "whether the bylaws pertaining to the Special Projects representation should over rule the bylaws that allow the Board to make the choices for Board seats." Now, there's an interesting question: Just who does that vacant Census Project seat belong to? A quick review of the Who's Who page reminds one that a comfortably large proportion of the Board is safely in Linda "At Last" Lewis's pocket, and there are a number of others who may be inclined to "resolve" this problem while they have the chance. Although the members of Census I already have Board representation [which is generous of the project, since the Archives are not part of USGW], it is not unlikely that the Board will choose to appoint someone from Census I anyways, and disenfranchise every one of the hard-working volunteers in Census II. But you never know, they could decide the hassle isn't worth it and leave the status quo as is. And maybe Kay, whose name is still on the Who's Who page, won't resign after all. Down And Out Corner: For those of you have noticed Root$web's spotty service today, including sporadic access to the USGW home pages, Brian "Bit Off More Than He Can Chew" Leverich has this to say: "We lost a hard disk on WWW this morning. The good news is that all user data are stored in a RAID array, which means your Web pages are safe." The bad news, he goes on to say, is that "the server is not deliverying pages properly to our visitors." They are, of course, working on the problem but there is no estimated time to return to normal operations. Bad Data Are Still Data Corner: In a further installment of a predicament encountered by a Root$web user which concerned documented incorrect data in the WorldConnect project, we've heard that the user in question tried to annotate the data with "post-ems" and urls leading to photos of the original documents showing the data to be incorrect, but when they go back "there is _no_ notation of the postem. Possibly [they] have to pay more money and be a subscriber to Rootsweb to correct it. [There were] so mad that they wouldn't help [they] canceled my subscription." The aggrieved user also notes that Root$web states it their word against the submitter's [despite the documentation] and wonders, "How many other people are twisting names, dates and locations as bad as this guy when they contribute gedcom ? That only complicates the matter. Makes Rootsweb look great though." "I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies." ---Pietro Aretino 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 Nov 19 08:13:25 1999 Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 08:13:23 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Fortune sides with him who dares...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Wednesday 17 November 1999: There is no Board-L traffic on this date. Glue Factory Corner: Here's an interesting bit of news, from two unrelated sources: Kay Mason did not resign as National Coordinator of the Census Project [Census II], she was removed. According to one source, she was removed by the CP file managers after she was essentially MIA for over four months. In the other account, she was removed at the request of the National Coordinator of the USGW, after her email address started bouncing. This opens another can of worms. Since Kay did not resign, she is still on the Board. The bylaws do not give the board any ability to remove one of their own from office, nor do they allow for project members to remove their board member, once elected. There is nothing in the bylaws that would prevent someone who was no longer even a project member from remaining on the Board until the end of their term. In fact, in separate discussions about this time last year and again following Bridget Smith's resignation as SC this summer, informal agreement was reached that it was OK to allow Board members to continue to serve, even if they no longer met the qualifications that allowed them to run in the first place. Kay's absence and subsequent removal as CP coordinator essentially means that the Census II file managers have no representation on the Board, and that is unfortunate. But there is no apparent remedy, short of actually tracking her down and obtaining a resignation. Those darn bylaws. Pretty Pictures Corner: Board member Barbara "Armed and Dangerous" Dore, recently returned from slaughtering defenseless animals for sport, notes that she really likes the new logos, saying "I think a lot of folks jumped the gun and thought the board was voting on a "NEW" official logo that everyone would be expected to use or change to. How in the world do these things get twisted is beyond me!!" [Oh, I dunno...ambiguous wording, maybe?] Tin Cup Corner: Rootsweb has issued a press release concerning its apparently error-ridden WorldConnect project and is literally begging its users to forward it around. From the most recent New Zoo Review, here is RW CEO Robert Tillman: "Our goal is to make the WorldConnect Project the largest and best GEDCOM-hosting project on the Web. RootsWeb has no money for advertising. We depend upon RootsWeb users to pass the word. PLEASE HELP." Speaking of donations, in response to a RW user's question, "what is the status of Rootsweb's [sic] application for 501(c)3 non-profit classification?" Brian "Skid Marks" Leverich has replied that the application has been in the hands of the IRS for three months and they have had no word from them, other than a notification of receipt. [He fails to tell the user that "RootsWeb" is not applying for not-profit status. "RootsWeb" incorporated as a For-Profit corporation in Delaware and California in the spring of 1999. The application at the IRS is for yet another company, called GenSoc.org, which is not "RootsWeb".] "It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be." ---Virgil 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 Nov 20 07:55:02 1999 Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 07:55:00 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Good for wrapping fish...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk. Thursday 18 November 1999: The NC opens the floor for voting on Motion 99-27, alternate logos. By the end of the day, 3 Board members voted "aye" and one voted "nay". Tomorrow's News Today: The vote on the alternate logos is actually a horse race: so far there are 5 "nays" and 7 "ayes" with with three people still to vote [presuming that Kay Mason won't be voting]. Perpetual Motion Machine Corner: A reader writes in reponse to the news of Root$web's WorldConnect press release with an insightful explanation of How Things Work at Root$web: "Of course, everyone of the RW supplicants will post this press-release (several times) to every RW maillist they are subscribed to. The resultant many-fold increase in disk space utilized by these maillists will then result in an urgent plea for More Money to buy new drives because the maillists are overrunning the place. Then the listowners will eventually get tired of the posts and the responses to the posts, they will start unsubbing people, the unsubbed ones will complain, the listowners will defend, and the exercise of writing to all those people will exhaust the Fine RW Staff, and nothing currently broken will get fixed. And of course, the listowners who unsubbed people will be cast off as uncooperative, and replaced...By RW supplicants. Who will then post the press release...which will then result again in...OK, you get the point." "Progress is nothing but the victory of laughter over dogma." ---Benjamin DeCasseres This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist ----- Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Sun Nov 21 10:20:49 1999 Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1999 10:20:48 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Be it ever so humble...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Friday 19 November 1999: The voting on Motion 99-27, for the alternate logos, continues. 5 Board members vote "aye" and five vote "nay". One abstains. This brings the full vote count to 8 ayes, 6 nays, and one abstention. Since a 2/3 majority of those voting [10 in this case, maybe 11 if Kay decides to vote] is required to pass a motion; motion 99-27 is defeated. Only a few Board members explained their votes. Jim Powell voted yes to "follow the hearts of the overwhelming majority of those that took the time to respond to my request for their opinion on this motion." Teri Pettit voted no because she does not feel that the Board "has the authority to authorize new logos, even as alternatives, considering that the current logo was chosen by a project-wide vote of the general membership." She states that feedback on the logos was 50-50 and in her opinion that does not constitute a mandate. She would however, "support an alternative motion to present the proposed logos to the Project membership on a special ballot." "Courage is the willingness of a person to stand up for his beliefs in the face of great odds. Chutzpah is doing the same thing wearing a Mickey Mouse hat." ---Unknown, via Usenet This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.