Friday, December 23, 2005
Winter Wonderland
Fa la la la la...its Your Daily Board Show!

A LUMP OF COAL: George Waller announced the results of the EC's internal election. Lori
Thornton will be the new Chair of the EC and Shirley Cullum will be the new Secretary/Publicist
[and let's hope she can manage that office a little less histrionically than Nola has in the last
couple of months]. They will assume office on January 1. Congrats to both!

TO GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE WE GO: Since today is December 23, we are assuming that
the Board will be in recess until early next year. And so, in the spirit of congeniality and perhaps
fueled by a wee bit too much eggnog, the DBS staff is also off for a short vacation. Even the
interns this time. [Yeah, it must be the eggnog.]

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Abusing Christmas metaphors since 1998

posted by merope at 5:50 AM 2 comments   
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
O'er The Hills We Go
Breathing down your neck...its Your Daily Board Show!

IN THROUGH THE OUT DOOR: Perhaps due to the distracting and rapid approach of the
various holidays, the Board struggled still to get rid of a motion that never achieved the status of
being recognized by the NC. George, apparently having been instructed to do so by the
Parliamentarian, moved to withdraw his motion rather than rescind it and asked Sundee to second
his motion to withdraw his motion because of his "concerns about EC confidentiality." Two posts
and an astonishing grammar error later Sundee complied. None of this conversation was in any
way acknowledge by the NC, who has been noticeably absent since Sunday.

BLUE IN THE FACE: On the informal list, George's post suggesting that the Board leave off its
plans to mess with the EC provoked David to suggest that "the AB can disband the EC and start
over." George suggested that David's idea, while "amazing", also has "a degree of astronomical
difficulty." He noted again that he won't be discussing the alias question until after the holidays
have come and gone [although whether or not he is holding his breath is unknown]. David noted,
however, "You are the one with the truly amazing post, saying that the EC does not have to tell
us anything."

And that's where it stands. The Board recesses in two days and it appears that there will be no
forward momentum on this issue until sometime in January, if even then.

OUR READERS WRITE: Board member George Waller wrote to inform us that we were
mistaken in a small particular yesterday. He would like the DBS community to know that he was
not acting as the EC's mouthpiece when he arrived at the bold conclusion that the EC is itself the
only entity capable of handling aliases and that it should not be, indeed cannot be, required to
involve anyone else in its decisions in these matters. George even says that he went public with
this great notion without informing the EC first. Do we believe this? Yes, actually, and although
we are glad that George apparently does not serve as the EC's dancing poodle, we can't help but
be a little sad at this sorry attempt to derail the Board's efforts to protect the rights of the
membership. After all, it's not like it happens all that often.

Apparently George realized a little too late that letting the genie out of the bottle is sometimes not
the best of ideas. Now that the Board, and more importantly the membership, realizes that the EC
intends to grant unto itself the power to determine voter eligibility and it would like that power to
remain unencumbered by Board oversight, it is probably too late to go back to the good old days
of blindly trusting the EC to know what is good for us. We've seen where that gets us. We don't
much care how collegial the members of the EC are, nor how great is their "spirit of merry
cooperation and dedication." We can imagine that in the course of human history all sorts of
horrors have been committed by smiling elves with cheerful faces and a mission in which they
believe. The system of checks and balances, while occasionally onerous to those who would
rather not have someone looking over their shoulder, has served our country very well over the
last couple of centuries and has prevented some of the worst abuses of power. No doubt it can
and will serve USGenWeb equally well.

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS: On a more positive note, George did confirm
for us that Tina "My Way Or The Highway" Vickery will not be returning for a second term as
EC Chair, and even managed to suggest that once she is gone, "there will be less to criticize
about the EC." Ho ho ho.

PATTING OUR BACKS: A little bird wrote us the other day to let us know that the Board has
reached a momentous decision on another of the grievances currently before it. This particular
grievance was filed against the Board itself for not voting to lift our MNIGS status and was based
on language in Sturgis that forbids the imposition of limitless punishments. According to the
songbird, "The grievance was resolved a couple of days ago on the grounds that elected
representatives cannot be sued or disciplined for the way they vote." Sturgistically they are
correct [and this is why they had the Boy Wonder join them in the Sekrit Sandbox a bit ago], but
its still nice to know they are looking out for themselves.

JUST SO YOU KNOW: "Boilerplate" referred originally to the small news articles that are
bought and often published verbatim by small newspapers. Although that definition is still
correct, when the word is used today it usually refers to commonly used language in documents,
such as the legalese that often accompanies contracts and wills and the like, or to speeches that
are repeated over and over with little change in language. To say a politician uses boilerplate is
basically to say s/he uses the same speech repeatedly with little regard for context or current
events. In the case of the EC's "boilerplate", the term merely refers to the fact that the EC has a
small blurb with standardized language that it sends out with all voter registrations.

BONUS QUOTE: "You said from the beginning that this was much ado about nothing and I am
realizing that you were right." --George Waller

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Digging in our heels since 1998

posted by merope at 6:10 AM 4 comments   
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Dashing Through The Snow
Grasping at straws...its Your Daily Board Show!

BAFFLING 'EM WITH BULLSTUFF: A couple of Board members continue to discuss the
proposed committee to discuss aliases, but without much progress. On the formal list, George
moved to rescind his motion regarding an alias committee, because he all of a sudden realized
that the EC is just exactly right for the job all by its lonesome. [See below; now we see why the
EC was so hot to have him as the other Board rep.] This motion wasn't seconded or commented
on by anyone, and since his first motion was already withdrawn for amendment, we are not sure
its entirely necessary.

Over on the informal list, NC Linda noted that, despite her previous suggestion, she does not
object to the committee being composed entirely of Board members, but that she does want the
issue "resolved in one way or another." George then tried out this new version of his motion:

"I move the creation of a subcommittee of the AB to study the question of volunteers who may be
defrauding the project by registering to vote more than once by the use of aliases. The
subcommittee will have four members with an effort at regional balance. Simple majority will
prevail in the vote."

David suggested he leave out the part about trying for regional balance since all the members
would be from the Board. George also asked who on the Board would be willing to serve on the
subcommittee, but no one responded.

George then tacked the discussion in an entirely new direction. "Suddenly" discovering wording
in the EC's "boilerplate" language to registrants that might be construed to prevent the EC from
sharing any information whatsoever about registered voters with anyone outside itself, George
came to the "ineluctable conclusion" that "the EC is the only body with the information to deal
with people who seem to have registered to vote more than once." He then suggested that "the
EC should contact the individual and ask them to explain the multiple registration. The
"punishment" if necessary would be to have one or more voter registrations deleted by the EC.
No information would be passed on to the AB or SC's."

[Man, the EC must be really desperate not to have to involve the Board and/or the SCs in this
issue. This is pretty lame, even for them. The language in question refers to the confidentiality of
the registered voter list and appears in slightly less rigid and verbose form in the EC's guidelines.
Funny thing though. We don't recall the boilerplate language or the EC's own guidelines ever
stopping them from contacting SCs when there have been discrepancies in the past, and it
certainly didn't stop them from bringing Captain Alias to the attention of two separate Boards. In
fact, if IRC chat records are any evidence, it hasn't stopped members of the EC from discussing,
by name, registered voters suspected of using aliases in an open forum with persons not actually
on the EC. So we have a hard time believing that they have "suddenly" realized that they just
can't share the names of any registered voters, even fake ones, with anyone outside the EC and
must bear this difficult burden all alone.

The EC's guidelines actually require them to involve the SCs in cases of discrepancy, and to
involve the Board if there are disputes between an SC and a CC, and forbid them from
themselves determining the eligibility of any member to vote. If one were to go by word count
alone, the protections afforded to the members' eligibility by requiring that the EC not be allowed
to make these determinations itself far outweigh the imaginary restraints suddenly discovered by
the EC with regard to the confidentiality of the voter registration list. In any case, the language in
question is easily changed to make it clear that in cases of multiple registrations involving
suspected aliases limited voter registrant information will be provided to the Board and the
relevant SCs. While we are not thrilled with the idea of giving the EC anything it might construe
as carte blanche to share voter registration information, this would probably be preferable to
actually allowing the EC to decide all by its sekrit self who gets to vote and who doesn't.]

George then opined "that discussion of this matter be postponed until after the holiday break so
that it will not be started/stopped/started and...the new EC can start fresh with this if we decide to
return this issue to them."

[And maybe, with any luck, they will just forget about it entirely. It is beginning to be obvious
that the solution will cause more harm than the problem.]

Last but not least, Jeff cast a belated YES vote in the straw poll four days after it closed.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Decking the halls since 1998

posted by merope at 6:05 AM 3 comments   
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Running In Place
Around the bend...its Your Daily Board Show!

JUMPING THE GUN: Before the Board could get too deep into any discussion of "the
composition of the committee" and other details as directed by NC Linda, David Morgan
wondered aloud "how a straw poll turned into an official vote to form a committee." This more or
less stopped discussion in its tracks while George Waller tried to word a motion for a formal
vote. His first attempt on the formal list was this:

"I move that the AB form an Alias Committee to develop procedures regarding the fraudulent use
of aliases to multiply register for voting. Outcome will be based on simple majority."

Sundee Maynez seconded this motion, but then Suzanne Shepard said she'd like to see one person
from each region on the committee, and Darliee Bednar asked George to modify his motion to
specify a number of people for the committee and leave off the qualifier that they needed to be
from some specific region. George then amended his motion to add:

"...that the committee shall consist of 4 members one from each region. Mike counts for all
regions."

Special Projects representative Cyndie Enfinger pointed out that this wording excludes her;
Darilee also noted that the wording excludes Cyndie. George noted that Cyndie would also count
for all regions, but did not formally amend his motion to include that wording.

Over on the informal list, Linda Barton also wondered how a straw poll got spun into full-blown
approval to form a committee, and noted, "I have been wondering about...Linda's suggestion that
the committee be made up of non-AB members when the gist of the discussion had seemed to
mean AB members establishing these procedures. I...won't support a committee of non AB
members. This is our job - every email I have received...has suggested the same and I never saw
this discussion heading this way. I can only see a committee of non-AB members stalling this
decision even further." Bettie Wood concurred, and said "It's the AB job to handle aliases, & the
emails say they are wondering why we were even elected..."

At this point, George said he would revoke his motion on Board-L [although he has not done so],
and tried to defend NC Linda by suggesting that she "misspoke" herself in her rush to get out the
door for the weekend. He then wondered where Mike and Jeff were, since neither of them had
been heard from throughout the discussion [not unusual for Mike, very unusual for Jeff]. Mike
spoke up to say he's been busy with the flu and heavy work demands, but he also noted that "I too
would prefer that this "committee" be a subset of the AB...who can commit to focus on this
matter and come in with a fairly mature proposal for the full AB to approve or modify."

And, at least by press time, that was the end of the discussion.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
One card short of a deck since 1998

posted by merope at 7:40 AM 0 comments   
Saturday, December 17, 2005
The Wisdom of Solomon
Going around in circles...its Your Daily Board Show!

MAKING IT SO: The Board continued to discuss the burning issue of forming a committee to
devise guidelines for itself and the EC regarding the use of aliases, although without much
progress. George and David danced around a bit, with George eventually reiterating his
suggestion of a small committee to be seated before the recess that would explore "the full range
of procedures: EC, NC, AB, SC, individual," in consultation with the current EC chair and the
new EC Chair. [Oh, we can only hope there's a new EC Chair come January. Except we will
probably get stuck with Betsy "Your Worst Nightmare" Mills.] Karen also suggested a smaller,
streamlined committee that could "knock this alias question out quicker." Jan, however, noted,
"I'm not sure what more a committee could do, other than to take more time on what I consider
something that could very simply done." She and George then danced around a bit, until George
decided to dance with Bettie, who also opposed the committee on behalf of her constituents.
[George appears to have more or less taken point in defending the whole committee idea; it
wouldn't be an entirely bad thing if he ended up being the Board's representative to the
committee, if it ends up happening at all.] Mike suggested, "I don't envision the purpose of this
committee we are discussing as drafting extensive complicated procedures intended to prove
someone is using what we have been calling aliases. Hopefully the final result will be fairly
simple. It should merely be the procedure we agree to follow should one of these incidents
surface...perhaps that will lead to some input for the EC to use in revising their
procedure...Perhaps a subset of us can hammer something out that the rest of the board can
support. I can agree on the idea this should be closer to simple than to ultra-complex."

At some point in the discussion George Waller suggested that NC Linda use a simple majority to
determine the outcome of her straw poll [although not quite; he actually suggested that 50%
would pass, and 50% is not a majority, simple or otherwise]. Linda took this advice and
announced that with nine members [we counted 8] agreeing to form a committee, a simple
majority was achieved. After bestowing upon the Board her ideas for the composition and time
frame of the committee, she went out of town for the weekend and left Mike St. Clair in charge.
[Eight, or even nine, members is not a super-majority of the Board and at least five members
have expressed sentiments ranging from disinterest in to outright rejection of a committee, so we
foresee a bit of trouble in actually getting a committee off the ground.]

NUTS FROM THE GALLERY: There has been a bit of discussion outside the official channels,
mainly on the SW/SC regional list, but also a bit on the SE/MA list. The tenor of the discussion
on the SW list has been almost entirely opposed to the formation of a committee. John Schunk,
although needing to repeat himself a bit, has been quite lucid in his several explanations of why a
committee is not needed and how the present system seems to function more than adequately.
Don Tharp and Karen Mitchell have also intelligibly explained their position that the issue of
aliases should devolve entirely on the SCs.

Of note in that discussion was the simplistic assertion by Board member Darilee Bednar [whose
mind seems to have but two speeds: black and white] that "I just don't see a reason for a person to
use an aliases...Facts and data involves truth...Lying about who you are involves lies..." After
another member shared some unpleasant personal experiences involving cyberstalking and
severely chastised Darilee for her "arrogant, unknowng and totally uncaring" words, Darilee
seems to have taken her combat boots and gone somewhere else to play.

Over on the SE/MA list, The Other Linda is running a small poll about the alias issue, and from
the handful of responses to it in the last couple of days, it does not appear that many members of
SE/MA are losing sleep over it.

INTO THE LION'S DEN, ALMOST: A couple of days ago, we were approached by a CC who
currently has a grievance with his former SC before the Board. He wanted us to serve as his
advisor in the upcoming mediation, and mirabile dictu, he informed us that the Board [or more
likely the assigned mediator] had approved this. Interestingly enough though, the assigned
mediator also gave the SC the right to reject the CC's choice of mediator, an option we are not
aware has previously been offered to parties in a mediation. It was not clear whether or not the
CC was also given the opportunity to reject the SC's choice of advisor, but as it turned out the
issue was moot. When the SC heard who the CC had chosen for his mediator, she declined to
participate in mediation entirely and the whole matter is now before the Board as a grievance.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Stuck in Lodi since 1998

posted by merope at 8:55 AM 0 comments   
Friday, December 16, 2005
Differently Abled
Now you see it, now you don't...its Your Daily Board Show!

PASSING THE BUCK: The Board continues to discuss the issue of forming another committee
to tackle the issue of aliases and what to do about them. After a handful of members said they
would agree to forming a committee, NC Linda opened another straw poll on the topic. At press
time, 6 Board members formally supported forming a committee and one opposed the idea. It is,
however, fairly clear from comments that three other Board members are also opposed to the idea
of a committee.

During the discussion Jeff forwarded the following message from Ellen Pack, who once upon a
time was the EC Chair:

"Please consider that the alias issue comes to us in two parts - The first part deals with the steps
the EC should take when it suspects an alias or fraudulent voting situation. The second part is the
steps the AB takes upon notification of the suspicion....the AB is *only* dealing with the first
part, via the procedural change requested by the EC. That part only tells the EC what to do when
it has uncovered a serious basis for a suspicion, and all it says to do is to pass that suspicion and
evidence on to the AB in a quiet and confidential manner. Once the EC passes the info on...it's up
to the AB what is done about it...and that's when the AB will be into the second part, and new
discussion for a new day. Please consider that the EC *is*...a very experienced committee that
works daily under its procedures....Do we really need a committee to report on another
committee, especially an inexperienced committee to report on an experienced committee?...If the
AB wants a committee to provide suggestions on how the AB should handle the information the
EC passes to it...so be it...Please, for now just give the EC permission to tell the AB when it has
uncovered what it suspects is a fraudulent voting situation. That's basically all it's asking. Give
the EC the procedural guidance it needs and has been asking for so that it may better protect the
integrity of our elections. Once those procedures are in place, the AB can then lay out its own
procedures to handle a specific situation should it land in its lap."

[This is a most amusing and disingenuous little missive. First off, the EC is not merely requesting
some modest "procedural guidance," it is requesting a huge transfer of power over membership
and the right to itself determine voter eligibility, with essentially no checks or balances on that
power. Second, Ellen appears to be telling the Board that it has no business instructing the EC in
anything, but it's OK with the EC if the Board determines how to conduct its own business. It is
comforting to know that the EC is gracious enough to allow the Board to dither about with its
own procedures, but since the EC knows that once the transfer of power is complete nothing the
Board does with respect to aliases will be relevant, its an easy concession to make. We will point
out that the Board itself is both an "experienced committee" and an elected one, and it is its duty
to protect and support the rights of the membership.]

Ellen's thinly disguised EC propaganda prompted David Morgan to suggest the following
succinct "procedural guidance": "When the EC suspects it has a case of a person using multiple
identities for the purposes of voting, it should should immediately notify the AB and the SC of
the states where the alleged fraud is taking place. The EC should also provide the AB and the SC
all the evidence it has at its disposal. The EC will then wait on further orders from the AB."

There was some other minor discussion of the committee and its purposes, much of which came
from NC Linda in an attempt to refine and explain the proposed committee and allay some of the
concerns expressed about it. George recommended that the committee be seated before the Board
recesses next week for Christmas and that it be required to submit its recommendations to the
Board by February 1. Mike suggested "a temporary working subgroup of the AB with a very
short window to come up with a proposal." The Other Linda suggested that the Board "work out
a revised EC Procedure incorporating the suggestions made previously and return it to the EC,"
and then move on to other things. David also suggested that the Board address other issues, in
particular what to do about Captain Alias. And last but not least, Jeff managed once again to
"accidentally" forward another private email to the public list, prompting David to lodge a formal
protest and Jeff to apologize.

As NC Linda has noted several times throughout this discussion, the Board has already spent a
great deal of time on this issue and gotten essentially nowhere with it. Why she thinks they will
be able to hash out the details of a committee in a timely fashion is not clear, nor is it clear why
she thinks that the committee itself will be able to come up with something that will please 2/3 of
an already polarized Board.

Ah well, those who can, do...those who can't, form a committee

GILDING THE LILY: In many respects, the structure and guidelines that the Board and the EC
need to manage aliases are already in place. The EC has guidelines that should, at least in theory,
prevent it from removing registered voters from the rolls without going through the State
Coordinators and the Board. However, there is nothing in the EC's guidelines that prevent it from
receiving information on possible registered aliases or on potential vote fraud, investigating those
suspicions with the resources at their disposal, and informing the Board, the suspect, and the
relevant SC(s). They just need to do it before they take action against a member or suspected
alias [who, of course, may not be an alias at all], because to do otherwise is a violation of their
guidelines. Likewise, the Board has all sorts of mechanisms available to it, including the Sekrit
Sandbox, the mediator system, and its own precedent of secret trials, which it can use to address
the information and evidence presented by the EC in the matter of any suspected aliases. We have
to wonder if any of this tortuous discussion is really necessary, or if it will just suffice to affirm
the duty of the EC to conform to its current guidelines and the right of members to a fair hearing
prior to the application of negative consequences.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Sweatin' to the oldies since 1998

posted by merope at 7:50 AM 1 comments   
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Scattered Flurries
Duck and cover...its Your Daily Board Show!

THAT'S ALL SHE WROTE: The Board continued to discuss revising the Standing Procedure
covering voting. The discussion was marked by 1) the great pains NC Linda took to show that
not only did she misunderstand the current policy, but many others did as well; 2) several Board
members wondering aloud why, if there was no rush to announce vote results, Linda herself had
rushed vote announcements not once but twice in recent memory; and 3) a somewhat exasperated
posting by Angie that first wondered how exactly the current policy is unclear and closed by
suggesting that "If we don't have anything else to do, for heaven's sake just adjourn the
December meeting. I'm sure at this time of year we all have other things to be spending our time
on." This provoked Linda to note that Angie is free to not participate if she feels she is wasting
her time, and to institute a straw poll to determine if a majority of the Board was in favor of a
new version of the proposed policy:

"All voting will be via email to the Board-L list. When a vote is called the voting period shall be
for 48 hours unless all 14 AB members vote earlier in which case the vote shall be declared after
the 14th vote is received. Any motion failing to meet the required quorum of 9 votes within the
48 hour voting period will fail. A 2/3rds (66.67%) majority shall be determined by dividing the
total Yes votes by the total number of votes cast. Abstentions shall not be included in the total of
votes cast."

This provoked Jeff Scism to suggest his own version, Karen to question terminology used in the
suggested procedure, and Darilee to wonder out loud what a simple declarative sentence means.
After 5 members indicated they would like to continue discussing the change in procedure [we
counted 4, but she may have included Jeff's post as an affirmative], and 6 indicated they saw no
reason to change the policy, NC Linda closed the topic and moved on to other things.

THE OTHER THINGS: NC Linda announced that the Board is off playing with grievances in the
Sekrit Sandbox and that one grievance of a CC vs. a SC has been submitted to mediation.
[Without knowing any more about it, we already know how it will come out. They could save so
much time if they would just tell fired CCs that they have no recourse and no hope and to go
away.]

On the informal list, Linda also re-opened the aliases topic and asked the Board to discuss
whether or not a committee should be formed to look into formulating a policy. This topic is
apparently a non-starter; at press time there had been no comments on it.

IN OTHER NEWS: The Newsletter team apparently gave the November newsletter a pass, but
has just published the December newsletter. As usual, its not the most interesting publication on
the planet, but it is quite humorous in at least one respect. One of its members is none other Daryl
Lytton, late of the OHGW project and apparently one of the Project's current favorite whipping
boys. Daryl serves as the "Poetry and Prose" editor and his contributions to this month's issue
include a brief interview with the founder of Project Gutenberg and a couple of genealogy-related
Christmas poems [er, we mean Holiday poems].

CORRECTION: We are reliably informed that, contrary to what we reported a few days ago,
Linda Blum Barton is also a carry-over mediator. She replaced Jan Cortez in the
Richmond/Dickenson grievanance when Jan Cortez resigned to serve as Nancy Dickenson's
advisor [how's that for impartiality?]. When we wrote the report, we checked the list of mediators
posted on the national website. The old list of mediators was still posted at that time and Linda's
name wasn't on it; whether that was a really old list that had never been updated to add her name
or if she was never formally a mediator, we cannot recall. The list has now been updated to
reflect the current team of mediators.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Soaring with the turkeys since 1998

posted by merope at 6:05 AM 1 comments   
Monday, December 12, 2005
Yakity Yak
Don't talk back!...its Your Daily Board Show!

REINVENTING THE WHEEL: Many years ago, some NC or other adopted the practice of
calling the vote early in order to move along with business whenever enough members had voted
that the outcome would not be changed if any remaining members cast a vote. Eventually that
time-saving idea was adopted as a standing procedure. No NC since has had any problem
understanding the basic logic of the approach or any difficulty implementing it. Until now, that
is. Our current NC has in her short tenure called not one but two votes early enough in the voting
period that votes cast by remaining members could have, and maybe would have, changed the
outcome. After considerable protest by Board members, voting was reopened on the second of
these, but only after several people had to tell NC Linda exactly what the standing procedure
means.

Thus we have our latest topic for discussion on the informal meeting list. Yesterday, Linda told
the group that "Before moving to the next item on the agenda I would like to revisit and revise
our SOP on Voting to be clearer and to more accurately reflect the way our voting is handled."
She then proposed the following change to the policy:

"All voting will be via email to the Board-L list. When a vote is called, members will have 48
hours to respond and have their vote recorded. A vote will be declared at any time during the 48
hour voting period when enough votes have been cast that the remaining votes will not change
the outcome....at any time during the voting period when 9 votes (a quorum) have been cast and 4
of those votes are No the vote is to be declared because the remaining 5 votes, even if all Yes
votes, will not change the outcome...any time 10 Yes votes have been cast the vote is to be
declared as the remaining 4 votes will not effect the outcome. When in doubt the date/time stamp
of the vote will decide. If the 48 hours voting period passes without all members voting a 2/3rds
majority will be determined by dividing the Yes votes by the total number of votes cast. A vote to
Abstain will not be included in the total votes cast to determine a majority."

Comments on this suggestion were varied. Suzanne Shepard suggested not announcing the result
of the vote until the 48 hour period was up. Karen suggested only calling the vote when "when
the vote has reached a point where there will be no change in the outcome if the remaining
members vote one way or another," and also suggested "axing" the quorum requirement. The
Other Linda noted "...the Bylaw and SOP we have concerning AB votes are clear in their
meaning as they stand," and David, Cyndie, and Angie agreed with her.

Jeff contributed to the discussion by way of a couple of firmly stated but entirely wrong
disquistions on the meaning of an abstention when one is counting votes, and Cyndie referred
him to the passage in Sturgis which notes that abstentions are actually not included in the vote
counts. Jeff also asserted that "clarifying" the bylaws is the same as "amending" the bylaws and
would require a vote of the membership. NC Linda then reminded the Board that she is trying to
amend a standing procedure, not the bylaws, and this is no different from the various procedures
this Board has already amended.

After this discussion, NC Linda changed her proposed wording to this:

"All voting will be via email to the Board-L list. When a vote is called the voting period shall be
for 48 hours unless all 14 AB members vote earlier in which case the vote shall be declared after
the 14th vote is received. Any motion failing to meet the required quorum of 9 votes within the
48 hour voting period will fail. A 2/3rds (66.67%) majority shall be determined by dividing the
total Yes votes by the total number of votes cast. Abstentions shall be included in the total of
votes cast. The
posting of voting results will include the percentage of the majority vote."

This does not exactly improve the situation. For one thing, as Cyndie pointed out, abstentions are
not votes. Including them in the denominator of a calculation to determine whether or not the 2/3
majority has been met changes the picture dramatically by, as Jeff declared, essentially making
them a NO vote. To do so may encourage members who do not wish to cast either a YES vote or
NO vote from speaking up entirely, and may increase the chances of motions failing simply
because they do not have a quorum. Cyndi also finds it redundant to include calculations for
determining the 2/3 majority, since they are already clearly delineated in Sturgis, and doesn't
think including the calculation results in the announcement of the vote outcome should be
required.

[Sturgis actually has a very simple test one can use to determine whether or not a vote has
attained the 2/3 majority required to pass: just double the number of NO votes. The resulting
number is the minimum number of YES votes required for the motion to pass. No complicated
figuring or carrying the resulting outcome to three decimal places required. And abstentions
clearly are not included.]

As we have seen before, adding more words to something in an attempt to "clarify" it often has
exactly the opposite effect. The current policy has served the Board in sterling fashion for a long
time; we see no need to change it, especially now that the current NC apparently understands
how it is supposed to work.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Like endless rain inside a paper cup since 1998

posted by merope at 6:00 AM 0 comments   
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Quiet As A Mouse
Where did they go?...its Your Daily Board Show!

SNAIL'S PACE: The November minutes were finally posted; except for the publication in the
permanent record of the embarrassingly incorrect Election Committee 2nd quarter report [which
was not corrected until the December meeting], they appear to be in order. NC Linda announced
that Darilee Bednar, Cyndie Enfinger, Sundee Maynez, Karen de Groote-Johnson, and Linda
Blum Barton will be the Board's mediators this year. Darilee and Cyndie are carry-overs from last
year; the rest have not previously served.

And that's about it. The Board has been rather inactive the last few days; perhaps they are all
engaged in festive holiday activities. Or in sekrit skullduggery. Take your pick.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Through thick and thin since 1998

posted by merope at 7:20 AM 0 comments   
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Going Through The Motions
Too tired to care...its Your Daily Board Show!

WRAPPING UP: NC Linda formally announced the results of the vote on Motion 05-24. As
reported here yesterday, the slate was accepted with 10 members voting to accept and 4 voting to
reject.

Linda also opened up the voting for the slate of mediators. Thus far, with 12 Board members
voting, there have been 12 votes each for "the first five that volunteered." It looks like Darilee,
Karen, the Other Linda, Cyndie and Sundee will be our new mediators.

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

posted by merope at 5:00 AM 2 comments   
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Mea Culpa
Quite the conundrum...its Your Daily Board Show!

THERE AND BACK AGAIN: Yesterday, half the Board rebelled against NC Linda's premature
decision to end the voting on Motion 05-24. Angie noted, "...announcing the results of a vote
effectively ends the voting, and having a 2/3 majority of a quorum doesn't necessarily mean that
the result would stand if the voting continued...The past precedent has been to announce the
results of the vote IF the results would be unchanged by further voting. It's not appropriate to end
a vote just because a quorum's been reached unless the vote results would still stand if all
members voted. That situation did not exist when the results were announced on this vote."
Suzanne noted, "I have not voted yet because I do not know any of the candidates on the slate
and I am still receiving emails from the CCs of the SEMA region. I was under the impression
that I would be allowed the time to do this." Mike noted, "I don't think the vote results should be
announced before the end of the voting period unless the vote result wouldn't change if all the
board members that could vote do vote as a block yea or nay." Jan noted, "The motion was over
before my vote had a chance to get in, within the time frame noted." David noted, "It is quite
possible that the vote would have ended up 8-6 if you had not cut it off. I thought that the NC
declared victory after there was no way the decision could be overturned by another vote." The
Other Linda noted, "I know what the Bylaws say and the SOP say - that is why I questioned this
vote...if the remaining AB members voted a certain way within the time period, the results would
have been different. This is the 2nd time that there has been a misunderstanding on the voting
process and I think we need to get it straightened out before we proceed. I totally disagree with
your logic on this."

At this point Jeff moved to "to reconsider the vote on motion # 05-24, based on percieved
misunderstandings of the Voting process," Jan seconded the motion, and Bettie cast her vote in
favor, "in hopes that the vote on this has not already been called & announced." NC Linda,
however, withdrew her closure of the completed voted and reopened the voting and later in the
evening published this explanation of her actions:

"I apologize for the confusion. I misunderstood the meaning of our Voting SOP. My post this
morning explains how I thought declaring a vote was suppose to work. My thanks to John
Schunk for taking the time to explain the correct procedure in detail. If I had read John's e-mail
before my post this morning I would have withdrawn my declaring of the vote then...The correct
method for declaring a vote during the 48 hour voting period is: A vote is be declared at any time
during the 48 hour voting period when enough votes have been cast that the remaining votes will
not change the outcome...When in doubt the date/time stamp of the vote will decide. Once we are
past this motion I would very much like to see the Voting SOP modified to more accurately
explain the above." After this message, Linda pointed out that Jeff's motion was no longer
necessary, and he agreed to withdraw it.

At press time this morning, all 14 Board members have voted, and the vote stands at 10 members
accepting the slate, and 4 rejecting it. A close shave for the EC, no doubt, but in the end they got
what they wanted, and with only a small amount of damage done to collegiality among the Board
members.

THE CONTINUING CRISIS: Still on the formal list, Board members continued to discuss the
issue of the mediators. NC Linda asked if anyone objected to Jeff's proposal to keep all six
volunteers and assign one as an alternate. Suzanne and Larry indicated that they have no
objection, but Bettie and Darilee pointed out that there really is no need for an alternate. [Thus
far, no one has pointed out that the mediation guidelines do not actually make allowance for an
"alternate" mediator.]

The discussion of limiting which grievances are permitted to go forward also continued on the
informal list. Cyndie noted that the mediation guidelines give the regional representatives the
option of basically intercepting the grievances and attempting to resolve them at a more local
level, and that if this process is succesful, no mediation would be required. Karen noted, "...the
grievance filed must contain the part of our law that was broken, in the grievant's opinion...the
AB needs to confirm that the grievance is filed under a breaking of USGW rules...At that point it
then goes into the Mediation process...Just because we receive a grievance doesn't automatically
mean it goes to mediation, it first must qualify to go to mediation...I do not see anywhere in the
Grievance Procedures that specifically says what type of membership is eligible to file a
grievance so I believe we cannot discriminate based on individual to individual. If the rules can
be broken by one individual against another individual then we must address it."

[Incidentally, our question the other day regarding incorrectly followed state grievance
procedures and what recourse an injured member would have in terms of a national level
intervention was answered in a lucid post by GPC co-Chair Scott Burow yesterday.]

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

posted by merope at 5:40 AM 0 comments   
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Lights On, No One Home
From the wrong side of the tracks...its Your Daily Board Show!

OVER BEFORE YOU KNOW IT: Once again, NC Linda has called the end to a vote when the
outcome is still in doubt. With slightly less than 24 hours remaining in the voting period and only
8 members having voted to accept the slate, Linda declared Motion 05-24 passed. At the time she
announced the results three members had voted to reject the slate [one more has since done so],
and had the remaining members been given time to vote and voted to reject the slate the motion
would have been defeated.

This is the second time Linda's decision to terminate a vote early has resulted in an outcome
pleasing to the Election Committee when it appeared that overall voting might not go in its favor.
Coincidence?

QUESTIONING AUTHORITY: The Other Linda was not pleased about the early termination of
the voting period and asked NC Linda to explain why she terminated the vote early in apparent
contradiction to the bylaws. This brought on another of Jeff Scism's long lectures about policy
and procedures, although the policy statement he referenced pretty much requires the NC to wait
to declare the outcome of a vote when the outcome is assured, not when both a quorum and a
personally desireable outome can be obtained by terminating the vote early. NC Linda has not
herself responded to this question, but since this is the second time she has done this, we would
assume the Board members are on notice to vote as early as possible if they may not be voting the
way their NC would like them to. Otherwise, she will cut off their opportunity to vote
prematurely.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG: In other business in the formal meeting, NC Linda asked for other
mediator volunteers before she called for a vote on the six current volunteers. There were none
by press time, but Jeff suggested just keeping all six of them and designating one an alternate.

On the informal list, Linda opened a discussion on grievances by asking whether or not the Board
should refer all grievances it receives to mediation or just "legitimate" ones. Jeff thinks only
"definite ( or probable) rules violations" should go to mediation, while Sundee thinks that all
grievances should go to mediation lest the membership accuse the Board of "playing favorites."
George noted, "I do think every *legitimate* grievance should go to mediation...The bylaws
require the AB to 'advise on issues related to grievances and appeals and to mediate, if necessary.'
In the case of non-legitimate grievances the AB would advise the grievant that the grievance is
not legitimate and that mediation is not necessary."

ASIDE: Yesterday, in a cryptic message on the Board's formal list, NC Linda noted that
"Christine's email is bouncing again." "Christine" is NJGenWeb SC Christine Goff. A month or
so ago, NJGW disappeared from the web for a brief time, apparently because someone hacked
the website on which it lived. Christine had moved and could not be contacted, although she was
eventually found and the website restored after she moved it to another server. The NJGW
website is still online so there is no immediate crisis, but apparently the SC is once again
incommunicado.

REBUTTAL: Yesterday, Keith Giddeon sent us this message, which he titled "Rebuttal", to
explain why he resigned his positions within USGenWeb. It is verbatim as he sent it, and the
opinions are his:

"It is very convenient how certain members of the higher echelons try to discredit someone who
makes a valid complaint about how things are done in USGenWeb. Here's a short version (sort
of) of what has transpired: I hear all the time that no one volunteers for positions within
USGenWeb. This is supposedly the reason The Clique is always in charge. A couple of months
ago Nola Duffy wrote to me asking (almost begging) me to volunteer for the EC given my
experience on the committee and my willingness to discuss issues. After a couple of weeks
giving it thought, I did indeed volunteer for the EC. I was not eager, or even pinning my hopes on
receiving a position. The EC is tough work, and my other projects would have suffered greatly if
I was appointed. However, I was willing to give it a go and help out. I received a nice receipt to
my volunteer message from Tina. Much later I received a message that I was not selected. I was
fine with that. The problem arose when I found out that a non-SEMA CC was selected. Now, I
do not know if anyone other than myself from SEMA volunteered, but I do know that a SEMA
CC should have been selected if there were one or more from which to choose. The EC makes
policy, may amend its own procedures, etc. This requires representation! Only in the vent of a
lack of volunteers from a specific region should a region lose true representation. So, whether I
was the only volunteer from SEMA, or there were others, a SEMA CC should have been
selected. My actions were not sour grapes, but my heartfelt conviction of what I thought was
right. Any other spin on this matter is simply a lie. And whoever is out there spreading this spin
is a liar. Plain and simple. I don't care who you are, you can no longer tag me with a MNIGS
label. So go frighten someone else."

BONUS QUOTE: "I never even knew there was a Board L. What type of stuff is discussed on
that list?" --Sandra Quinn, SC, OHGenWeb

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Separating the wheat from the chaff since 1998

posted by merope at 5:55 AM 0 comments   
Monday, December 05, 2005
One More For The Road
Monday comes too early...its Your Daily Board Show!

HONEY CATCHING FLIES: The vote on Motion 05-24 began yesterday and at press time 6
Board members had voted to accept the slate and one had voted to reject it.

[The announcement of the vote on this rather routine piece of business was enlivened somewhat
by a very public spat on the DISCUSS list between NC Linda and Keith Giddeon. Keith was
peeved because Betsy Mills, who is not in the SEMA region, was assigned to handle SEMA for
the EC. We are told by a little bird that Keith's real issue was that he was not selected for the EC
in this go-round and he feels that he should have been. Claiming that several people had
unsubbed from the DISCUSS list after he griped about the proposed slate, Linda told Keith to
drop the subject and after a couple of snarky emails directed at her and Project gadfly W. David
Samuelsen, Keith resigned from USGenWeb entirely.]

THE NEVERENDING STORY: A couple of birds tell us that Daryl Lytton has filed a grievance
against OHGW SC Sandra Quinn, for "Abuse of authority in wrongfully removing me as
OHGenWeb Adams County Coordinator; breach of OHGenWeb List Code of Ethics; and breach
of Sturgis Rights of Members "To have a fair hearing before expulsion or other penalties are
applied." A brief perusal of the OHGenWeb email list code of ethics indicates he might have a
point, but we imagine its probably a moot one. The Board is in no position to handle grievances
in a timely fashion, but even if it were we doubt that they would rule in his favor no matter what
the circumstances. We will note that we find it amusing that Daryl, who has fought doggedly to
prevent the use of Sturgis as the state's parliamentary authority, now cites it himself when under
duress, although we are not sure who this reflects upon worse: Daryl, who is grasping at obvious
straws to bolster his claim to remain an OHGW CC; or his detractors, who have supported using
Sturgis but who are now publicly applauding Sandy for bypassing its requirements to fire him.

Anyways, this brings up a question for the Grievance Procedures Committee, which has lapsed
into another period of silence. The GPC has been noodling around with the idea that in cases
where a state has an established formal policy for handling grievances, the national level
Grievance Committee should defer to the state processes in all cases. So, what happens if a
member claims that the state's formal grievance process was not followed? Would the national
level refuse to hear such a grievance because it was handled in the state, or would it hear only
cases that addressed the incorrect application of state guidelines and not the original grievance
itself? And should the GC find that the state did violate its own guidelines, what then? Would it
send the case back to the same state organization for a do-over or hear the original grievance
itself?

PEANUT GALLERY: The discussion of aliases continues on the SC list, although without much
apparent enthusiasm. A couple more SCs weighed in on the issue of informing the relevant SCs
when someone is suspected of using aliases, and one of them went so far as to suggest how the
Board might approach the issue overall:

"I cannot visualize a situation that would justify the use of aliases for registration to vote. I
believe a policy statement to that effect should be posted on appropriate regional lists and
STATE-COORD announcing that use of an alias by any USGenWeb member to register to vote
is a "one strike and you're out" position, then include a date after which enforcement will begin to
allow any person currently using an alias to come into compliance. I further believe that the EC's
only duty in this process is to report incidents to the AB. The AB could choose to appoint a
sub-committee to deal with instances of this, rather than have the entire AB involved for each
instance." --Larry Flesher

This is one of the more succinct positions we have seen on the topic of aliases and its generally
pretty lucid, although we might quibble with details. Any change in policy regarding aliases
should be posted to the national homepage in the volunteer guidelines and mailed to every
member of the Project, and not just to a handful of lists that very few people read. After all, they
use the EC's membership mailing list to sporadically mail out the newsletter, which is usually
useless, so we would think using it for an important matter such as this would be acceptable.
"One strike and you're out" sounds snazzy, but what would an offender be out of? USGenWeb?
The state organization? Neither are enforceable without the SC's compliance. This unfortunate
phraseology also smacks of one of the Board's never-ending punishments. We are also not sure
what "enforcement" means. What really can the Board enforce in this matter aside from
preventing offenders from voting or running for national office? But as far as baldly stating
exactly what the crime is, and how to begin to address it, Larry definitely has the gist of an idea.
And it steers entirely clear of the murky area of "intent."

This whole minimalist discussion on State-Coord-L has us wondering: why haven't these
questions and others been brought to the CCs on the regional lists and/or DISCUSS?

BONUS QUOTE: "As OHGenWeb state coordinator I have found your emails to the OHGen-L
list as belittling and degrading to me as State Coordinator. Because it is a requirement for
OHGenWeb CC's to be a member of OHGen-L, you are no longer an OHGenWeb CC. Please
remove the OHGenWeb and USGenWeb icons from your webpages." --Sandra Quinn, firing a
CC

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

posted by merope at 6:55 AM 4 comments   
Sunday, December 04, 2005
In A Pickle
My kingdom for a horse...its Your Daily Board Show!

CATCHING UP: On Friday the Board adjourned its November meeting. The December meeting
was called to order Saturday morning, with the following agenda:

"Dec meeting called to order [done, Dec 3]
Posting of Agenda for December [done Dec 3]
Announcement of time frame for Christmas Recess [done Dec 3]
Announcement of the posting of the minutes (approval etc) [half done, Dec 3]
Reports from standing committees
... Corrected 1st and 2nd EC reports [the 2005 second quarter report has been corrected and the
1st was removed from the agenda; see below]
... 3rd Qtr EC reports [submitted, Dec 3]
... Any others that are due
Unfinished business
... Motion to accept/reject EC's proposed slate of members
... Appointment of AB grievance mediators
... Decisions on pending grievances
... Aliases procedures / EC proposed guideline changes
........ Decision on whether to establish a committee or not
... Discussion of by-law committee
... Job Descriptions for appointed positions
... Job Descriptions for RAL
New business
... Discussion of Financial Procedures Committee
Announcements if any
Adjournment"

Several of these items are returning from past agendas, including the job descriptions, Financial
Procedures Committee, and the ever-morphing discussion of aliases.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: As the formal meeting opened for December, NC Linda announced that
the Board will "recess for the Christmas Holidays" from December 23rd through January 2.

OLD NEWS: NC Linda announced that Board Secretary Ellen Pack had sent her the minutes for
the November meeting [Nola should take lessons], and she would let the group know when Julie
posts them to the homepage.

ALL THINGS EC: Most of the remaining items of business concerned the Election Committee.
The EC buckled under Mike's firm resolve and forwarded a list of "initial assignments" for its
proposed slate of new members. [There has been no further action on Motion 05-24, which has
now been on the floor for five days, and we imagine from public comments by several Board
members that the EC is afraid it won't get its slate approved unless it appears a little more humble
and accomodating.]

NC Linda next announced that the EC's 1st quarter report was without blemish and removed it
from the agenda. The EC's embarrassing 2nd quarter report, however, was corrected by merely
removing the list of races and candidates from the document. NC Linda next forwarded the EC's
third quarter report, which appears as "cut 'n' pasted" as the other, but is apparently error-free. [A
small miracle, perhaps, but not one to be sneezed at.] These reports have not yet been posted to
the EC's website, and probably won't be for some time. [Apparently there is no one on the EC's
staff who can update its website in a timely fashion. We would think this is the Secretary's job,
but she apparently spends her time sending snarky messages to other Project volunteers.]

OFF WITH HIS HEAD: OHGenWeb SC Sandra Quinn publicly announced this morning that
she has fired a CC "for cause" for violating the OHGW email code of ethics, namely for
"belittling the OHSC" [herself] and posting messages from unhappy CCs at the beginning of her
tenure when she was running rampant through the state. Although she did not name the CC, we
are fairly certain the announcement refers to Daryl Lytton, since he is the only person who has
been publicly challenging her on the ongoing effort in OHGenWeb to establish state bylaws. We
have read his emails and seen little in them that is actually "belittling" or inaccurate [Sandy may
not wish to admit it, but she was acting a little like Lizzie Borden-ish back in the day]. Daryl's
offense seems to be merely that he is very tenacious and has focused his attention on the SC, who
has routinely denied every attempt he has made to get a motion on the floor. At least with Daryl
gone, OHGW can breathe a sigh of relief, since they have been spared the prospect of Nola Duffy
joining up just to duke it out with him.

TAKING IT TO THE STREETS: NC Linda has taken the alias discussion to the SC list and
asked the SCs to give her input on whether or when they would want to be involved in any
discussions of suspected aliases in their states, and what to do if the suspected alias is itself an SC
or ASC. Although few SCs have responded thus far, it is nearly unanimous among them that they
want to be notified as early as possible when an alias is suspected and they most certainly want to
be involved in any discussions of the matter. Here are some comments:

"the SC should be notified unless the SC is involved...the SC should be a part of the decision
making process since they oversee their state. If the SC is involved, then the SB [sic] should
handle it." --Patricia Scott

"Most of us have a life to live and don't have the time for this type of nonsense. Time would be
better spent in getting all of our membership to vote once! Then it wouldn't matter if there were
one or two 'bad appples.'" Betty Thomas

"I certainly do think that the SC should be notified and involved. Having lost a CC who had
always been very reliable and still knowing none of the facts other than she was accused
and...was attacked by a AB member or members for using aliases. I find it rather upsetting that
the AB did not trust me enough to even contact me when the suspicion of the CC using an alias
first came up...I was never offered the chance to compare the work that was done on any of the
pages where she was supposedly using an alias to see if they looked like her designing style...If I
am being accused as a SC of using an alias, I sure hope that I would be given the chance to prove
that it is not true. If the ASC for my state was using an alias, I again feel that I should be notified
and involved." --Lesley Shockey

"The AB should notify the SC of any irregularities. It should be up to the SC to handle it. If the
SC doesn't handle it...the national organization can deal with irregularities." --Susan Bellomo

We are beginning to believe that the EC's proposed procedures for handling aliases are pretty
much dead, and the only thing left to do now is give them a decent burial.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Speaking for the voiceless since 1998

posted by merope at 7:30 AM 0 comments   
Friday, December 02, 2005
Creme Puff
Crunchy on the outside...its Your Daily Board Show!

FIRST THINGS FIRST: The Board has spent much of the last day discussing that most
important of topics, when to recess for the Christmas/Hannukah/Solstice holidays. After much
back and forth on the informal list, it appears that they will forego the regular "end of the month"
November recess [good thing too, since November is history] and will instead take the week off
between December 23 and January 2.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS: Jan suggested adding mediator appointments, the EC reports, and
finishing up the EC slate to the December agenda. No further action has been taken on Motion
05-24 since we last went to press.

NONE OF US IS AS DUMB AS ALL OF US: The discussion of whether to move the discussion
of what to do about aliases continues apace. Several members [Jeff, Mike, Darilee, George]
support a working or special committee to tackle the issue; George went so far as to suggest a
subcommittee of four Board members to "wrestle this problem to the ground." He also suggested
that discussion take place on the public informal list and that the issue be resolved by December
22. Darilee suggested using chat sessions, rather than an email meeting, but there wasn't a lot of
enthusiasm for this approach. [We don't object to a subcommittee so long as it does not meet
secretly; after all, the Board has appeared perfectly willing to discuss this issue in public up to
this point and there is no reason to move it behind closed doors now.]

Along with the discussions of a committee, there was some general discussion of the issues
involving aliases. NC Linda noted that "...the aliases issue has been under discussion since not
long after we were seated and we do not seem to be getting anywhere...a committee made up of
people who are interested and are willing to devote their time might accomplish what we have
not." [Here Linda might be alluding to a committee of non-Board members, which is an
intriguing idea, but it's not clear that's what she meant, and in any case, she didn't pursue it.]
Cyndi, who doesn't think a committee is necessary, pointed out the various issues that need to be
addressed: "Define what an alias is with regards to the USGenWeb Project...Determine
how/where to specify that it is not permitted...Determine what part the EC will have in
identifying aliases...Determine how States/Special Projects will be notified of an alias
situation...Determine what penalty can or will be imposed upon an alias." Jeff noted "There are
issues which seem to be insolvable...We...can look at a situation and come to a conclusion...of
fraud. But without the ability to...conclusively prove beyond all doubt that a particular user did
indeed use aliases, I don't think we are there...The other issue is determining intent. We can easily
assume that a person is attempting to defraud, based on multiples of registries, but actually
knowing that they intended to commit fraud is a judgment call...if they are found top be
attempting to defraud the voting process...The only reasonable punishment would be expulsion.
If they are trying to undermine the structure of the project, then no reasonable organization would
give them more chances to succeed...In my view if they did attempt fraud...it would also apply
that they would reasonably try again. If they break such basic tenets of honesty, then there is no
rule they will not conceivably also break."

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: Jeff is one of the more enforcement-oriented Board members we
have seen in some time, but it would be more productive if the Board would keep to the
punishments it can inflict rather than rambling on about those it cannot. For instance, the Board
can prevent someone from running for national office and from voting in national elections, and
those seem like entirely adequate punishments for someone who uses aliases for the purposes of
gaining additional votes. Past that point, it should be up to the SCs to determine whether or not
they wish such a person to continue as a member of their local project, but beyond giving the SCs
the evidence it has to hand, the Board should not otherwise threaten or coerce the SCs to force
them to expel any member. Or, for that matter, punish them if they fail to do so.

We also think that it's not necessarily correct to assume that anyone using aliases to gain extra
votes is necessarily doing it to "undermine the structure of the project." We've always given the
usual suspects the benefit of the doubt in regards to their intent; when they attack fellow
volunteers, violate the bylaws and parliamentary procedures, hold secret trials, execute coups in
state projects, keep eligible members from voting for years, conduct endless secret meetings,
continue punishments indefinitely, routinely support SCs over CCs, publish passwords on
publicly available websites, blatantly show bias in list management, fail to live up to the terms of
their office, lie without shame, and any of the other myriad things we've seen them do over the
years, we have always assumed it was done to benefit the Project. Many, many people in this
world believe that the ends justify the means, and just because the outcome of any particular
means ends up actually harming USGenWeb, this is not de facto evidence that the intent was to
harm the Project.

Yes, one can argue that using aliases to get extra votes damages the integrity of the Project no
matter what the reason for doing it, and we wouldn't disagree with that, but we think its also the
case that most people do what they do to help USGenWeb, not to hurt it. For instance, back in the
day when Maggie "The Cat" Stewart was making up fake people for her census project [and
current EC Chair Tina Vickery was helping her], she wasn't doing it to hurt USGenWeb, she was
doing it to keep the barbarians outside the gates. If one makes "intent" an issue, one would have
to consider that the intent was to actually help the Project and act accordingly, regardless of what
the outcome of an action actually was. Jeff is correct in that determining "intent" is a judgement
call, and because of that it is ripe for abuse. We have seen first hand the bizarre judgement calls
our elected officers sometimes make, and we have no doubt that some Boards and/or Election
Committees will consider some peoples' intentions more believable than others. So we think its
better to just leave intent out of the mix.

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

posted by merope at 6:55 AM 0 comments   
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Nutty As A Fruitcake
Coming out of the woodwork...its Your Daily Board Show!

CLEAN SLATE: On the formal list, the Board continued to discuss the proposed EC slate. NC
Linda listed Nancy Janyszeski's positions in USGW and posted personal recommendations for
three slate members [for which she later, for some reason, apologized], David Morgan wondered
what happened to the two "at large" positions the EC used to have listed on its personnel site, and
Mike St. Clair posted an explanation of why he is asking questions of the EC regarding the
proposed slate. The Other Linda noted that there was at least one time in the recent past when the
EC did not provide information on the positions it intended new slate members to fill, but Mike
stuck to his guns and noted "It perhaps is something that has only been done for the annual
replenishing of the EC which takes place effective the first of each
calendar year, which 05-24 does for 2006. Perhaps the in between requests have not done this in
the past (e.g. 05-08), or perhaps this is just new change with 2005. I'd still prefer that the practice
continue unless there is some overriding reason not to." Bettie Wood [whose wit has been much
missed of late] remarked, "They can't seem to get us any EC reports on time, but can manage to
quickly throw some together since they want a slate approved...I am against the slate."

ALIAS REDUX: In the informal meeting, NC Linda posted a proposed agenda for December
that included first and foremost an announcement of the Christmas recess, and also included
minutes; committee reports; the EC slate; pending grievances; and discussion of aliases, a bylaws
revision committee, and various job descriptions. Accepting and/or correcting the EC's shoddy
reporting was not listed and neither were the mediator appointments.

Linda also suggested that a committee be formed to look into the alias issue, since the Board is
not making much headway on the topic. Suzanne Shepard thought this was a fine idea, but Jeff
Scism dismissed the idea and noted but five simple areas that the Board needs to address: proving
an alias is used; tracing it back to the actual offender; establishing "intent to defraud"; instituting
a rule to deal with such malfeasance; and, in Jeff's own words, "the BIGGY"; establishing
"authority over State Orgs which allows the Board to tell them to expel a member." [Sometimes
we wonder about that boy. He's got a good thing going, making some sense, and then he goes and
blows it on a useless piece of lunacy that basically makes the solution worse than the problem.
Oy vey.]

TUFTED TITMOUSE: Yesterday, among the usual blather we find in our inbox on a normal day
was a lengthy missive from the EC's newest poster child for embarrassing behavior, Nola Duffy.
She wrote to take us to task for repeating some bird song we heard regarding one of the proposed
new EC members. While lecturing us on our personal standards, praising the virtues of the
proposed slate member, remarking on her own admirable probity, threatening lawsuits, and
treating us to a recap of her recent personal and health history in nauseating detail, she questioned
why we would ever think anyone in their right minds would do extra work for the EC. Silly us.
We just figured that someone who would take on a county in a state in which she has no
genealogical interest whatsoever in order to harrass another project volunteer is a glutton for
punishment. Or off her meds, one or the other.

Oh, and just before she rode off on the same high horse she rode in on, Nola did manage to let
drop the information that if she were to just maybe perhaps leave the EC before her term is up, it
would of course be entirely due to other circumstances and not because she has just maybe
perhaps manufactured a way she can stay on the EC for an additional term. Just so you know.

BONUS QUOTE: "The person...is someone I have corresponded with and worked with
because...we do share a very distant common ancestry. In this case, our closest common ancestor
was born in 1722 in VA...As an almost comical aside, the one person who has spent the most
time damning me since I first joined the USGenWeb Project also shares about the same family
relationship. I am not proud of it and they would be horrified if they knew." --Nola Duffy

[We wonder what lucky USGenWebber is related to this ninny. Our condolences, whoever you
are.]

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Gathering no moss since 1998

posted by merope at 5:15 AM 2 comments