FEBRUARY 2006 DBS Monday, February 27, 2006 Put Up Or Shut Up Pedal to the metal...its Your Daily Board Show! LOOSE ENDS: The Board's comments since last press time were few. David and Bettie went back and forth on what to do if turns out that lots of volunteers want to be RAL. David thinks letting them all have a shot at it is the fairest thing to do; Bettie thinks an election with a lot of candidates is not a "fair reading" of the membership's desires when too many people are on the ballot. Jeff thinks if there are a lot of volunteers, the Board should hold an actual, for-real election instead of appointing the replacement member. Angie basically agreed with David and noted that its not really true choice of the membership if the Board gets to choose who is on the ballot before any votes are cast. Two Board members have now commented on the "Friends Of" logos issue. Both Bettie and Jeff are fine with having a "Friends of" logo and with having a new one designed. IF IT AIN'T BROKEN, FIX IT ANYWAYS: It appears that Jeff never met a phrase he didn't feel could be made longer, wordier, and more obtuse. Yesterday, apparently from out of the blue, he decided that this simple phrase from the Board's standing procedures: "This Board will use The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure, by Alice Sturgis as its parliamentary authority, modified to adapt to the particular needs of conducting a meeting via an email list." needs to be changed into this: "The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure, by Alice Sturgis, latest edition, governs in all parliamentary situations, acted on by The USGenWeb Project Advisory Board, that are not provided for in the law, or in its charter, bylaws or adopted rules, if any, and may be modified to adapt to the needs of The USGenWeb Project. State and Special Projects should consider adopting the same standard to avoid conflicts with National procedures." ref. Motion 01-35." Apparently, this will clear up any confusion or misperceptions any of us might have about the use of Sturgis in USGenWeb Board meetings or other situations. Although we were not aware that confusion and misperception were running rampant, we feel better already. As it turns out though, this little sudden burst of creativity on the part of our NENC representative is not as out-of-context as it appears. He's been having a discussion over on his regional list with a member about the propriety of his own personal set of bylaws revisions. He is still shopping these around looking for state sponsorship to get them on the July ballot, but we haven't heard of any states that have signed on to sponsor them and the only discussion, such as it is, is occurring on the NENC regional list. Jeff has been trying diligently to explain his very bizarre interpretation of the bylaws and of Sturgis, and of how his revisions would be handled under a combination of those two and prior precedent, and his primary debator, Scott Anderson, is pointing out repeatedly that 1) his interpretation of both the bylaws and Sturgies is basically wrong, and 2) his proposed bylaws will grant extraordinary powers to the Board to amend the Project's bylaws whenever they want. What this basically boils down to is that Jeff is talking, excessively and in a most diverting fashion, about procedures and Scott is discussing the very scary substance of Jeff's proposed bylaws. Its worth a read if you have a few spare minutes. TIT FOR TAT: Over on the alternate CC list, Fred Smoot and NC Linda are entertaining us all with their latest tiff. Apparently, after Linda told Fred to stay on topic on the SC list, he unsubbed from the list. Linda told him, basically, "tough nougies" and resubbed him. He unsubbed again and took their private conversation public on the alternate CC list, where Fred has strummed his usual anti-Archives tune and Linda has vaguely threatened him with being "out of compliance." [With what we don't know. The bylaws do not require that Assistant State Coordinators be subscribed to the State Coordinator list.] Anyways, now that they have both beat their chests for our benefit, we imagine the whole thing will die down. Fred has had his soapbox yet again and again called for Linda's resignation and he's avoided the ignomy of being moderated on the SC list with a grand exit. Linda has been able to publicly call Fred on the carpet on two lists without any danger of having to actually do anything about it. So everyone is happy. -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Little people fighting each other since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:15 AM 0 comments Sunday, February 26, 2006 Wasting Away Again In Margaritaville One more for the road...its Your Daily Board Show! YIKES: Man, we step away from the newsroom for a minute and everyone suddenly decides they have something to say. We'll summarize the salient bits since most of it was very repetitive. In the formal Board meeting, there was a bit more discussion of how to select the replacement for the recently departed RAL. After no debate whatsoever, the clear favorite among the options was to have a preference poll, and NC Linda has already told the EC to prepare to run one. It looks like once the call for volunteers has gone out, there will be a ten day window to accept nominations and then a ten day voting period. The call for nominations will go out as soon as the EC can provide a time frame for the poll. Bettie wondered if the Board might perhaps be allowed to do a bit of weeding if the number of nominations for the seat is large. SWEEPING UP: On the informal list, NC Linda asked the Board if it could see its way to wrapping up the "Friends of" logo issue. She asked for objections to having a "friends of" logo on the national site and if they should design new logos since the designers of the old ones can't be contacted [and the old logos are teh suq]. There have been no comments by any Board members on this topic. MOVING FORWARD: Also on the chat list, Linda asked for some input on the March agenda. Specifically, she asked whether a few items that have been on the agenda for several months [six months for some of them] and never addressed by the Board should be dropped from future agendas. These are the "job description" items and the Financial Procedures Committee [which, now that David Samuelsen has given back the money he was using to force the Board to discuss this, is apparently a redheaded stepchild]. Thus far, one Board member recommends dropping them; no one else has commented. Also poised to make appearances in the March agenda are the reports of the Voter Fraud and Grievance Procedures committees and discussion of their proposals, a vote on the VFC's proposed EC guidelines, discussion of the FGS membership and the "non-resolution of grievances", and yet another straw poll on ABChat, this time on an "official logo resizing statement." MEDDLING: It seems the State Coordinators have taken a rather intense interest in the proposed CC guidelines. They seem to care about them more than the CCs, actually. [These are the same guidelines that on the CC lists have provoked something like five comments in the last three days. The count on the SC website was nearing 50 at last count.] Several of the SCs have decided that CCs should be forced to have search engines on their pages, regardless of whether or not there is anything there to search [ie, data are stored offsite in the Archives or in some other data repository, or the site is more a lookup/query site]. Now, there is nothing preventing any state organization from adding a local search engine requirement for its members, so any SCs that feel strongly about this are free to float it past their own CCs for inclusion in their local state guidelines. There's no reason to make a national level rule. [Although we do find it infinitely amusing to watch David Samuelsen claim yet again that genealogists ignore sites without search engines. I bet they also ignore all those pesky old courthouse records that aren't indexed. He's a silly man.] NC Linda reasonably suggested making a site-specific search engine a recommendation in the CC guidelines, but that idea was met with near complete indifference. Tempers appear to be flaring a bit, and at least one ASC unsubscribed from the list after NC Linda chastised him for getting off-topic. We wonder if the SCs will be as happy to accept CC input to the SC guidelines as they are to give input to the CC guidelines. Somehow, we think not. -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Varnishing the truth since 1998 Posted by merope at 4:05 PM 0 comments Saturday, February 25, 2006 Sweet Sorrow So long and thanks for all the fish...its Your Daily Board Show! FIXING A HOLE WHERE THE RAIN COMES IN: Following the resignation of RAL Mike St. Clair yesterday, NC Linda asked the remaining Board how they would prefer to fill his seat. Thus far one Board member has opted for giving the seat to the runner-up from the last election [bleh], one has suggested soliciting for volunteers and appointing someone from that pool, and seven recommended conducting a preference poll of the membership. So, it looks like n00b EC Chair Lori Thornton will shortly be managing her first psuedo-election. Several Board members wished Mike well and noted how sorry they were that he had resigned. [Mike has also posted a farewell and apology to the regional lists and the CC discussion list, although an apology really wasn't necessary.] SECOND PASS: NC Linda has posted a revised draft of her proposed CC guidelines. They are here: http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/cc_guidelines.html So far, only the State Coordinators have expressed any interest in them. -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Outlasting them all since 1998 Posted by merope at 7:00 AM 1 comments Friday, February 24, 2006 The Yawning Abyss Talking out of school...its Your Daily Board Show! BIG NEWS: Citing personal reasons, Representative At Large Mike St. Clair has resigned from the Board, effective upon acceptance. Although David and Jeff looked like they were about to get into it over whether his resignation was effective immediately or not, NC Linda nipped that issue in the bud by formally accepting Mike's resignation early this morning. While we are saddened by this news, we are not much surprised by it. Mike has been unusually quiet for many weeks now and has been more or less absent from the Board's public discussions. His absence, of course, leaves an empty seat and a new agenda item for the Board. We wonder if Betsy "Color of Jerk" Mills still wants the job? SAME OLD SAME OLD: The Board continued to discuss the proposed Board procedure for handling suspected voter fraud. Not much new was brought into the discussion. Angie doesn't mind using the theoretical Grievance Committee to investigate alleged fraudulent registrations, but thinks the GC would need to develop specific procedures for it and that the approval of the present proposal should wait until we actually have a Grievance Committee. David, The Other Linda, and Bettie think that any mention of the Grievance Committee should be removed from the document and the responsibility of handling fraud should remain with the Board. The Other Linda noted in particular that she has also been unable to get anyone from the Voter Fraud Committee to address her questions as to why the Grievance Committee was included or how it was envisioned that the GC would handle allegations of voter fraud. Darilee chimed in with an interesting speculation that "...the GC was to serve as an investigative arm of the AB in regards to possible use of aliases/ voter fraud...if the GC finds there is a problem then the AB will act on the GC recommendations...just like in grievances and mediation. Done quietly, politely, and non-judgmental." Cyndi, who is the first member of the VFC to publicly address anyone since questions started being asked confirmed Darilee's speculation and noted, "We looked at what the Grievance Committee has come up with and felt the AB would still be making the final determination. The GC would have served to investigate it and give an opinion." [This rather abruptly changes the nature and focus of the "Grievance Committee", which is currently envisioned to handle grievances, not investigate suspected crimes. The two are entirely different animals, and we imagine the risk that people will just come to consider the GC to be the Board's KGB will be great.] Cyndi also informed everyone that their concerns had been noted and the proposal had been returned to the VFC for revision. Some time later, NC Linda also returned the proposal to the VFC and replaced Mike on the VFC with The Other Linda. The committee's new report is due on March 18. BONUS QUOTE: "There are only TWO colors on the internet -- "nice" and "jerk" -- and those colors shine through every note you write. The great thing about these colors are that you have the ability to change your color anytime you want to. Which color are you?" --Betsy Mills -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Keeping the wolf from the door since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:00 AM 0 comments Wednesday, February 22, 2006 How Now Brown Cow Only Wednesday...its Your Daily Board Show! NOT SO FAST: NC Linda asked the Board members for additional comments before she sent the proposed changes to the EC guidelines and the proposed Board procedures back to the VFC for revision. A couple of members had no comment on the EC procedures and one other had no comment on the proposed Board procedures. Two other members however have questioned the inclusion of the as-now theoretical Grievance Committee in the procedures for handling fraudulent registrations. In an eerie echo of our own concerns, The Other Linda noted, "I would like to hear from the committee members concerning why they feel the AB's responsibility...is to turn this over to the grievance committee...How do you think mediation would work under these circumstances? Is the GC going to be directed to formulate specific rules for dealing with cases such as this? Since we don't currently have a GC, it's hard to imagine exactly what their responsibility would be in cases of fraudulent voting or registration...Would it not be better to specify some action that will apply to anyone proven to be registering fraudulently rather than leaving it open to interpretation?" Jeff similarly noted, "...the Grievance procedures should be focused on intra-project, person to person complaints. The fraud issue...really isn't a grievance issue at all, it is a issue of direct rules violation...Rules violations would normally come under the discipline procedures, and would not be mediated, they would be either a no-violation or violation based on evidence...and would not have a plaintiff (complainant) or a respondent, except in the manner in which a accused person would be a respondent in a rules case...Sturgis has the process outlined for matters which are serious enough to consider expulsion. I suggest we look at them and implement them as a guideline in the Fraud matter, rather than throw that issue into "Grievances". As of yet, although they have been asked several times publicly and privately, the members of the VFC have remained silent on their reasoning for including the GC in the process. It does appear that the tide is turning against their proposal, insofar as it shoves the responsibility off onto ill-suited grievance procedures, and without some compelling explanation as to why they included these provisions, it is likely that they will be asked to remove the GC from the proposal. PEANUTS FOR THE GALLERY: NC Linda posted both sets of proposed changes to the several discussion lists for member comment. There has been only a small bit of discussion on the SWSC list; the other lists have not responded to her request for comments. Public sentiment, minimal though it is, also seems to be against handling suspected fraud cases as grievances. The dearth of public interest leads us to consider that this topic is not of vital concern to the membership, perhaps because fraudulent registrations aren't a big enough deal to break a sweat over, or perhaps because the proposed changes are innocuous enough that they haven't raised any alarms. We are personally very ambivalent about the proposed procedures for the Board to follow, both because they are likely to lead to inconsistent outcomes between cases and because we don't see a crying need for instituting another complicated procedure. It might be enough to simply change the EC guidelines as suggested. This may prevent some of the abuses of its mandate we have seen from the EC in the recent past, simply by requiring it to contact all relevant parties, including the Board, the state and special project leadership, and the accused, and preventing it from removing suspected fraudulent names from the voter rolls until a finding has been issued by the Board. As we recall, most people who were concerned about the issues surrounding the Captain Alias issue were upset at the EC's wholesale violation of its own guidelines, the removal of names from the voter rolls prior to a finding that fraud had indeed occurred, and their failure to notify the accused and her SC(s) prior to determining her guilt or to involve her in any fashion in its "fact finding" investigation. [The Board was also guilty of this, twice, but we are given to understand that was at the urging of the EC Chair; it is not likely they will make that mistake again.] So, perhaps it is the case that if the Board fixes the EC, they also fix the problems that actually matter to the membership. -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Definitively definitive since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:05 AM 1 comments Tuesday, February 21, 2006 Sea of Confusion Reading the fine print...its Your Daily Board Show! EGG ON OUR FACE: The Board continued to discuss the proposed voter fraud procedures. NC Linda pointed out that the published proposals do include instruction on the how the Board is to proceed in the case that it has no Grievance Committee. [It is at the end of the document, and yes, we read it, but for some reason interpreted it somewhat differently from how it was intended. Our bad.] George Waller suggested that the Representative At Large, in their position as representative of all project members, would be a more suitable plaintiff in the "grievance" procedure than the EC Chair. HOW WILL THIS WORK EXACTLY?: We are still unable to figure out how either the current "grievance procedures guidelines" [which, incidentally, a search of the linked page will not find; perhaps they meant the "mediation procedures"] or anything the Grievance Procedures Committee might develop will work. Let's suppose the EC accuses us of registering more than once. Under the current mediation procedures and assuming that Mike St. Clair will be our worthy adversary in the process, we meet under the guidance of one of the Board mediators. [Yes, just one. Who gets to decide if we are guilty or innocent. Might that situation be ripe for a little abuse?] If the EC is mistaken and we have not fraudulently registered, then we are innocent and have no incentive to compromise in any way. We have done nothing and should not be made to pay for the EC's error merely for the sake of resolution. If the EC actually has good evidence that we are guilty, why would Mike offer us any compromise at all? We have committed a serious offense and there should be a clear penalty for that, not something thing might change from instance to instance with the identities of the plaintiff, the defendant, and the mediators. [And if you think the Board doesn't dispense justice based on identity, we have a bridge we'd like to unload. Special price. Today only.] If the VFC intended that the mediation procedures be used as a fact-finding exercise and that the mediators determine the validity of the evidence against the accused and the strength of the challenges to that evidence and determine the appropriate penalty, then this should be clearly indicated in the voter fraud procedures, the mediation procedures, and the Grievance Committee procedures [if we ever have a GC]. We would prefer that the Board establish some sort of clear procedures for such an exercise and that clear penalties be determined and placed in the procedures so that members know that everyone accused and convicted will be treated the same regardless of the identities of any of the parties. But what do we know? We've sent these suggestions off to our elected representatives. We have no real hope of hearing back from them, but maybe at least a couple of them will think about the repercussions of just foisting these potentially very complicated and difficult situations off on one poor mediator and forcing the accused to accept whatever inquisitor the dice rolls for them. -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Shaking in our shoes since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:15 AM 0 comments Monday, February 20, 2006 From Whole Cloth Sweatin' to the oldies...its Your Daily Board Show! MAKING IT UP AS THEY GO ALONG: After a couple of days of near silence, at least publicly, on the Voter Fraud Committee reports, the Board blossomed into a semblance of discussion on the topic last night. Angie found the proposed Advisory Board procedures "reasonable" and found no problem with having the theoretical Grievance Committee involved, since "someone who deliberately attempts to fraudulently register to vote is basically committing an infraction against every honest member of our project." She did note, however, that "it might be logical to hold off...putting this into effect until after the GPC has...submitted its report to the Board...if the AB decides not to approve the procedures submitted by the GPC, there won't be a grievance committee to investigate or hear the allegations." George suggested modifying the procedures to remove references to a specific "Grievance Committee" and replace them with references to "AB grievance procedures." David liked this idea, but then Cyndie suddenly "remembered" that the VFC had already come up with some procedure for this circumstance while closeted under deep cover but that it somehow hadn't made it into the final report. This jogged George's memory and he claimed that he would "investigate" the matter, and also asked NC Linda if she remembered the discussion. George also noted "Regarding the defendant/plaintiff/grievance question the answer isn't easy and we neglected to account for it." He suggested that the defendant(s) would be the member(s) who are suspected of attempting to fraudulently register and the plaintiff would be the Chair of the Election Committee. [He rejected the NC and/or any Board members as plaintiff, because they "already have a role in the process", but then so does the EC Chair. The EC will most likely be the accuser, and it will be the investigative arm in this instance--remember that provision in the proposed EC guidelines that permits the EC to investigate anyone who chooses to register to vote. They will, in effect, be the prosecutor. We are still are completely confused how this will work in the mediation phase of the grievance process.] In other news, the "Friends" logos issue was revived for a couple of posts. The Other Linda noted that the logos page was also linked to a directory of sites that displayed the logos and to a comments page, both of which could involve time-consuming maintenance for the web team. She asked who adopted this approach and why. Angie noted that "The idea was that webmasters/pages that aren't directly affiliated with the project, but support the project's goals, could display a logo that showed their support...there would be reciprocal links between the pages." -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Yanking chains since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:20 AM 0 comments Sunday, February 19, 2006 Tainted Love Con mucho gusto...its Your Daily Board Show! DAMNING WITH FAINT PRAISE: The public response of the Board to the Voter Fraud Committee's two recommendations has been, shall we say, underwhelming. David Morgan, who is thus far the only Board member to have commented on the proposals, likes them both far more than he expected to. In particular, he noted of the proposed changes to the EC guidelines, "This is much better than the proposal set forth by the Election Committee." He suggested that the Grievance Committee be removed from the set of proposals involving the Advisory Board's procedures, and recommended that, "In a case of possible fraud, the full AB should be notified, and the full AB should decide." David is also the only Board member who responded to our inquiry about why the Grievance Committee was included in the procedures. His comments were similar to those he posted to the informal Board list. SHOT IN THE FOOT: After yesterday's DBS, USGenNet helpfully published a series of emails, screenshots, and scans of various things in an apparent effort to defend its actions against Charles "Little Dog" Barnum and further assassinate his character. They are posted here: http://www.usgennet.org/usgnhome/business/barnum_documentation.html We'll note a couple of things right off the bat. The first "document" contains some excerpts of an email that Charles sent to several recipients back at the end of January. We happen to have been one of them, so we have a copy of the full email, and its nowhere near as snarky and trouble-making as USGenNet would have you believe. Charles wanted to make a site that would link directly to all county data wherever it may be held [although he excepted the Archives from this]. He asked his correspondents to let him know what they thought of this idea: "What if we established a web site that listed every database on USGENWEB Counties? It would have a list of states and under the states a list of counties, and under counties a list of links to databases. I do not mean we would invite people to submit links to us; we would just collect them state-by-state. If you could see the web site name, you’d understand. Our site would have no Byheehaws, no advisory board, no guidelines, no copyright statement, no logos and no State Coordinators. It would not be a web ring and no one would have to link to us. The county coordinators could do as the see fit or even resign from USGW, but their links would remain as long as they were valid links. No, I am not talking about stealing data. We’d collect links to counties databases—not data. This is not an easy assignment. I built one for a state awhile back, and I’ve learned from that. I’d pay for the domain name but I need no-strings attached web space. I can’t do it alone. Fifty volunteers would be optimum but I’d take 10 dedicated volunteers. Would it draw visitors? Yes, in time. Cream rises to the top. Remember Cyndi’s list? That used to be a good until it became a list of commercial sites. Ours will be 1000% better. If you are interested and wiling to take risks, contact me. You’ll find me in NM." We have no idea what any of Charles' recipients thought of his proposal, but apparently one of them thought enough of it to forward it to USGenNet, which promptly took away his web space, message boards, and mailing lists. The second item of interest is something that isn't actually posted. It is blinding in its omission. Although Ginger claimed in her message to the USGenWeb National Coordinator to have received a complain about Charles' page, this alleged complaint nowhere appears on this documentation site. Nor is there any documentation that this [probably imaginary] complaint was ever forwarded to Charles in order to give him a chance to change the page. Of course, since he never saw the complaint, USGenNet is unable to document his refusal to comply with its rules when asked. The astute reader will also notice something else interesting. Ginger wrote to Linda on February 4 asking about Charles' site. Linda wrote back on February 7 to say basically that she didn't know nuthin' 'bout nuthin' and the site wasn't an "official USGenWeb site." Charles, however, lost his web space on February 6, the day before USGenNet heard back from USGenWeb about the site. We will note here that NC Linda did not say that Charles was violating the use of USGenWeb's trademark; USGenNet made that leap of reason all on their own. Nor did she complain about Charles' site or ask that it be taken down or that any other action be taken on behalf of USGenWeb. [The DBS thanks Linda for writing to us on this matter. We are more than happy to stand corrected.] The various screenshots purport to show the violations of which Charles was accused. One is a screenshot of his webpage which contains the word "USGenWeb" a few times and the "trademarked and copyrighted" phrase "USGenWeb County Archives." We don't know why Charles claimed to have trademarked that phrase, other than that he is given to a bit of hyperbole now and again [and yes, we are being ironically understated]. The other screenshots are of his ftp directory and we have no idea what they are intended to show, other than that he had directories for each of the NM counties. Having a directory of counties is not apparently a violation of USGenNet's service agreement, nor do they claim this as a violation in the letter that explains to him exactly why his account was terminated. In fact, the only reason they give for terminating the account is an alleged trademark violation, which again is something petty and easily fixed. We would think the only entity capable of claiming that a trademark violation has occurred would be the holder of the trademark, and we reiterate that no such claim was made by USGenWeb. So in other words, USGenNet for reasons most probably relating to helping Karen Mitchell get rid of a troublesome burr under her saddle, just went looking for a reason to yank Charles' webspace. Someone dropped them the lovely gift of Charles' proposed project and they used it to go medieval on him. Karen is a Great Good Friend of many of the AHGP and USGenNet folks and she and Charles have locked horns in three separate projects over the last few years, so it must be quite nice to have friends with the ability to torment and harrass him on her behalf. And it is so comforting to see good old fashioned USGenWeb/Root$web-style pit bull take-no-prisoners tactics showing up in other projects. Imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery. -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show With a bluebird on our shoulder since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:45 AM 0 comments Saturday, February 18, 2006 Looking A Gift Horse In The Mouth Get with the program...its Your Daily Board Show THE OLD COLLEGE TRY: In an attempt to gain enough sponsorship to force them onto the July ballot, Jeff Scism has posted his proposed rewrite of the entire bylaws to this URL: http://www.rootsweb.com/~inmontgo/bylaws/ You've seen these before; they are the same ones he's posted previously which received such underwhelming interest. The link has not been widely forwarded. It has not been posted to DISCUSS, the SC list, or three of the regional lists. The proposal has appeared on only one regional list [Jeff's], but has garnered no public comments. It only ended up on the alternate CC list because someone forwarded it there. Although it has been discussed there a bit, Jeff has not answered any of the many questions posed by list members. It has appeared on only one state list that we know of, where it was inaccurately positioned as something "produced by a committee of Project members, working over a period of several months". [Jeff wrote it all by his lonesome.] HOUR OF TRUTH: The Voter Fraud Committee has submitted its recommendations for handling suspected voter registration fraud to the Board. [And on time to boot. Woot!] The suggestions contain both rule changes for the Election Committee and suggested procedural changes for the Board to follow when a suspected alias is discovered. In the main, both the rule changes and the new procedures require that both state and special project leadership and the accused be notified promptly. The EC rule changes enjoin the EC from removing any names from the voter rolls until the Board has made a decision in the matter, requires them to notify relevant parties immediately when a suspected fraud is discovered or a suspicion is raised, and gives the EC the right to investigate all members who register to vote. The Board's procedures are more interesting. It is also required to notify everyone and their grandmother, but the Board's first action after notifying all relevant parties is to send the entire matter to the "Grievance Committee" to be handled according to its procedures. Why suspected fraudulent registration is positioned as a "grievance" is not clear. Such an activity would actually be a clear violation of both long-standing USGenWeb policy and the rules set forth in the document, not a grievance. What the committee was most likely trying to do here is remove the actual determination of guilt from the Board itself and foist it off onto the "Grievance Committee", which can then varnish the proceedings with the semblance of objectivity. [This a risky strategy, since the mediation/arbritration procedures currently under discussion on the GPC involve an unknown number of volunteers, who will presumably not be known to the Board a priori to a fraud case. Of course, we don't actually have a Grievance Committee yet and given the way the Board works sometimes, we may never have one. While it might be wise to hold off requiring the participation of an ephemeral committee until such time as the Board actually has such a committee in its pocket, apparently the VFC is willing to take the risk that the next time we have a Captain Alias on our hands, some sort of Grievance Committee with established procedures will exist. If not, we suppose the NC can always appoint one on the fly.] We have asked the committee to explain to us how they envision such a grievance working, even under the current guidelines which require mediation. Who is the plaintiff and who is the defendant? Will someone suspected of fraudulent registration face the EC in mediation or the Board or whoever it is that turned them in? Or will the suspected alias be the defendant? Since the defendant will have allegedly violated USGenWeb policy, who gets to decide on the Project's behalf what is an acceptable compromise with which to approach mediation with the suspect? Should mediation fail, what then? Does the matter get remanded to the Board? What will happen if there is no Grievance Committee in existence when fraud is suspected? After the Grievance Committee has done its theoretical thing, the passed buck comes full circle and the Board will then get to the make the decision on what to do about it. Other than possibly removing aliases from the voter rolls, specific penalties for the alleged perpetrator are not mentioned. SEPARATED AT BIRTH: A kindly stranger sent us a copy of an email recently sent from Ginger Cisewski, President of USGenNet, to Charles Barnum, currently the whipping boy for two projects and a webspace provider. Apparently, they sent us this to illustrate how richly Charles deserved his comeuppance [being fired by AHGP and having all his web space, message boards, and mailing lists stripped from him without so much as a by-your-leave], but the ultimate effect was opposite from what they intended. Aside from the legal muttering about how USGenNet can elect to terminate anyone's services at will, the main point in the message boils down to the fact that they terminated Charles' services because he used the trademarked word "USGenWeb" in naming his new dataset linking project. Did Charles receive any complaints about this personally? No. Did USGenNet forward the one complaint it received to him so that he could correct the problem? No. Did USGenNet elect to terminate his service without any notice whatsoever? You betcha! Does this sound like anyone else we know? It surely does. In fact, one might be forgiven for double-checking the email to verify that it did not originate from some low level flunky with social skills issues at Root$web. As it turns out the one complaint that USGenNet received about the trademark was from the National Coordinator of the USGenWeb Project. Now, on any normal day, most USGenNet folks and their various hangers-on would be more than happy to tell Linda Haas Davenport where she can stick her trademark. But not this time. You have to wonder why exactly USGenNet didn't choose to give one of its subscribers at least a courtesy opportunity to fix his webpages of a truly petty problem instead of bending over backwards to purge him at the bidding of someone wholly unconnected to USGenNet. Its also very interesting that USGenNet would assist USGenWeb in enforcing a trademark that Charles, as a USGenWeb Project member in good standing, has every right to use. [Unless we are mistaken, the bylaws grant any USGenWeb member full rights to use the trademark for USGenWeb-related pages, and Charles was certainly creating a new USGenWeb resource.] Another double-take occurred when Charles told us that he has been trying to get data removed from Fred Smoot's U.S. Data Repository for some time now, and his requests have been ignored. As of yesterday, Charles' data was still available online in the NM section of USGenNet, which as coincidence would have it is managed by none other than Karen Mitchell, Charles' nemesis in the the New Mexico part of USGenWeb. [The files are gone today, but we suspect that once this all blows over, they will reappear.] The only data in the entire state was provided by Charles and removing it would certainly leave a big hole. This not only sounds like Root$web, it sounds like the Archives. Strange doings, indeed. -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Crying in the wildnerness since 1998 Posted by merope at 7:50 AM 3 comments Thursday, February 16, 2006 Fritter And Waste The Hours In An Offhand Way All peaks and valleys...its Your Daily Board Show! NOT NECESSARILY THE NEWS: Not much has gone on since last we published. The Board has discussed the "friends" logo a bit, but only in a somewhat desultory fashion. No one seems much interested in it. Bettie wondered who was interested in it, Linda reminded her of their recent discussion on EXEC, and David Morgan suggested that in lieu of being able to find the creators of the logos they just design a new one. About the most newsworthy thing to come out of their chitty chat is that they've previously discussed the issue in the Sekrit Sandbox, the same Sekrit Sandbox that our apparently truth-challenged NC told us would only be used for a very small number of discussions requiring confidentiality, and then only when we were informed first that they were going into session. We have a hard time figuring out how a discussion of old, cruddy, and mostly forgotten logos requires secrecy, but there you have it. It was, of course, foolish on our part to hope that this time might be different, but we can be grateful for the small mercies. At least they occasionally admit openly they've been discussing nonconfidential issues on the secret list. Past Boards' approach to the issue has usually been something along the lines of, "BOARD-EXEC doesn't exist, and if it did exist we never use it, and if we are caught using it it's only rarely and only when confidentiality is paramount, and if it turns out we use it more than the public list and mostly just to badmouth and plot against our fellow volunteers, well, it's none of your damn business anyways." CHANGING FACES: As expected, former Board member Heather de George has been elected the new state coordinator of the NJGW. It's becoming fairly obvious that running against a current or former Board member for a local office is just about pointless. STIRRING THE POT: For some reason, NC Linda opened a new can of worms on the SC list. This time she wanted to know what the SCs think of allowing multiple official sites for the same county. No existing USGenWeb policy forbids this and there are a couple of states that currently do have a handful of complementary county sites. We thought this would be a slam dunk outcome, since whenever this has come up in the past, people have been outraged by the very idea of allowing two separate sites for the same local area. But the opinions of the SCs who have responded thus far are about evenly divided, some are fer it, some are agin it, and some wondered what Root$web would do. Of course, we did have the one SC who expended a page worth of invective about some fictional coordinator who makes up alternate sites for every county in her state in order to get votes [she apparently doesn't realize that allowing complementary sites is not the same as requiring them], and David Samuelsen mumbled on about some CC who is creating alternate sites to "expand her empire". But that's OK; discussion would be no fun at all without the occasional raving lunatic. -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Bringing home the free-range bacon since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:00 AM 1 comments Wednesday, February 15, 2006 Pretty In Pink You've got mail...its Your Daily Board Show! A FAIRY TALE: In the absence of any activity by the Board since our last publication, we'll tell a little story. As you may recall, we have alluded recently to some past history in which Joy "Smoking Gun" Fisher tried to shake down a fellow volunteer for some hospital bills that resulted from an email message that allegedly caused her blood pressure to skyrocket. Part of that story is available in various list archives and chat logs, but a couple of little birds graciously provided us with some behind the scenes details. So, here we go. Once upon a time, a new CC took over a county in GAGenWeb. Apparently the CC used frames on her webpages and apparently she linked to a variety of resources within those frames, some of which belonged to the Archives. Joy Fisher wrote to the new CC, called her deceitful, vaguely claimed copyright violations, and told her to remove the frames. [For those of you who don't know what the problem is, frames can prevent the true web address of material to which you have linked from appearing in the address bar of your browser. There's been some controversy over the practice but it does not violate any guidelines or bylaws.] When she did not hear back from the CC for several weeks, Joy wrote to both the GAGW SC [Tim Stowell] and to the Regional Coordinator [Margie Daniels]. Margie had counseled the CC to ignore communications from Joy, who was not part of GAGenWeb and had no authority in that project. When Margie told Joy this, Joy responded by posting Margie's message to the DISCUSS list, along with the claim that the message had caused her blood pressure to get dangerously high and she was on the way to the hospital. About an hour later, Joy posted Margie's message to the DISCUSS list again and once again said her blood pressure was spiking and she was on her way to the hospital. This time, possibly for added effect, she added a garbled sentence at the end [after two perfectly spelled and grammatically correct paragraphs] about needing to get "trewatment". All was well, however; the next day Joy was back posting on DISCUSS like she never left. In some ways though, the story was just beginning. Over the next couple of weeks, Joy contacted Margie privately and asked her for compensation for what she claimed was thousands of dollars worth of emergency room care. The kicker was that she repeatedly asked Margie not to write her back due to the blood pressure problem, but to write to Tina "Anything For A Friend" Vickery instead. Tina had apparently agreed to serve as a go-between. For some reason, Tim Stowell and Dick Harrison [NC at the time] were also CC'd on some of the messages. Margie ignored her. After about a month had passed, Joy wrote Margie again and told her that she was off the hook for as far as owing money went, since her insurance company would cover nearly all of the $12,000 hospital bill. Then she told Margie that the emergency room doctor concluded that the spike in blood pressure was the result of receiving an abusive e-mail. Joy claimed that her insurance company was interested in pursuing the matter and that she had forwarded them the URLs of mailing lists in which Margie participated but that other than that she was not interested in pursuing the issue further. Apparently, though, after Margie sent Joy the contact information for her lawyer she never heard a word about this again. Back in the present day, Joy semi-privately contacted us yesterday to let us know that she showed Fred's email from the Discuss list to a potential client and that client agreed that he couldn't use her services. She claims to be afraid she will never work again, but at least we have heard no discouraging word on the condition of her cardiovascular system. Our last exchange involved a brief discussion of the humor quotient of lawyers. [We won't bother speculating why someone in such apparent medical distress would take the time to write not one but two email messages an hour apart instead of just going to the hospital. Or for that matter, why they would proactively show an alleged reputation-killing email to a prospective client and then claim it is somehow the author's fault that they allegedly lost that client. Some people are just whack. Or they lead rich fantasy lives. Or maybe both.] AN INTERESTING COINCIDENCE: A couple of days ago, someone wrote to us asking about some ancient Ireland GenWeb history and the involvelment of USGenWeb's own Don Kelly. To refresh our memory we perused a variety of Ireland-related mailing lists on Root$web, something we can't recall doing for years [the incidents in question happened way back in 2000]. And oddly enough, between us visiting the Ireland lists on Root$web and now, we've won the Irish Lottery 6 or 7 times. We usually win the lottery several times a week, but we've never won the Irish lottery before. We are off to visit the Spain lists on Root$web next. We hear they have a pretty good lotterly too. BONUS QUOTE: "This reply from a GAGenWeb Regional Coordinator has elevated my blood pressure to the point where it is almost ready to boil. I do not deserve to be treated this way." --Joy Fisher, on her way to the hospital -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Asking for it since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:20 AM 0 comments Tuesday, February 14, 2006 The Emporer's New Groove Like a chicken with its head cut off...its Your Daily Board Show! SUDDEN FLURRIES: After a few days of R&R, NC Linda goaded the Board into a semblance of activity. First off, she declared the bylaws revision issue closed, noting "With 6 members not responding there is no clear consensus." Then, with the report of the Voter Fraud Committee [which she has taken to calling just the Fraud Committee] next on the agenda but not due for several more days, she introduced a new piece of business, that of the old "Friends of the USGenWeb logos." Apparently during all the web design reshuffling the link to that page was lost, and NC Linda has asked the Board to discuss whether or not it should be relinked to the national page. Jeff Scism suggested asking God for His permission, lest He revoke it and saddle USGenWeb with the difficult task of removing all the logos, and Bettie wondered if there had been any interest whatsoever expressed in this [other than as a Board exercise in time-wasting, that is]. While we think the idea of a "Friends" logo is a fine one, the existing logos suck. The Board might want to consider starting from scratch and having the designers of the current official logos design complementing "Friends of" logos, so as not to embarrass anyone. The current crop of logos, which were apparently drawn with crayons, is here: http://web.archive.org/web/20000817025049/www.usgenweb.com/friends/friendslogo.html HAVE AT IT: The State Coordinators' list is once again unmoderated. WRAPPED TOO TIGHT: A little bird has told us that Joy Fisher is trying to have Fred Smoot's "smoking gun" post removed from Root$web's message archives. Apparently, she doesn't want her "clients" to see it. Unfortunately, her removal request was auto-forwarded to Fred Smoot, who we imagine will toy with her a bit but not enough to raise her blood pressure to lawsuit levels. Maybe the generous volunteers of USGenWeb should pitch in and buy Joy a sense of humor transplant. BTW, the post in question is still online as of this morning: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/STATE-COORD/2006-02/1139773882 When it goes down, we'll repost it here in full. Once it hits the archives, Google will preserve it in perpetuity. Even in China. -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Just doing our job since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:15 AM 2 comments Monday, February 13, 2006 Playground Politics When animals attack...its Your Daily Board Show! NOTHING BETTER TO DO: It had to happen. The CC guidelines discussion on the State Coordinator's list, which once was about making sure the CCs were kept firmly in their place and the SCs were kept firmly control, has collapsed into a rehashing of old grievances and pointing of fingers all around. What seemed to start it all was the diversion into discussion of Root$web's grip on most of the Project. Joy Fisher, who facilitated the Board's takeover of GAGenWeb by agreeing to serve as its figurehead while it ginned up an election, snarked about TNGenNet's control of most of the sites for TNGW, a situation that she noted was not likely give TNGW CC's warm fuzzies [although we've noted that generally the only people in TNGW not warm and fuzzy tend to be the ones the Board has sent to cause trouble]. Fred Smoot, who is the TNGW ASC, reminded Joy of her own involvement in the GAGW snatch-n-grab, something that would not have been possible without Root$web's collusion. The two dickered back and forth for a bit, until Fred made a joking analogy about crime scenes and smoking guns and Joy accused him of out-and-out character assassination. [She's always seemed to be wrapped a little tight. IWRC, she once threatened to sue someone if they didn't send her money to cover her doctor bills, since she claimed something they said on some mail list or other caused her blood pressure to rocket.] In short order, both Tina "Rot In Hell" Vickery and Shari "WWJD" Handley both whined to NC Linda about having to hear unpleasant truths on the required list. Tina said, "...perhaps the National Coordinator could find a way for Fred's observations to not be inflicted upon the rest of us that have to be here. I find him rude and totally unacceptable in his posting of the last couple of days." Shari agreed and noted, "I am no longer on ANY of the USGenWeb mailing lists, except for *this* one...Is there NO place that we can be free of the mean-spirited innuendo flinging? Must we be subjected to this crap?...If it has to be allowed here, I'd rather not stay subscribed. Can we have some kind of announcement-only list for SCs so that IMPORTANT information gets to us without the same tired, old, nauseating mud-slinging?" [How these ladies must pine for the good old days, when they had free reign to unsubscribe those who speak uncomfortable truths and the only mud being slung came from them and their cronies. They aren't against mudslinging, per se, unless its being flung at them.] Of course, Linda complied. Shortly after Fred republished an old mudslinging email from Shari from back in the day when she was panting after Tim Stowell, Linda clamped down hard. [This would the famous email wherein Shari called Fred a "bully", a "self important windbag", and a "sickening-sweet, oily, smile-on-the-face-knife-behind-the-back pile of trash".] The SC list is now moderated and we expect in short order will return to its regular but bland schedule of welcoming new members and posting information on missing servicemen. Shari and Tina's delicate sensibilities should be quite safe. BTW: We have a Board, I think. But its been awfully quiet these last few days. BONUS QUOTE: "Sorry Ms. Fisher, your dodge doesn't quite make it. Security cameras caught you at the crime secene at time of the event and you had a smoking gun in your hand." --Fred Smoot -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Time outs for everyone since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:30 AM 0 comments Sunday, February 12, 2006 Snowed Like a chaos butterfly...its Your Daily Board Show! HIBERNATING: There has been nary a peep out of the Board since Friday morning and there has been no further public discussion of the bylaws revision issue. Apparently our elected representatives have no burning desire to do anything complicated with the bylaws and that's probably a good thing. SHOPPING IT AROUND: In the absence of enthusiasm by his fellow-Board mates, Jeff has taken his proposed bylaws revision over to the NENC regional list to try and drum up support for it over there. He noted, "Since I made the promise to try yop get this issue through, I will be presenting the current draft of the example, with minor corrections to the project to try to gather the required multistate support...I would appreciate the input and support of those who feel that the Bylaws need repair, and would ask that the regional states consider it for co-sponsorship." [Jeff's proposed revision of course includes his beloved Bylaws Committee, which has been soundly rejected by nearly everyone who's heard of it. When all else fails, we suppose revising an entire set of bylaws is the next best way to force your pet project on everyone.] In the few days since Jeff posted, the only response was from David Morgan, who observed, "The more complicated it gets, the more votes you lose." NOTHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT: It has been a couple of days now since NC Linda posted her proposed revisions to the CC guidelines. We will note at the outset that at their core they are the same guidelines we have now. They do not impose any additional duties or responsibilities on the CCs, nor do they eliminate any duties or responsibilities. They are a bit more wordy and a bit more clearly organized. They state a few things more succintly and leave out a few things that should be included. In general, we would mark them as an improvement over the current guidelines if just for the updates they make to the old guidelines [which we believe have remained unchanged since 1998]. But if they pass or they don't pass, nothing on the bottom line will change. So, in the absence of anything actually substantive to argue about, most of the suggestions for revision have resorted to noting the several numerous capitalization, punctuation, and grammatical anomolies [some of which existed in the 1998 version Linda obviously used as her template], and pointing out some few shortcomings in the organization of the document. A substantial number of commenters have remarked on the unseemly prominence given to Root$web in the proposed guidelines and several have suggested that all the various instruction on Root$web policy and procedure should be removed entirely. We agree. Although it is a sad fact that Root$web enjoys near total hegemony within USGenWeb, it is Root$web's responsibility to communicate its requirements and rules to its users, not USGenWeb's. Giving props where they are due, however, we will note that one thing this document does do is clarify in writing that Root$web and USGenWeb are not the same thing. We don't expect this message to actually stick out in the larger world, but it's a start. Over on the State Coordinator list, the discussion originally focused on the specific and Very Important inclusion of a statement to the effect that, in those cases where departing CCs recruit their own replacements, SCs are free to reject the replacement for any reason. [One would think that the SCs would be grateful for a seamless transition of coordinators and websites, but apparently not. One might also wonder why they consider the proposed CC guidelines their business at all.] Not to worry, though, for two reasons. First, NC Linda has noted that such a statement actually belongs in the SC guidelines, which seemed to satisfy them. Second, the discussion shortly thereafter devolved into an argument over the relative merits and pitfalls of various servers and bickering over abandoned websites and how to deal with them. BONUS QUOTE: "...while the disappearing CC owns the server site, they do not own the information on it - The SC can copy the information off the source page and set it up into the temporary site..." --Marcia Ann Keuhl, Tina Vickery's right hand in WIGenWeb -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Watching the watchmen since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:55 AM 0 comments Friday, February 10, 2006 If You Can't Take The Heat, Stay Out Of The Kitchen Stirring up the hornet's nest...its Your Daily Board Show! AROUND AND AROUND: Sporadic votes in the straw poll on the informal list continued to come in. At press time, the count was neck and neck with four Board members opposed to revising the bylaws and four in favor. CHANGING TIMES: NC Linda has published her proposed updated CC guidelines: http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/cc_guidelines2.html We are going to chew on them awhile before we comment, but at first glance they are remarkably...unremarkable. PSA: A correspondent sent us a press release yesterday about Morphcorp, a Colorado company accused of selling fake and misleading "year books" to unsuspecting genealogists. The company has settled a consumer protection lawsuit out of court and has agreed to both pay a $30,000 penalty and change the way it advertises its products. In addition, Morphcorp may not imply that, "MacMaster or any other employee has the same last name of or is otherwise related to the consumer; the “Family Yearbook” is compiled, authored, sponsored, or announced by “contributing family member(s);” it contains 2000 years of history regarding a specific family, or that it represents a complete revision of the family’s classic history; the product is a “Family Yearbook” without a clear and conspicuous disclosure that it is not published yearly and that it contains no pictures of members of the specific family; any price for the “Family Yearbook” is a “special pre-publication price” or "pre-publication price.” The company has also agreed to provide refunds to anyone that asks for them and to return submitted photographs if the customer can identify them. On top of that, the state hit them with $25,00o worth of attorney's fees and court costs. If you have a complaint to lodge against Morphcorp, a form is located here: http://www.ago.state.co.us/consline/complaint.pdf [Note: This is not a form to request a refund from Morphcorp; presumably you need to contact the company directly for that.] PRICKLY PEAR: Our article yesterday about the amazing confluence of coincidences in which one major online genealogy project, one piddly backwater genealogy project, and a non-profit server are simultaneously, but allegedly independently, going after one little guy has stirred up quite the hornet's nest. Since publication, the head [ruler, owner, poobah, master?] of AHGP has purged her email file in several places, attempting to prove that Charles has somehow violated AHGP's rules, the President of USGenNet has admitted to cancelling Charles' account without notice for some unspecified but apparently serious rules violation, and the AHGP has decided that it actually has no issues with Charles, but with someone named Ida Fenach who serves as Charles' webmaster on his AHGP page. AHGP has gone so far as to refuse to discuss the page further with Charles since the delinked site wasn't his to begin with [even though he says it is and Ida is his webmaster]. ALHN has been formally dragged into this situation, since its President [who happens to be a "good friend" of the head of AHGP] is being cc'd on at least some of the correspondence. Karen Mitchell has removed the series of posts from the Taos county message board in which she attempted to hijack family groups sheets for AHGP after Charles solicited them for his ALHN NM project. And, last but certainly not least, our own Advisory Board has weighed in on the issue. In their flurry of heated exchanges, both Charles and Karen have been cc'ing their three regional reps as well as the Sekrit Sandbox, and finally NC Linda put both of them on notice. She astutely noted that both of them clearly want the Board to be involved, and offered them the following options: 1) that Karen allow Linda to subscribe Charles to the required mailing list; 2) that the two of them submit to formal mediation; and 3) failing that, the two of them take their spat private and quit bothering the Board with it. So it appears that the Board has, at least for now, washed its hands of this matter. Karen, however, has assured several folks privately that the Board will be taking care of the matter, hopefully in a timely manner, and has offered to pull off the gloves and throw down with Charles in the time and place of his choosing. To be fair, numerous folks have also written to us criticizing Charles. Most of them are in some way involved in AHGP and they've variously accused Charles of using aliases in various projects, harvesting materials from the Archives and other places, "deep-linking" [which the correspondents for some odd reason consider stealing], and lacking somewhat in the social graces. Several of them mocked Charles for being at death's door fairly regularly; apparently having chronic illnesses and needing to take regular breaks from stress-inducing situations is both a character flaw and a source of amusement for one's enemies. And finally USGenWeb's own version of Godwin's law has been invoked. We have been told to "go form your own project if you don't like it." [Yes, its a non sequiter in this situation, but there you have it.] Coincidences are such amazing things. The only way this could get better is if Root$web got involved. Oh wait, they are involved. The head of AHGP has written them to get them to take away Charles' Root$web pages as well. Ole Charles may be paranoid, but this time it appears "they" really are out to get him. We haven't seen this much effort put into getting rid of someone since the Board strung up Tim Stowell and Richard Pettys. -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show You're soaking in it since 1998 Posted by merope at 7:35 AM 4 comments Thursday, February 09, 2006 Mutual Benefit Society Sticking up for the little guy...its Your Daily Board Show! DRAGGING IT OUT: After nearly two weeks of non-discussion, NC Linda made the following announcement on the formal Board list: "The discussion of a Standing By-Laws Committee was moved to ABChat on Jan 25th. Due to the lack of interest and discussion this issue is now closed." Over on on the informal list, however, she tried to resurrect at least the issue of a bylaws revision by running another of her straw polls to see if the Board members are at least interested in discussing that issue. Thus far, 3 members are interested in reopening the topic of revising the bylaws and three members are opposed. Mike said he's "in favor of a permanent bylaws committee," and suggested he might provide an alternate proposal to Jeff's at some point in the future. CHRISTMAS IN JANUARY: The December minutes are now posted to the national website. HOLD YOUR PEACE: The Grievance Procedures Committee mailing list has gone into moderated mode in order for the committee to discuss the proposals and comments they have received so far. Comments by non-committee members will still be shared with the committee, but you will have to make them to a GPC member and not directly to the list. ALL IN THE FAMILY: It looks like for once USGenWeb will be working cooperatively with "those other" online genealogy projects. Unfortunately they are not cooperating in getting data online or anything else that assists researchers. Instead, they are working together to gang up on a volunteer. It looks like yet another of USGenWeb's irascible curmudgeons, Charles "the scourge of New Mexico" Barnum, is about to be drummed out of the Project for little more than being a pest on a regular basis when he feels he is being mistreated. Charles is essentially guilty of two things, flying off the handle with little provocation and thinking way outside the box, neither of which is against the rules of any online genealogy project. Since new NMGW SC Karen Mitchell has taken over, she and Charles have gone around and around over the issue of him being unable to subscribe to the NM mailing list. Emails back and forth between them have been increasingly vitriolic [and sometimes quite public; some of this hoohah has occurred on the SWSC regional list, which is now on moderated status]. As it turns out, Charles' confusion was somewhat justified, since Karen's state page directed her members to join one list, but gave instructions for another. Rather than just manually subscribe Charles to whichever list was the correct list, she spent her time excoriating him in public and private, with the apparently gleeful assistance of his elected representative David Morgan [who is a member of the NM state list although he is not a member of NMGW]. Karen has also apparently locked Charles out of at least one county message board and tried to hijack submissions to his various projects by insisting people direct materials to her instead. Her messages to him have been increasingly filled with the sorts of "can't turn back now" rhetoric we've seen before, and its clearly designed to inflame him further and give her a clear and compelling reason to can his hinder. [Perhaps not surprisingly, we've heard from a number of people since this hit the public airwaves reminding us just how nasty and territorial Karen can be. She is apparently not one of those people for whom online diplomacy is a skill.] This would all be business as usual in USGenWeb, except for the interesting not-a-coincidence that around the time that Charles announced his idea for his newest USGenWeb Special Project [something that would allow members of other Projects to affiliate with USGenWeb, fly its logo, and receive a link from it], he was unceremoniously dumped from the American History and Genealogy Project, without notice and apparently without recourse. AHGP prides itself that it has "no Board, no bylaws, no BS", which must come in mighty handy when someone just decides to get rid of a pesky old coot who is making some uncomfortable noise. At the same time, Charles was deprived by USGenNet of all his message boards, mailings lists, and webspace [most of which he used for his ALHN pages], again without notice, without any indication of what rules he actually violated, and apparently without recourse. Shortly thereafter, USGenNet sent a message to the NM SC accusing Charles of "deep linking" inappropriately to its query message boards and "harvesting copyrighted materials" from USGenWeb sites for his AHLN page, and Karen has ordered Charles to remove all the offending materials. He has refused to do so, either denying the charges [in the case of the query boards] or pointing out that linking is not a crime and neither is republication of public domain data [in the case of the deep links to other sites]. Although the poobah of AHGP told Charles he'd been removed for "trashing AHGP", which Charles denies, its unclear why speaking ill of AHGP would result in all of Charles' access to his USGenNet resources being abruptly revoked without notice. But as it turns out, the Board of Directors of USGenNet looks remarkably like the list of people that rules AHGP, so maybe its not surprising after all. We expect that ALHN will shortly be dumping Charles too and that Karen Mitchell will relieve him of his duties in NM in a couple of days, and at last the online genealogy community will be witness to the magnificant things online genealogy projects can accomplish when they work together toward a common goal. BONUS QUOTE: "You never piss me off, Charles. I usually just ignore you as an ignoramus with nothing else to do but see perceived slights and type away." --David Morgan -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show A fanfare for the common man since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:30 AM 5 comments Monday, February 06, 2006 Third Verse Same As The First Around we go again...its Your Daily Board Show! BEATING THE HORSE: There were only a couple of comments on Jeff's proposed Bylaws Committee. George Waller told Jeff, "I am in your corner" on the subject. Angie Rayfield noted, "There is a procedure outlined in our bylaws for amending them, and the last election proved that that procedure CAN work...the idea of a standing AB committee creating or editing amendments/revisions goes against the whole idea of having bottoms-up, grassroots support for changes...I have a serious problem with the idea of having the same committee "clarify" the by-laws. An appointed committee, with no direct accountability to the project members, not only writing the by-laws but then deciding whether or not certain actions are a violation of those bylaws? That would be like the congress not only passing laws but also deciding whether or not they're constitutional -- except, of course, that you can actually VOTE for your members of congress." Jeff himself noted, "the committee...will reduce a lot of conflict in the Project and ease the amount of hassle needed to make daily decisions in a timely manner, as well as make bylaws revisions and amendments an infrequent need." [Well, there's a solution without a problem. We weren't aware that revising and amending the bylaws is currently a frequent need.] This doubles the number of Board members who have stated an opinion on Jeff's committee from two to four, with one in favor and three against. This leaves nine members with apparently not enough interest in the subject to even bother registering an opinion. BOOKKEEPING: On the formal list, NC Linda announced that she received the minutes from Board Secretary Ellen Pack and forwarded them to the webmaster to be posted. They aren't up on the website yet, but we imagine they will be soon. -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Outside looking in since 1998 Posted by merope at 5:55 AM 1 comments Sunday, February 05, 2006 Game Time Third and long...its Your Daily Board Show! QUARTERBACK SNEAK: Just moments after we went to press the other day, NC Linda abruptly adjourned the January meeting and just as abruptly opened the February meeting. This is the published agenda for the February meeting: Announcement of the posting of the minutes (approval etc) Reports from standing committees - if any Unfinished business ... Discussion of by-law committee ... Report from the Fraud Committee - Discussion of its proposals ... Job Descriptions for appointed positions ... Job Descriptions for RAL New business ... Discussion of Financial Procedures Committee Announcements if there are any Adjournment HAIL MARY: After a week and a half or so of the Board discussing Jeff's proposed bylaws committee by actually discussing past and future bylaws revisions, NC Linda posted this: "We all have known from the time that Jeff was seated his main goals have been to establish a by-laws committee and revise the by-laws...He has waited patiently while we have worked our way through...other things...and we are now at the issue Jeff is most interested in. So far there has been almost no discussion of Jeff's proposed Standing By-Laws committee. I'd appreciate it you would take the time to let Jeff know where you stand on setting up a by-laws committee." Thus far, two Board members [Bettie and Cyndie] have noted that their constituents have no enthusiasm for a bylaws committee; no one else has said a word on the topic. HUDDLE UP: GPC Chair Scott Burow has posted the working proposals for grievances on his website, broken down into easily digestible chunks. Member comment is invited; the GPC mailing list is currently unmoderated and open to all project members. The proposals are posted here: http://ilgenweb.rootsweb.com/GPC/usgwgcp.html An additional and unexpected bonus to subscribing to the list is that the discussion of the proposals has lured USGW's own Poet Laureate, Don "Inscrutable" Kelly, out of hiding. He has already graced the discussion with numerous mystical comments. FORWARD PASS: The election for a new State Coordinator in NJGenWeb will start February 8 and end at midnight on February 13. Results will be announced on the 14th. The candidates are Janice Brown and former Board member Heather de George. BONUS QUOTE: "One option is to do nothing, not participate, plead nolo contenderie, etc., but perhaps at least one option, since it is referred to in the first paragraph, needs to be said. Otherwise, expect the expected. I believe." --Don Kelly -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Hasn't watched a Super Bowl since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:45 AM 0 comments Friday, February 03, 2006 Got Nuthin' Slow news day...its Your Daily Board Show! HUM: The Board continues its circular discussion of the proposed Bylaws Committee, although they haven't actually talked about the committee in some time. They've instead spent time discussing bylaws revisions, old and new. Bettie insists that the volunteers deserve an opportunity to vote on the old BRC's amendments, David insists those are old news and should be allowed to die gracefully, and Jeff insists that the Board is free to do whatever it wants in regards to submitting revisions to the electorate for a vote. DEE: Fresh off the rumor mill today is word of layoffs at Ancestry.con. No idea if any of the Root$web staff were affected. DUM: We've also recently heard of people quietly removing all their data from Root$web due to some kind of copyright issue. We aren't sure what that issue is, unless MyFamily.com is trying to apply the bizarre copyright policy it uses in some of its other franchises over to "the oldest and largest FREE genealogy site." Apparently though, it has upset some people enough that they are cutting and running. -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Scraping bottom since 1998 Posted by merope at 5:50 AM 0 comments Thursday, February 02, 2006 Tell It Like It Is Connecting the dots...its Your Daily Board Show! TRUE COLORS: After several days of silence, NC Linda tried to jump start the discussion of the proposed standing Bylaws Committee by posting a message laying out what she's "been told" about the former Bylaws Revision Committee. [Who told her this is not clear.] Linda noted, "...the AB can submit a **Revised** set of by-laws to the membership for vote but it cannot submit an amendment. An amendment may only be submitted to the membership...if the current by-law's amendment procedures are followed. The BRC was established to come up with a revised set of by-laws. However, the prior AB voted to...allow each section of the by-laws to be voted on individually. Once this change was made the revision was no longer a revision but a set of amendments and per the current by-laws the AB can't submit amendments to the membership for a vote. The BRC Chair also pointed out that by allowing individual sections to be voted on there was the distinct possibility that conflicts within the by-laws would result if one section passed and another failed. Because of the above the BRC was thanked and dismissed." [The actual sequence of events was a bit more convoluted than this suggests and involved a previous NC sitting on the BRC's suggested amendments until it was too late to get them on the annual ballot and at least several weeks of wrangling over whether they were "amendments" or "revisions."] Jeff leaped right on this and asked if the issue of the BRC's amendments could be declared "MOOT" so they could proceed to discuss his agenda, which he then graciously laid out for everyone to see. After reiterating that the Board is free to "revise" the bylaws as opposed to "amending" them, Jeff posted a "concept example" of a set of bylaws for the USGenWeb Project. They are lengthy, verbose, and come with no fewer than eight suggested attachments laying out actual procedures for various of the Board's duties. As usual, the effect of Jeff's lengthy diatribe was to more or less stun the Board into silence. The only comments after his post were some suggestions from George "directed to a potential by-laws committee," and an observation by Bettie that "the membership has a right to vote on those revision proposals that the last BRC worked over a period of nearly four years on." BEHIND THE MASK: Although Jeff went to great pains to shout that his new bylaws were just an example, its clear that he has spent a lot of time on them and its probably a fair bet to assume that they represent his vision for the Project. Actually, they aren't half bad, although we imagine by the time a committee gets through with them they will be another convoluted mess. The only things that concern us are the obvious bias toward centralizing authority [the example actually states "Membership is at the discretion of the USGenWeb Board"], the enforcement of secret meetings for all committees established by the Board, the land grab for U.S. "possessions and territories," [for the record, we've always felt that U.S. territories should be part of USGenWeb, but the last time we asked about it, David Samuelsen snarled at us; apparently they belong to WorldGenWeb], and the unexplained name change of the Board from "Advisory Board" to just "Board" [apparently they are not intended to have just an advisory role in the new world order]. The example doesn't change the structure of the project much. It leaves the Board structure pretty much as is, although it leaves open the actual number of state, local, and special projects representatives, and raises the Parliamentarian to a non-voting appointed board seat. It also imposes a two-term limit on the National Coordinator, although other members can apparently serve as long as they can convince people to vote for them. The Sekrit Sandbox is formalized, as is the "informal" committee meeting that the Board currently uses in tandem with its formal meeting. The example also sets out very briefly how the bylaws may be amended, and basically says that the procedures for amending the bylaws will be determined by Jeff's baby, the proposed Bylaws Committee. Since the procedures documents are just attachments to the bylaws and are meant to be easily changed by majority Board vote, this would mean that the policy regarding the amendment of the bylaws could change rather frequently. In any event, we aren't sure this will go anywhere even if Jeff is able to get his committee. There are myriad places within Jeff's example where various interests will go ballistic and as we have seen before, USGenWeb is no longer a place where people compromise or take the good with the bad. Instead, many of us focus on "deal killers" and refuse to vote for something with even five words we dislike, and in any document this long, its likely that enough people will be unhappy about enough provisions that they will fail, should they ever even come to a vote. RED LETTER DAY: A couple of days ago, a little bird suggested to us that the Board has reached a decision on the Lytton-Quinn grievance from a couple of months ago. As you may recall, OHGW SC Sandra Quinn fired Daryl Lytton following some email exchanges that she felt were harrassing. Daryl filed a grievance, but when he asked us to serve as his advisor, Sandra refused to participate in mediation so the whole kit-n-caboodle went to the Board for its sage judgement. And just about a week ago now that judgement was delivered. In Daryl's favor. After we got up off the floor, we took a look at the Board's ruling. Basically, the Board recommended that Sandra return Adams county to Daryl, and based their ruling on her failure to provide him with fair hearing prior to delinking and expelling him and failing to follow the OHGW guidelines. Unfortunately, according to NC Linda, "...the AB is powerless to make an SC do anything. All the AB can do is what it did and that is make recommendations." [This might explain why Sandra's last post to the SC list sounded so unhappy.] Sandra has both ignored the Board's recommendations and failed to tell her ASC about them, and Daryl's former county is still up for adoption. Daryl has now filed a new grievance against Sandra for failing to follow the Board's recommendation, along with a request that the Board "contact RootsWeb and get new passwords for the OHGenWeb state site and mandatory list, and then to relink my county and re-sub me to the list, and to appoint someone else as webmaster and list administrator." [*sigh* This might have been an opportunity for negotiation and bridge-building, but apparently not.] His basis for this request lies in Root$web's Project Policy, which apparently requires the Board to be responsible for issue resolution within the Project as a condition of using RW resources. He thinks the Board should use this approach to put some teeth into its recommendations. What a surprise! We think this might be the first time on record that the Board has found for a CC in a dispute with an SC, and we know it's the first time they have found for a CC who is not high on many lists of favorite people [and one who apparently doesn't know how to quit when he's ahead]. We have always wanted to believe that the Board is capable of reasoned debate on issues regardless of the personnel involved; we've just never seen much evidence of it before and now we do. We aren't saying that because we necessarily agree with the Board's decision, but because of the idea that rules and fairness should apply even to people you don't particularly like, and it seems to us that the Board must have been able in this case to look past the identities of the parties in order to make the recommendations that they did. So, clearly, at least with the Board in its current configuration, its not impossible for even the least among us to get something approaching a fair hearing. That's pretty cool. -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Warm and fuzzy since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:25 AM 1 comments Wednesday, February 01, 2006 Silence Is Golden Where did they go...its Your Daily Board Show! DENIAL OF SERVICE: It appears that Root$web's woes only just started with its change of IP addresses way back on January 18 and the subsequent troubles with getting re-blacklisted by AOL. Per an email sent out a couple of days ago by NC Linda to the various lists, "Someone reported Rootsweb to spamcop.net as a spammer with the result that many list administrators are receiving bounces...I have notified Rootsweb of the problem and hopefully it will be resolved soon." Someone on the SW list posted an email from Andrew at Root$web, who said "With spamcop blacklists, they are temporary...so generally I let them fall off...Currently NO RootsWeb list servers are listed in SpamCop. People whose mail is blocked...should approach their ISP about whitelist'ing RootsWeb...If the ISP wishes for the reverse contact...RootsWeb will contact an ISP if details for an active response are provided for contacting the ISP, either a web form or an active email address. If the ISP is not going to be receptive to our overtures, then there is not a lot of point in going to the effort." We wondered why things had gotten so quiet all of a sudden. STATE OF THE UNION: Fortunately, as it turns out, there has been no Board traffic since Bettie's last salvo on Saturday. So they really have just stopped discussing, at least in public, the burning issue of a bylaws committee and bylaws amendments. DISCUSS and the regionals have had a bit of traffic about the Root$web blacklisting, but nothing too compelling. On State-Coord, the SCs continue to sort of discuss NC Linda's personal improvement project, but most of them now seem to be tending toward the "no more rules" side of the issue. It is curious that none of them have questioned why exactly it is that NC Linda has taken it upon herself to revise the SC guidelines or why she has provided very little detail on what exactly will happen when she has them revised to her satisfaction. BONUS QUOTE: "There's no guidelines committee, there's only me." --Linda Haas Davenport -Teresa Lindquist Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show Enjoying the quiet since 1998 Posted by merope at 6:00 AM