1 September 1999: There Ought To Be Clowns The newly elected Advisory Board is seated. Once again our merry band of adventurers is led by Our Esteemed National Coordinator, Tim Stowell.

1 September: The Board's first crisis, which it more or less ignores, occurs when a MIGenWeb CC insists on posting a solicitation for funds on her MIGW county page. The situation is not improved when the CC removes the funding request on the front page and replaces it with a link to a "Funding FAQ" that provides precise instructions on how people can send her money. [The Board very possibly didn't want to get into this particular issue, since at the same time, Board member and Root$web employee Betsy Mills was displaying the RW commercial advertisement rotation on her ARGenWeb state page.] The Board briefly discusses amending the bylaws to specifiy what CCs can and cannot accept or request in the way of donations, but the matter is dropped when the CC takes down the FAQ.

3 September: In a "new spirit of openness," Our Esteemed National Coordinator suggests conducting all business except for grievances, complaints, and personal notices on BOARD-L. This lasts about a day. At the same time, Our Esteemed National Coordinator posts his agenda for the upcoming year: "1. Appointment or lack thereof of a new Secretary 2. Having an required announce list for making announcements to the general membership 3. Creation of a permanent Election Committee 4. Creation or approval of a Bylaws Reform committee 5. Bylaws Reform addressing the issue of removal of Board members, NC and/or other officials 6. Defining what circumstances allow the creation of other Special Projects 7. Defining the role, relationship, composition, hierarchy of the Digital Library 8. Promotion of Project Purity - suggesting to the States that while the Project has no problem with a CC hosting sites for other organizations - the sites need to be separate pages - ie no dual pages for USGW, ALHN, GenForum or whatnot. From what I've seen several states are already ahead of us on this." He ends the post with "I'd like to ask that what's said on this list stay on this list, except for the items that I've said I'll post to the BOARD-L list." He, of course, posts this entire message to BOARD-EXEC [the Board's Secret List].

9 September: The next mini-crisis ensues when COGenWeb moves its pages off of Root$web and Root$web promptly gives its url to someone else who promptly posts a page clearly designed to bypass the official COGenWeb state page. For a brief while all the redirects for the COGenWeb state incorrectly point to this nonproject page and the Board gets slightly lathered up over the issue of whether or not RW has the right to assign the xxgenweb directories to nonproject members. Interest in the topic dies when the COGW SC resigns and the new SC moves the pages back to RW.

12 September: Meanwhile Back At The Ranch... Over on BOARD-EXEC, the Board discusses a new Board Secretary, in the New Spirit of Openness, of course. [The Board was also discussing the new BS on BOARD-L, but the discussions were taking rather different tacks on the two lists.]

13 September: Bonnie, We Hardly Knew Ye Bonnie McVicar-Briggs resigns. The Board dithers for weeks over how to replace her. [This is the only Board resignation of this term.]

15 September: More Openness On BOARD-EXEC, Our Esteemed National Coordinator proposes sanctions for Board members who leak information from the secret list.

20 September: Motion 99-25, to appoint a Board Secretary, passes; Our Esteemed National Coordinator nominates Ed Book for the job. Ed is appointed on 25 September.

1 November: Welcome to the Club Richard Howland is appointed to fill Bonnie McVicar-Briggs' vacated seat.

13 November: The Board discusses changing the official logo to one that includes teeny tiny versions of Alaska and Hawaii. Board members are generally in favor of it; the SCs, however, are generally not, and suggest the idea go before the entire project for a vote. The motion to approve new alternate logos eventually fails, although Our Esteemed National Coordinator originally announces its passage.

18 November: On Walkabout Kay Mason's email address begins to bounce. Kay, who is the Census Project representative, has not been heard from since July 1999. The Board begins to dither over who will get her seat.

26 November: The Board decides that former NC and Board member Megan Zurawicz should be granted permanent membership on the SC list; they forget, however, to ask the SCs about this beforehand. A full week and a half after the motion is made, someone on the Board finally notifies the SCs that the motion is being voted on and asks their opinion of the matter.

7 December: The motion to grant Megan permanent membership on the SC list fails. She remains on the SC list at the invitation of the SCs.

9 December: Board member Teri Pettit makes a series of three motions to provide links and subscription information on the national web pages for the following lists: USGENWEB-ALL, USGenWeb-NE-L, USGenWeb-SE-L, USGenWeb-NW-L, USGenWeb-SW-L, USGW-CC-L, and USGW_ALL@listbot.com [the Daily Board Show]. On December 10, Teri adds a new motion to include the USGENWEB-DISCUSS list.

11 December: Bye bye Birdie Ed Book resigns as Board Secretary, citing other responsibilities. Our Esteemed National Coordinator nominates Ken Short for the position.

14 December: Communication Breakdown The motion to list the USGenWeb-ALL list on the national page passes. The motion to add the regional lists to the national page passes. The motion to list the DBS on the national page fails. [As of this writing --August 31, 2000-- the -ALL list and the regional lists have not been added to the "Information for Volunteers" page, as required in the motions.] [Several months later, Board member Richard Howland will explain that he voted for listing the -ALL list because he believes that "we should have every chance at a different opinion that we can get" but voted against listing the DBS list because he felt the list "was and is an negative and bias work of one to slant all information posted there" and against the CC-L list because "this list was created for CC's that couldn't get along with on ALL-L." Whatever.]

16 December: An Early Christmas Acting on the suggestion of a project member, the Board begins to consider maybe possibly opening BOARD-L for public read-only subscription.

17 December: Ken "Pecos" Short is appointed to replace Ed Book as Board Secretary.

22 December: The Board recesses for the holidays.

22 December: What Would He Do Without Me? After being reminded that there is much unfinished business, Our Esteemed National Coordinator posts a "housecleaning" email clearing the Board's docket for the Christmas recess. Among other things, he announces that the motion to list the USGW-CC-L list on the USGenWeb home page was defeated and the motion to list the USGENWEB-DISCUSS list was declared dead for lack of a second.

25 December: Christmas Surprise A blurb on the Archives Census Project home page announces that it is in the process of merging with the Census Project. Ron Eason is actually listed as a member of the Archives Census Project management team.

26 December: A Lump of Coal Board member Maggie Stewart single-handedly sabotages the delicate merger negotiations between the Archives Census Project and the Census Project by implementing changes to the web pages that were not previously agreed upon by the Census Project, including changing the redirects so that the Census Project URL goes to the Archives Census Project home page and removing all known links to the Census Project homes pages. The Archives Census Project starts an illicit mirror of the Census Project's files and Archives volunteers who are also USGenWeb SCs begin demanding that their CCs remove links to the Census Project and replace them with links to the Archives Census Project. Linda Lewis states publicly that she believes Ron pretended to be interested in a merger in order to "set Maggie up." Merger talks quickly collapse as recriminations and accusations fly from both sides.

26 December: Pam Reid resigns as USGenWeb webmaster, although she later clarifies that she was not really resigning in her post.

28 December: The link to the Census Project home page is restored.

3 January 2000: The Board returns from recess.

6 January: Like A Good Neighbor... Our Esteemed National Coordinator orders the Migrations project and USGenNet,Inc. to cease use of the official USGenWeb logo, saying that since they are not USGenWeb affiliated projects they have no right to use it. When an alert project member notes that Root$web uses the logo without permission on literally thousands of its "cluster" pages, the Board decides not to act on the issue.

7 January: Read It And Weep More than a year after it was first suggested [and rejected out of hand], the Board opens BOARD-L to public read-only subscription. In the first day, nearly 100 project members subscribe.

9 January: New Agenda The Board discusses issues it would like to see "cleaned up" during the new year, including: the issue of "dual pages", the dueling census projects, Kay Mason's absence, and the possibility of combining the Tombstone Project with the Archives Project. Our Esteemed National Coordinator tells the Board members not to present more than one topic for discussion at a time [apparently it confuses him]. The Board extensively discusses the issue of the two census projects, but no consensus is reached. Most seem to feel it is better to maintain a "hands off" approach and let the two projects work it out.

13 January: Our Esteemed National Coordinator officially washes his hands of the Census mess.

15 January: Red Letter Day The 30 day ban on the RootsWeb Four turns one year old.

18 January: Plausible Deniability The Board begins to discuss appointing an official Project Historian. The Board dithers for days over how possibly to select someone who can present an "unbiased" history and even what would constitute an "unbiased" history of the Project. They never do manage to work it out.

26 January: I'm Gonna Tell My Mom On You In a futile effort to keep the goings-on on BOARD-EXEC secret, Board member Joe Zsedeny threatens both civil and criminal action against any of his colleagues on the Board who forward mail from that list to any other person.

29 January: The motion to appoint a Project Historian fails.

1 February: Now You See Her... Kay Mason's name and email address disappear without explanation or notification from the listing of Advisory Board members. Two hours after this incident was publicly reported, her name and email address were restored just as mysteriously.

1 February: The Board discusses ad nauseum certain unauthorized changes made to the national pages by Pam Reid, most of which involve the Archives project links and pages. The Board dithers for well over a week about whether "Archives Project" is the same as "Project Archives". There is no consensus and Pam ends up revising the pages several times over the next few days. Most of her revisions result in the prominent featuring of the Archives Census Project over the Census Project and pretty much no one is happy with them.

8 February: Ethically Challenged It is discovered that Board member Holly Timm has apparently been accepting funds for research documents, but then not forwarding those documents to her customers, a practice that had got her into trouble in the past with Root$web and with several listowners whose mail lists she used to solicit business.

11 February: The Board learns that the Census Project is holding an election to formally replace Kay Mason as its Board representative and to seat a new project Coordinator. Our Esteemed National Coordinator promptly informs them that their efforts in this area are unwelcome, noting that the Board will appoint Kay's successor and will also oversee any election for a new representative. He also insists that Archives Census Project members be allowed to vote in any election for a Census Project representative.

23 February: The Board votes to rescind Motion 99-4. This is the motion that originally directed the Archives to cease duplication of effort on census transcriptions and leave that responsibility to the Census Project. It is also the motion that Linda Lewis has ignored for nearly a year.

24 February: End of an Era USGenWeb, Inc., the corporation formed by Jerry Dill in 1998 is renamed to Rootsquest, Inc.

25 February: And Now You Don't Our Esteemed National Coordinator, unilaterally and without discussing it with the Board first, declares the Census Project representative seat vacated and asks the Board to appoint an interim replacement for her. Several Board members immediately challenge his authority to take this action, noting that the bylaws lack any sort of support for it, but they are unable to overturn the declaration. Several Board members discuss their feelings that the project's bylaws are merely a guideline and not something that has to be actually followed.

28 February: GenSoc.org, Inc, the not-for-profit organization founded by Brian Leverich and Karen Isaacson, is granted tax-exempt status retroactive to June 1999 by the Internal Revenue Service. Root$web employees are forbidden to discuss it and this is the last anyone ever hears of this organization.

2 March: The Board votes to declare the Census Project representative seat vacant. The Board also learns that the Census Project has elected Ron Eason to fill the seat until August 31, 2000. They immediately begin pointing out all the reasons that he is simply not an acceptable replacement; much of their opposition stems from the observation that they don't like the way he addresses the Board. Some Board members suggest polling the Archives Census Project as to its preference for the seat and much finger-pointing and nose-thumbing ensues. Joy Fisher finally moved to appoint Ron to the seat; Holly Timm almost immediately moves to table Joy's motion. Ginger Hayes then moves to appoint Sue Soden to fill the seat.

8 through 19 March: In the midst of all the bickering, Shari Handly makes a motion that will effectively force a merger of the Board's design on the two census projects, and give the Board the right to delink either project that does not appear to be acting in good faith. Action on this motion is postponed until the CP representative is seated, but only after Our Esteemed National Coordinator decides over the objection of many Board members that it needs only a simple majority to pass, rather than a 2/3 majority as required in the bylaws. During voting on the motion to postpone, several Board members appear unclear as to what they are voting on. After Our Esteemed National Coordinator's ruling, Holly Timm moves to reconsider the motion to postpone; she is immediately challenged on procedural grounds and her motion to reconsider is declared out of order by the NC. [By arbitrarily deciding that subsidiary motions require only a simple majority to pass, Our Esteemed National Coordinator granted himself a significantly larger say in our national level decisions.]

14 March: Unreasonable Demands In an open letter to the Board, Linda Lewis demands that the Board "publicly support and recognize the USGenWeb Archives Census Project, a special project of the USGenWeb Archives (Digital Library), as the "Special Census Project" as named and described in the bylaws." She also demands the passwords to the Census Project directories on Root$web. After this demand makes it onto several project mailing lists over the Board Secretary's signature, Betsy Mills suggests that someone other than Our Esteemed National Coordinator should moderate the Board mailing lists. At least one Board member indicates she is girding for "bloody battle" over the census projects issue.

20 March: Our Esteemed National Coordinator allows as to how his arbitrary rulings on the majority needed to pass a subsidiary motion and the time frame for voting produced an outcome that does not represent the true feelings of the Board and decides to allow a Board member to move to reconsider the motion to postpone action on Motion 00-6. A motion is made, but when the vote is called, he calls the vote on the motion to postpone action on Motion 00-6, not on the motion to reconsider. Only two Board members note the discrepancy and call him on it.

27 March: Creative Accounting Our Esteemed National Coordinator announces that the vote on the motion to reconsider the motion to postpone action on Motion 00-6 has failed and calls for immediate discussion on Motion 00-6. It is noted that he counted Jim Powell's vote as a "yes" vote, when Jim clearly stated he was not in favor of acting on Motion 00-6 until a Census Project representative was seated. The NC is challenged immediately by several Board members; others begin blithely debating potential amendments to Motion 00-6, including forcing the Census Project to accept all Archives Census Project members who want positions and giving them whatever positions they desire within the CP. Jim Powell notes that his vote was miscounted and moves to reconsider the motion to postpone action on Motion 00-6. Our Esteemed National Coordinator rules Jim Powell's motion out of order. Jim once again challenges the miscount of his vote and appeals the final vote count.

28 March: Our Esteemed National Coordinator opens discussion on an amended Motion 00-6 without first letting the Board vote on the amendments. He is immediately challenged on this unannounced procedural change. [This practice has now become standard operating procedure.]

29 March: Pam Reid suggests the Board form a committee to work on Motion 00-6 and get its many problems ironed out before the Board votes on it. The Board Secretary finds this motion out of order.

29 March: Our Esteemed National Coordinator removes Jim Powell's vote from the final tally, leaving a tie vote, which as National Coordinator, he is responsible for breaking.

30 March: Linda Lewis objects to the amended provisions of Motion 00-6, indicating that the Board's attempt to force a merger will meet with opposition from both sides of the issue and possibly leaving them in the position of having to delink both projects.

31 March: Our Esteemed National Coordinator votes "yes" on the motion to postpone action on Motion 00-6, thus short-circuiting the ongoing discussion. Nearly a full month after it was originally proposed, action on the motion is postponed and the Board is directed to begin considering the issue of appointing a replacement for the Census Project seat.

31 March: A Tree Falling in the Forest Our Esteemed National Coordinator proposes a new solution to the census project issue; it is disseminated widely throughout the project but gets little response.

4 April: Our Esteemed National Coordinator calls for "interested parties" to send their applications for the Census Project seat to him; he is immediately challenged by several Board members who wonder why he did not discuss his plans with them. Ginger Cisewski moves to seat Ron Eason; her motion is immediately ruled out of order by the NC. Most nominations the Board receives are for Ron Eason; other potential nominees include Sundee Maynez [with the ACP] and Veda Mendoza [with the CP].

5 April: Temper, Temper Our Esteemed National Coordinator kicks Board member Ginger Cisewski off BOARD-EXEC [the secret list] for accidentally cross-posting a message from BOARD-EXEC to BOARD-L.

5 April: Terminated With Extreme Prejudice Apparently piqued that his recent effort at reconciliation was not well received, Our Esteemed National Coordinator publishes Executive Order 2000E-1, in which he delinks the Census Project and redirects all its URLs to the Archives Census Project. This action is entirely contrary to the bylaws, and is taken with no notification to the Census Project, the national project, or the Advisory Board. He provides no evidence of wrong-doing in his executive order, but instead makes vague claims that the project is "not in good standing". His action is immediately challenged and a motion is made to "override" the NC's executive order. Reaction in the project is swift and almost universally opposed to the delinking. Transcribers begin pulling their work from the Archives; many indicate they will no longer transcribe for the USGenWeb project at all. The Archives Census Project begins contacting the Census Project transcribers, inviting them to join the ACP.

7 April: John Schunk, whose company SK Publications provides census scans to the Archives Census Project, attempts to broker a merger agreement between the two census projects. Linda Lewis immediately amends his original offer to include, among other things, provisions for open mail lists and "password protection and coverage"; Ron Eason refuses to accept these amendments and is accused of stalling the talks. During the course of the talks, Our Esteemed National Coordinator privately tries to bribe Ron Eason into accepting the terms by offering to ease his way onto the Board. The talks fail.

11 April: Fully one week after summarily delinking the Census Project, Our Esteemed National Coordinator finally reveals the reasons why the entire Census Project [as opposed to merely its coordinator, Ron Eason] is "not in good standing". These include, "copyright violation", "failure to answer email in a timely fashion", and "failure to negotiate in good faith for a merger of the CP and the ACP." More than one Board member points out that why he delinked the Census Project is irrelevant, it was his usurping of the Board's bylaws-granted duties that is the problem. None note that these actions are the work of a person or persons, not of "the Census Project" itself.

13 April: The Board fails to override Our Esteemed National Coordinator's delinking of the Census Project; several Board members creatively interpret the bylaws while casting their votes. Betsy Mills immediately moves to ratify the delinking. Her motion is amended to include language that would require that the Board ratify all such actions by the NC in the future. Board members protest that this is essentially rewriting the bylaws.

14 April: Seeing the Light Stacy Orchard, the founder of the Archives Census Project, defects to the Census Project and attempts to arrange a neutral space for members to discuss a merger. Her mailing list is used instead for further accusations and recriminations, and these talks also fail. The WorldGenWeb Project informs the USGW Advisory Board that it is monitoring the situation with the Census Project and notes that it is receiving requests that none of its archival submissions be included in the USGenWeb Archives. USGW Project member Ellen Pack suggests removing the issue from the purview of the Board and turning it over to the project membership in the form of a committee "charged with rebuilding/restructuring the SPs". This proposal meets with general positive regard among the Board members.

17 April: A quiet civil disobedience style protest of the illegal delinking of the Census Project gathers steam with the appearance of both blackened "mourning logos" and links to a protest page showing up throughout the Project.

19 April: The proposed amendment to the motion to ratify the delinking fails. Ron Eason informs the Board that if the redirects on the national web page aren't fixed shortly the Census Project will be forced to move all its files off of Root$web to another server where the illicit Archives mirror will not be able to access them. Our Esteemed National Coordinator claims he has no idea how to remove the redirections, since a Root$web employee made the changes in the first place.

21 April: The redirect of the Census Project URL to the Archives Census Project pages is removed by Root$web staff. Root$web's owner, Brian Leverich, notes that his staff assumed that Our Esteemed National Coordinator was competent to make decisions of this nature regarding the national pages, but apparently they were mistaken.

26 April: The Board begins to receive numerous complaints of misappropriated and altered files found in the Archives Census Project directories. Alterations to the files appear to have been done conspicuously close to the time when Our Esteemed National Coordinator delinked the Census Project.

28 April: The motion to ratify the delinking fails due to lack of a quorum.

29 April: Adding Insult to Injury The Census Project is locked out of its directories on Root$web by action of Our Esteemed National Coordinator and is unable to update its pages or upload files. It is also discovered that alterations were made to a Census Project page that made it look like the page belonged to the Archives Census Project. Ron Eason notifies the Board that the Census Project will be moving off of Root$web on May 1. Our Esteemed National Coordinator immediately orders the Census Project to cease using the USGenWeb name and logo, apparently deciding that moving off of Root$web is tantamount to leaving the project.

1 May: Linda Lewis applies for a service mark for the term "USGenWeb Archives"; if granted, the mark would be her personal property. She includes the names of Board members Joy Fisher, Barbara Dore, and Maggie Stewart as signatories to the application without their knowledge or permission [page 1, page 2]

1 May: The USGenWeb Census Project announces that it has moved to its own URL off of Root$web and that it has incorporated under the name "USGenWeb Census Project, Inc." It is shortly revealed that Ron Eason incorporated the CP as a for-profit in the state of Michigan, an error he claims was due to his failure to read the forms completely and to his unfamiliarity with the incorporation process. He quickly moves to dissolve the corporation in order to refile as a non-profit.

1 May: Taking Advantage Joy Fisher moves to sever all ties to the USGenWeb Census Project, in part for "using the reserved term "USGenWeb" without the Advisory Board's knowledge or approval." [Joy later stated "Mr. Eason has unilaterally decided to incorporate using the term *USGenWeb* without Board authorization and this is the sole reason for the motion." She fails to inform the Board that Linda Lewis is currently attempting to register the name "USGenWeb Archives" without notifying the Board.] The Board decides to waive its own 48 hour discussion period and the vote begins almost immediately. The Board also fails to give the USGenWeb Project members the 48 hour notice of major action required in the bylaws.

3 May: The for-profit USGenWeb Census Project, Inc. is dissolved.

4 May: The motion to sever all ties with the Census Project passes.

5 May: Our Esteemed National Coordinator sends a "Cease and Desist" notice to the Census Project notifying them they have been severed from the USGenWeb Project and that their continued use of the USGenWeb name and logo is in violation of service/trademark and requesting that they cease using the name and logo and discontinue soliciting transcriptions in the name of the USGenWeb Project.

6 May: The Board receives numerous grievances from project members regarding the delinking, most of which specifically name the Board and the National Coordinator as parties to the grievance. Ginger Hayes moves to establish an independent Grievance Committee to handle them.

10 May: Our Esteemed National Coordinator declares Ginger's motion out of order. Jim Powell then moves that the National Coordinator provide a "fair forum" to hear the grievances. A Board member suggests that if the filers of the grievances wish a fair hearing they can go to the Daily Board Show. The motion does not pass.

12 May: Working for the Clampdown Board member Tina Vickery moves to "accept the resignation" of the entire OHGenWeb because its State Coordinator links to the Civil Disobedience protest page. No attempt was made to contact the OHGW SC to ask about the link or to notify him of the pending motion. The motion is withdrawn after the OHGW State Coordinator hears about the motion third-hand and fixes the link.

14 May: The Archives Census Project begins to refer to itself as the Census Project, despite Linda Lewis' earlier insistence that the name must remain "Archives Census Project." Our Esteemed National Coordinator writes to several Census Project transcribers who have asked that their copyrighted material be removed from the Archives and tells them that the only thing in the transcriptions that is copyrightable is the format and the format belongs to the Archives Project.

15 May: Ginger Cisewski moves to restore the links to the USGenWeb Census Project to the national page in order to bring it into compliance with the bylaws. This motion is later withdrawn. Several states begin taking votes of "no confidence" in the Board.

16 May: Censorship Begins At Home Richard Howland moves to find members displaying "protest logos" not in good standing for displaying inappropriate content and being not in compliance with the guidelines for web pages. Some project members begin to use black ribbons in place of the logos to express their displeasure with the Board. Joy Fisher moves to make the "mourning logos" official USGenWeb logos. Our Esteemed National Coordinator later declares this motion "frivolous" and out of order.

16 May: Our Esteemed National Coordinator notifies the Board that he has appointed Kevin Fraley as "ombudsman", an "impartial observer" who will inspect the merits of the various grievances and present recommendations to the Board. He fails to tell the Board that Kevin is a member of the Archives Census Project, supported the delinking and severing of the Census Project, and publicly called members of the Census Project liars and thieves. Barbara Dore suggests holding trials of project members who are believed to be "harming" the project.

17 May: The Board begins to solicit volunteers for the Nominations Committee and Elections Committee for the upcoming project-wide election. The original request for volunteers went out over the National Coordinator's signature without prior knowledge of the Board.

23 May: Our Esteemed National Coordinator appoints Roger Swafford to head the Election Committee. He also proposes a structure for the EC and a list of names of people to sit on the Committee. A motion is made to appoint Roger as the EC Chair and let him select the remaining committee members.

24 May: The USGenWeb Census Project announces that it has formally incorporated as a non-profit public benefit corporation.

24 May: Our Esteemed National Coordinator asks for "unanimous consent" on the motion to appoint Roger Swafford as EC Chair. No one objects and the motion passes.

26 May: Roger Swafford accepts Our Esteemed National Coordinator's slate of Election Committee members.

27 May: The Board receives a set of five grievances from Project member Carole Hammett; several of them mention Board members as parties. These contain grievances relating to violation of the project bylaws and violation of copyright, among other issues.

31 May: Board Secretary Ken Short publicly and falsely accuses several people [including this author] of writing what came to be known as the "State's Rights" amendment to the bylaws. The proposed amendment would abolish the Board and National Coordinator in favor of local control. It fails to get the required number of state co-sponsors to make the ballot in July.

1 June: Roger Swafford posts the requirements for candidates and voters in the upcoming election. They include the provisions that members must have been in the project before April 1, 2000 in order to be eligible to vote or to nominate candidates. The voting cutoff date is both unprecedented and contrary to the bylaws. Roger later claims initially that the cutoff date was chosen in a belief that newbies would not have enough experience or knowledge of the project to vote properly, but later admits that the date was chosen in order to prevent suspected voter roll padding after the delinking of the Census Project. He also later claims that being eligible to vote does not constitute a right to vote. The Board begins to receive grievances from project members in good standing who will be prevented from voting in the election by this new rule.

1 June: It is revealed that prior to the July 1999 election Board member Maggie Stewart adopted a county in the COGenWeb solely in order to qualify for a Board seat in that region and that her State Coordinator back-dated her membership in the project so that she could meet last year's June 1 cutoff date.

2 June: Board Justice Joe Zsedeny moves to dismiss all of Carole Hammett's grievances as "frivolous and purely political in nature." The Board debates whether his generally worded motion refers only to Carole's grievances or to all the pending grievances.

3 June: Roger Swafford encourages Jim Powell to drop out of the race for National Coordinator while the Election Committee determines whether or not he is in good standing. Roger bases his request on a single forgotten link in a webpage that no longer belongs to Jim. The request is withdrawn following a public outcry.

4 June: The Board moves to rescind Motion 00-12 [the motion declaring the protest logos to be evidence that a project members is not in good standing].

4 June: Do As I Say, Not As I Do Maggie Stewart moves to adopt as a "standing rule" a set of guidelines for the proper conduct of Project members, including "It is the responsibility of each member of The USGenWeb Project to demonstrate membership in good standing by; promoting a positive public image of the project, and working to enhance its good name and reputation."

4 June: Ginger Hayes moves to declare the April 1 membership cutoff date contrary to the bylaws and to have the Board instruct the Election Committee that all members of the project are eligible to vote. Some Board members suggest that the Election Committee's decisions are binding on the Board. The Board briefly discusses whether or not being "eligible" to vote means one has a "right" to vote; several members expend considerable ink finding ways to interpret the bylaws in such a way as to support the cutoff [the traditional argument in these cases is "the bylaws don't specifically say we can't"].

6 June: During the discussion on the cutoff date, Barbara Dore points out [for the first time] that the reason for the cutoff date is not newbie inexperience but suspected voter roll padding by members of the Census Project. EC member Shari Handley posts her first and last committee report to the Board. She explicitly states "The cut-off date was established to *prevent* manipulation of the vote by making it impossible to pad voter lists by adding co-CCs in new states and regions, by taking on new counties only to gain voting eligibility in that region, or by establishing bogus identities with web-based eMail accounts."

7 June: Motion 00-12 is repealed. Protest logos are no longer deemed to be sufficient evidence of a failure to be in "good standing".

7 June: Maggie Stewart moves to have the Board "formally demand" that USGenNet, Inc., an independent genealogy server, remove all references to, links to, and logos for "the Nonprofit USGenWeb Project" from its pages and threatens sanctions against any project member who continues to display them on any USGenWeb pages. [USGenNet was originally ordered to remove the official USGenWeb logos from its pages; it designed its own replacement logos and these are what so offended Maggie.]

8 June: Basing his comments on secret evidence he is "not at liberty to divulge," Joe Zsedeny encourages State Coordinators to fire County Coordinators who agitate about the numerous irregularities with the election and claims "if they [worthy CCs who are being a denied a vote] feel as strongly about this Project as I do they would gracefully give up the vote so that the other several hundred voting members would feel that their vote fell where they aimed it to fall." He then moves to affirm the April 1 cutoff date, although only a few days earlier he had seconded the motion to rescind it. More than one project member points out that this is beginning to sound suspiciously like Senator Joseph McCarthy's witchhunts.

11 June: And Justice For Some The Board dismisses Carole Hammett's grievances as "frivolous and purely politically motivated."

13 June: The Election Committee announces that it will not accept web-based emails addresses [such as yahoo.com, juno.com, deja.com, etc.] email addresses as valid addresses for voters. This provision is quickly dropped after a public outcry.

15 June: Maggie Stewart withdraws her motion regarding the "NonProfit USGenWeb Project" references in favor of Teri Pettit's offer to negotiate with USGenNet over how it presents its index of USGenWeb links.

16 June: Our Esteemed National Coordinator enters the race for re-election.

16 June: The "standing rule" motion is declared failed for "lack of interest". Not a single Board member cast a vote on this motion.

16 June: Roger Swafford declares SW/SC State Coordinator Representative candidate Betsy Mills the winner of that race, as she ran unopposed.

21 June: Garage Sale MyFamily.com, Inc. announces that it has purchased RootsWeb.com, Inc. MyFamily promises to continue to support the USGenWeb Project without changes. It is belatedly realized that at least one of the USGenWeb domains was transferred to MyFamily.com as an asset in the sale.

21 June: Both the motion to rescind the April 1 cutoff date and the motion to affirm it fail. Our Esteemed National Coordinator decides that in the absence of clear Board consensus, the decision of the Election Committee will stand. An unknown number of otherwise qualified members of the Project are thus denied their vote.

21 June: The Board posts their findings in a grievance brought before them involving a NCGenWeb volunteer and the NCGenWeb State Coordinator, and encourages reprisals against the member who brought the grievance.

25 June: Our Esteemed National Coordinator shares with the Board his conversation with Charles Merrin, new General Manager of RootsWeb.com, Inc. Mr. Merrin assures the Board that MyFamily.com/RootsWeb.com will continue to honor its prior arrangements with USGenWeb and that they will negotiate over how to handle the domain name issue.

27 June: Joe Zsedeny publishes his "evidence" that voter roll padding has occurred. Each and every instance he cites is later publicly refuted and his page is almost immediately taken down. Fellow traveler Rich Howland later claims to have more secret evidence that he "cannot reveal at this time" to justify the cutoff date.

28 June: With only a few days to go before the election starts, Roger Swafford affirms the April 1 cutoff date, limits voter eligibility to no more than two members of each local project, and states that no state level special project members will be eligible to vote. There is once again a large public outcry and the Board begins to question whether or not these new "rules" are merely Roger's decisions or whether they were duly voted on by the EC. Several think the EC has overstepped its bounds.

28 June: Jim Powell moves to return voter eligibility rules to the "status quo" set in previous elections; Betsy Mills amends the motion to address only the eligibility of multiple county and state coordinators.

1 July: The third annual USGenWeb national election opens to revelations of more than a few irregularities. The process, as it turns out, does not ensure confidential votes, does not return date/time stamped receipts, and posts the incoming votes with full identifying information in a publicly accessible place, where they are obtained by a project member and posted to project mailing lists. It is also noted that all the ballots for the National Coordinator race are mailed solely to Roger Swafford and that the bylaws amendments ballot have the "abstain" option pre-checked. Several candidates' web pages are left off the ballot page, and several CCs report receiving more than one ID number. Several nonProject members report that they were able to vote with made-up ID numbers. Following the publication of this information, Ginger Cisewski moves to suspend the election and require the Election Committee to use a neutral secure voting system. Three hours after the polls opened, they were closed while the EC fixed a "glitch" [presumably the one that allowed anyone and their brother to see the votes that were cast]. The polls reopen after a brief intermission. Several State Coordinators recommend that their coordinators not vote until the remaining irregularities are fixed.

1 July: Jim Powell moves to set June 1 as the cutoff date for voter eligibility.

1 July: Mutiny On The Board Noting that the Esteemed National Coordinator has been neglecting his duties with the Board while attending to other email lists and chat rooms, has not been keeping up with numbering motions, releasing vote results, and various other NC duties, Jim Powell suggests that if he does not reappear in a timely fashion, someone else should be empowered to handle his duties in his absence. In the meantime, Jim numbers Ginger's motion to suspend the election and his motion to set a June 1 cutoff date. Members suggest appointing "temporary chairs" to handle the NC duties during the NC's frequent absences. Joe Zsedeny moves to appoint Holly Timm as the "temporary chair". Our Esteemed National Coordinator reappears, declares the motion out of order, accuses Jim Powell of a coup attempt, declares the motion regarding eligibility of multiple state and/or county coordinators to vote passed, and declares the motion to suspend the election "moot" since the security glitch has been fixed. Upon appeal, he reinstates this latter motion, and then declares it out of order. He then declares the motion to fix a June 1 cutoff date for voter eligibility also out of order.

1 July: Maggie Stewart moves that state level special projects coordinators be allowed to vote in the election.

1 July: Our Esteemed National Coordinator tells the Board he would like to ask MyFamily.com not to transfer the usgenweb.net and usgenweb.org domains to the Project until after the election is over.

2 July: Maggie's motion to allow state level project coordinators to vote passes. The Election Committee is informed and an announcement is made to the project that those members will be allowed to vote.

3 July: Our Esteemed National Coordinator publicly apologizes for accusing Jim Powell of attempting to lead a coup against him.

3 July: Teri Pettit moves to expedite Board business by providing that "in all instances where an Advisory Board motion has been made and seconded, and is followed by at least two independent calls for the question: (1) that voting can proceed, with or without discussion, with or without a numbered motion and with or without the approval of the National Coordinator; (2) that said motion shall be automatically approved should it receive the number of aye votes necessary under the Bylaws; and (3) that the only exception shall be when the Bylaws call for a 48-hour membership notice period."

4 July: Our Esteemed National Coordinator declares Teri's motion out of order. Ginger Cisewski appeals this ruling. [After this little dust-up, the NC diligently remembers to pass the gavel to one of the Board members whenever he will be absent for more than a day.]

4 July: The Board continues to discuss the broad support for a June 1 cutoff date for vote eligibility; several who originally voted in favor of the April 1 cutoff date now indicate they do not support it. Others continue to discuss the "chain of command" issue and what to do about an NC who stalls action on motions.

7 July: Wielding The Gavel While acting as temporary Chair, Holly Timm casts a vote [which she believes to make both a quorum and the required 2/3 majority] in favor of the appeal of the NC's ruling finding Teri's motion out of order. She puts the motion to expedite votes back on the floor. Our Esteemed National Coordinator reappears and asks the Board Secretary to inform the Board as to why the motion is out of order. The BS never responds to this request. The NC also nullifies Holly's vote, which does not change the outcome.

16 July: Ginger Cisewski moves to change the registrations on the three primary USGenWeb domains to show the USGenWeb Project as the registrant, Holly Timm as the Administrative Contact, and Ginger Hayes as the billing contact. She offers to pay for any costs incurred for these changes.

17 July: Attempted Hijacking The Board learns that Linda Lewis is in the process of registering as her private property the service mark "USGenWeb Archives." It also learns that three of its members --Barbara Dore, Joy Fisher, and Maggie Stewart-- are signatories to the application. Barbara and Joy publicly disavow any knowledge of Linda's actions other than to say they discussed it with her some time ago and agreed that it was a good idea. They specifically state that they didn't know she had actually submitted an application or that their names were on it. Maggie Stewart states essentially the same thing privately. A number of Board members note that Ms. Lewis has "used the USGenWeb name without the Board's permission," essentially the same crime for which the Census Project was summarily ejected from the Project. [Ironically, Joy Fisher was moving to sever ties with the Census Project for improper use of the USGenWeb name at the exact same time she knew Linda Lewis was doing the same thing.]

19 July: Ginger Cisewski moves to find Barbara Dore, Joy Fisher, Maggie Stewart, and Linda Lewis not in good standing. She and anyone who speaks in favor of this motion are accused of political motives.

20 July: In light of the obvious parallels between Linda's action and Ron's, the Board tentatively begins to discuss reinstating the Census Project and restoring its voting rights and taking punitive action solely against Ron Eason.

23 July: No Apologies Joe Zsedeny reports that Linda Lewis has agreed to take her name off the application for the servicemark and replace it with "USGenWeb Project", if this is possible. No actual offer from her is ever presented as verification, and of this writing [Aug 31 2000] she is still listed as the registrant on the application. [On July 31 2000 an amendment to the servicemark application was sent to the United States Patent and Trademark Office; the contents of this amendment are not known.]

26 July: The motion to expedite Board votes fails.

28 July: The motion to find Barbara Dore, Joy Fisher, Maggie Stewart and Linda Lewis not in good standing fails. All three Board members listed in the motion voted against it.

28 July: Sauce For the Goose Ginger Hayes moves to find Linda Lewis not in good standing and that she be asked to resign from the USGenWeb Project. The Board once again dances around the idea of reinstating the Census Project; several Board members who supported the removal of the CP now admit there is no difference between Ron's actions and Linda's actions. There is talk of rescinding Motion 00-10 in exchange for Ginger withdrawing her motion.

29 July: Ginger's motion is amended to specify that Linda Lewis be asked to resign from the USGenWeb Archives Project.

1 August: Polls close. The USGenWeb Census Project informs the Election Committee and Our Esteemed National Coordinator that they have elected Sue Soden for the Census Project representative seat. Our Esteemed National Coordinator informs Ron Eason that their elected representative will not be seated.

2 August: Linda Lewis asks for a trial.

3 August: Jim Powell moves to suspend Linda Lewis until the service mark application issue is resolved.

6 August: Election results are announced. Most non-Archives candidates are defeated, both amendments to the bylaws are defeated, and Our Esteemed National Coordinator and Jim Powell are slated for a runoff election. No results are released for the Tombstone Project and Census Project races, which were conducted privately and not by the Election Committee.

6 August: The motion to find Linda Lewis not in good standing is tabled.

9 August: The motion to suspend Linda Lewis is tabled.

9 August: The runoff election for National Coordinator begins.

23 August: Making the Same Mistake Twice Following a last-minute spamming of the voters and a smear attack on Jim Powell by Board member Barbara Dore, Tim Stowell is re-elected for another term as National Coordinator.

23 August: An Honorable Man Jim Powell resigns from USGenWeb.

23 August: Its Good To Be King Our Esteemed National improperly declares moot a more than 90 days old grievance in which he is specifically named for violating the bylaws and the rights of project members. He claims the grievance was withdrawn in May, and although it is promptly pointed out to the Board that it was specifically _not_ withdrawn, nothing further is heard about it [probably because the Board suddenly found itself with worse trouble on their hands].

24-31 August: Thieves Den The Board investigates allegations of copyright violations by several members of the Archives Census Project. A transcriber who has been trying to get her work removed from the Archives for several months has found that it remains online, although with someone else's name listed as the transcriber. Board member Maggie Stewart Zimmerman is named in her grievance, along with Kevin Fraley and Linda Lewis. ACP members Kevin Fraley and Kay Mason launch an immediate smear attack upon the transcriber who made the grievance, accusing her of insufficient devotion to the "researchers" and poor transcribing skills. They do not, however, ever affirmatively state that the versions now posted at the ACP were fully retranscribed from scratch. The Board's investigation reveals that the CP versions and ACP versions of the transcriptions are identical, even down to the use of all capital letters in some places and not in others, and it is abunduntly clear that the "files were reimported by the ACP into the census program and spit out at a different number of pages per file with the remarks column omitted, that changes were made to the headers and page numbering, but that the transcript itself was and is one and the same." [Holly Timm] Amazingly enough, and probably because the theft of her work is so blatant, at this writing [August 31, 2000] the transcriber actually has a chance to prevail in her grievance.

24 August: The Board briefly begins discussion of a standing Election Committee and bylaws revisions, but these discussions are dropped as the census grievance consumes more of their time. The original suggestion made by Joe Zsedeny is to retain the current Election Committee until a permanent one can be established. He withdraws his motion when it becomes clear that his fellow Board members prefer not to continue to work with the present EC.

26 August: Exclusive Club Our Esteemed National Coordinator begins screening subscriptions to the BOARD-L list.

29 August: Jumping Ship Board members Barbara Dore and Pam Reid publicly distance themselves from the actions of Archives Census Project members in the issue of the grievance currently before the Board. Both say they are sure no unlawful behavior occurred, but just in case it did, they weren't involved and don't condone it.

1 September 2000: Send In The Clowns The new Board is seated. It looks remarkably like the old Board.

TO BE CONTINUED....

© 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.