CHAPTER VII, PART 4. WHAT'S YOURS IS OURS

~The Perils of Pauline~

The following series of articles was published in the Daily Board Show during the period of August 24 through August 31, and concerned a grievance filed against Linda Lewis and the USGenWeb Archives project by Pauline Leitner. Pauline is a transcriber for the USGenWeb Census Project and she had been requesting for some months to have her files removed from the Archives Census Project without success. Pauline filed her grievance with the Board on August 23, and this is what happened next [please note that the Kay Mason mentioned below is not the former Coordinator of the USGenWeb Census Project]:

24 August 2000: Update On The News Corner: You may recall that some weeks ago we reported on a project member who requested that her transcriptions be removed from the Archives where they had ended up without her permission. Instead of removing the transcriptions, the Archives Census Project took her name off them, left them online, and solicited for "new transcribers" over the data. One of those transcriptions has already been reposted under someone else's name; except for the transcriber's name it is the exact same file, even down to some small and barely noticeable idiosyncracies. The transcription is huge [its for a major American city] and the original transcriber says it took her 600 hours to get it online. The new transcriber must have worked nearly 20 hours a day to get the "new" one up in less than a month.

We hear now that the transcriber in question has filed a formal grievance with the Board against Kevin Fraley, Maggie Stewart Zimmerman, and Linda Lewis for copyright violation and for falsely informing the Board that the files had been removed. Thus far, all her previous communication with the Board has been ignored, but perhaps she is just on their 90 day plan.

25 August 2000: Honor Among Thieves Corner: Census Project coordinator Ron Eason has publicly posted the grievance filed against Kevin Fraley, Maggie Stewart Zimmerman, and Linda Lewis to the -ALL and CC-L lists. In his message, he gives a bit of background on the transcriber's experiences trying first to get her files corrected and then, when the Archives would not correct them, trying to get them removed. Since her first attempts to get the files removed, her name was first removed from them although the files were left online. Later a request for a new transcriber appeared in the heading for the files, which were _still_ online. Then Eileen White's name was posted as the assigned transcriber, and finally about a week ago, her name was replaced with Kay Mason's [no relation].

Following the grievance [in which she was not named] Ms. Mason wrote an outraged letter to the transcriber in which she says, "Are you done whining and crying?...You are still seeing these records as yours, not as public records. And as for the time spent on these records, how do you know how I spend my time? You've been whining about these records for eternity, so it seems, so why would it be so far-fetched for a very motivated person to redo the work you've done?...I suggest you actually talk to the person about whom you are going to spread lies before attacking, as you have me. You have NO clue who I am or how I spend my time, and I don't owe YOU any kind of accounting of what I do with my time....From the tone of the letters I've seen written by you, I almost feel sorry for you. I don't think I've ever seen so much anger expressed over a lifeless object that you have chosen to give life. I hope you soon learn how to manage your own life and leave the rest of us alone."

Although Ms. Mason implies that she did indeed spend the excessive amount of time necessary to retranscribe the records, nowhere in her message does she state affirmatively that she did in fact fully re-transcribe the census from scratch. It would be rather strange if she were retranscribing the censuses that the ACP would first request a new transcriber, then list "Eileen White" as the new transcriber, and only then add Kay's name when the files were actually ready to go online. [I wrote her and asked her directly if she re-did the work from scratch, but she has not replied.] It is also interesting that the blurb at the beginning of each posted page of the census in question says "Abstracted by Kay Mason, August 2000 from public records. Edited and formatted by Maggie Stewart, August 2000. Submitted by Kay Mason August 15, 2000." Not "transcribed by Kay Mason", note, but "abstracted." Other transcribed census records generally say "This Census was transcribed by [name] and proofread by [name] for the USGenWeb Census Project." Kay does go to some trouble to note in her message above that the original transcriptions constitute "public records" rather than being the property of the transcriber. The "new" records in question were all posted August 21.

In the other set of transcriptions [same city, different year], it appears that the transcriptions have been pulled as of today [August 25] and replaced with the following blurb: "A retranscription of this file is in progress and should be online shortly." I imagine we will see more "abstractions" by "Kay Mason" online forthwith.

For his part, Ron Eason warns the Board and the Archives, that if the transcriber's grievance "isn't handled right by the AB and the Archives, he is contemplating filing charges with the Attorney General." [_That_ could get very interesting...]

26 August 2000: In a message to Maggie Stewart-Zimmerman, Linda Lewis, Kevin Fraley and Kay Mason, Shari Handley and Holly Timm request "a complete and immediate explanation of the occurrances surrounding the census transcriptions that are the subject of Pauline Leitner's grievance (1850 and 1860 Baltimore City)." They specifically request that the explanation include "information on the re-transcription by Kay L. Mason, and whether it was completely, freshly redone, or just had items "stripped and moved" from the Leitner transcriptions." They say the information will be used "to supplement an ongoing investigation of this matter." [We are interested to learn that, despite this "ongoing investigation", Pauline Leitner has not been contacted by the Board, and Ron Eason has been instructed to keep his mouth shut about it, lest he jeopardize whatever slim chance his transcriber has of winning.]

26 August 2000: Ongoing Investigation Corner: It looks like mention of an Attorney General getting involved lit a fire under the Board. Depending on the outcome of this "investigation", the Board and/or the Archives could find themselves in an interesting position. It is unlikely that anyone from the Archives will go on record that Kay's "abstractions of public records" were just cut and pasted versions of Pauline's original work. And it is even more unlikely that the Board will want to go on record as condoning the practice [I can see the headlines now ]. Unless Kay is able to state affirmatively that she retranscribed the records from scratch, the Board will have to determine if "abstracting" is an OK thing to do, and if not what to do about it.

Most of us probably realize by now that "abstraction" is more or less Archives policy when someone wants their transcriptions removed from the Archives and makes a big stink about it. Its happened before, Maggie Stewart has been caught discussing doing it at Linda Lewis' suggestion, and our own National Coordinator has gone on record as noting that the _only_ thing copyrightable in a transcription of a public domain work is the format, and the format belongs to the Archives. From a technical and legal standpoint, since the records in question are public domain works, it is debatable whether or not there has been out and out copyright violation. However, the violation of the relationship of trust between the transcribers and the Archives is huge.

How much do you want to bet that rather than go on record as stating the "new" versions of the transcriptions are just the old ones in new clothes, the Archives agrees to take the transcriptions down for good, no further questions asked? After all to admit to the practice would pretty much gut any assurance that transcribers retain their copyright to their work, and quite a few people might rethink their dedication to a project that would so blithely steal their hard work and call it someone else's.

27 August 2000: Ginger Hayes and Pam Reid join Holly Timm and Shari Handley in requesting information on the transcriptions at the heart of the grievance currently before the Board. Ginger notes "I've asked once privately and received no answer." Pam says "I have been trying in vain to get to the bottom of this mess since it started!"

28 August 2000: Shari Handley forwards Kevin Fraley's response to the request for information on the Baltimore census transcriptions. [This post is worth a full read; it is notable both for the height of its arrogance and the depth of its bull manure]. Kevin says:

"As a courtesy to you, there being no requirement to do so, I will answer this request on behalf of the USGW Census Project and the three members of its staff you have addressed. Linda Lewis is not connected with the management of this project. These questions have been covered before, but seemingly little or no attention was paid to the facts I presented to the USGW Advisors about a month ago...As you were informed earlier, all work written by Pauline Leitner was removed from all project directories online approximately two months ago. As far as I am aware, not a single word authored by Ms. Leitner has remained since that time, and no one including Leitner herself has been able to find one...Pauline Leitner has every right to quit as a project volunteer, just as everyone does, but neither she nor anyone else has a right to "lock up" a county so that another volunteer cannot step into the vacant space. She became incensed two months ago when informed that sooner or later these counties would be done by someone else and appear online in the project without her little name...At least five separate people have worked nearly nonstop for two months on these new transcriptions, doing original research in the microfilm records. We estimate that between 300 and 400 man-hours have gone into this so far, and the work is far from completed to our standards...Kay Mason is the group leader in this effort, and the transcription quite properly bears her name. Other names will not be published, due to the rather frightening and aggressive e-mail war being waged against our volunteers by Ron Eason's gang... This monumental transcription work bears no connection whatsoever with Pauline Leitner, she has had nothing to do with it at any time, and it frankly differs rather fundamentally from her very poor earlier files...Leitner not only managed to do her earlier transcription under the name of the wrong county, but also has every single page and sheet number wrong! When we first started into the retranscription we were amazed at what a terribly poor job she had done from start to finish, and the silver lining in all her tantrums was clearly the chance to replace sloppy and inaccurate work with a much better effort.

Neither Pauline Leitner, Kay Mason, nor anyone else owns or in any other way has any special rights to the government published census record...Despite the ignorant statements some have made, there is no gray area or legal ambiguity here of any kind, and attorneys with knowledge in this field certainly could not differ with this statement...The only material in a census transcription which is eligible for copyright protection, and which in any way "belongs" to any individual, is the original notes, remarks, or explanatory text written by the transcriber and added to the original census...Regarding an "investigation," there is only one proper person authorized to conduct such an investigation. That person is I, and I have thoroughly done so. The facts of this matter have been clearly established, and appropriate action taken, thereby closing the matter at the court of last resort. From what we have learned in this, there will probably be revisions made in our policies and procedures, which as always is a constant and ongoing process. It is likely that in the future we will decline all requests of a similar nature, and not attempt to accomodate them as we did in this case. After two miserable years of being used as a political football to further the personal political aims and careers of a number of persons, the USGW Census Project is thankfully once again what it was created to be in the first days of 1997. We are once again a unified, professionally managed scholarly project created and authorized by USGW to properly transcribe and place online the entire US Federal Census. We are an apolitical project, with a very great deal of hard work ahead of us, and we cannot spare time or effort on ever again engaging in the countless political disputes that such a disappointing percentage of USGW volunteers seem to spend their time at...Because of that, our staff will not be able to be further distracted by the various political battles that seem so constant, but must return to our work. I'm sure you will understand that we will have no further comment on the Pauline Leitner matter, and will be unable to answer future "nuisance" e-mails on this sort of subject...any attempt by anyone, either individual or group, to use coercion or political pressure in an attempt to force any project or branch of the project to violate its own policies and procedures on behalf of a special interest would be unethical and highly improper. If the person or persons guilty of such behavior happened to occupy positions of trust and responsibility within the project, the offense becomes more serious and more reprehensible, and represents a very disturbing breach of the trust placed in that person or persons. Repeated offenses of this type could call for the use of the USGW grievance or complaint mechanisms, or even merit disciplinary action."

Ginger Hayes notes that the more she reads Kevin's message, the more need she feels for her hipboots.

Ginger Cisewski asks why "Kevin Fraley is misrepresenting himself as a member of the USGW Census Project. That group is quite alive and well at www.us-census.org as evidenced in yesterday's lengthy upload report, and they are most definitely not associated with Mr. Fraley." [To their credit.]

Tim Stowell reminds her that the Board severed relations with the USGenWeb Census Project some months back and "has been sent a notice to cease and desist using the name as it misrepresents to the public the organization it is gathering info for." He agrees with her that Kevin Fraley is not associated with the CP.

Notes From An Investigation: Whither goest the investigation of the grievance submitted by Pauline Leitner over her transcriptions? Well, some of the Board members at least have been doing some footwork. For instance, check this out:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~hft/census/

Here's an excerpt from that page, apparently authored by Holly Timm:

"I downloaded the first 100 pages of the 1850 Baltimore City census from each of the two census project sites the evening of August 24, 2000...I then began to try to compare the transcripts. I used MSWord's Document Compare function on the first file in each group...the comparison of the names, age and occupation was clear and easy to look at, there was not one single variation between the pages contained in both files. I then opened the files as plain text in Wordpad and visually compared over half the total pages in the entire groups in random sections. I did not locate one single instance of variation in name, occupation, age, birthplace...there is simply no way two independent transcribers are going to have absolutely no variation between works. It is my opinion and conclusion that these two transcripts were identical. 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."

Here's another one:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~hft/census/irclog.html

And a snippet from that log, posted August 19 2000, between Holly Timm [MaMaT] and Kay Mason [Keziah]:

"[MaMaT] what are you doing to Baltimore?
[MaMaT] not razing the city I hope :-)))
[Keziah] Stripping and moving things for 1860. We finished 1850 already.
[Keziah] Maybe it should be?
[MaMaT] lol
[Keziah] I don't know. I've never been there.
[MaMaT] stripping and moving?
[Keziah] Yes. Some of the headers need cleaning and moving so the census can be put back up.
[MaMaT] ahhhhhh
[Keziah] Its been so much fun lol
[MaMaT] I'll bet
[MaMaT] tedious
[Keziah] yes. a bit, but I'm almost done. Yeah!"

This is fascinating. The Archives Census Project has apparently been caught red-handed and they are now applying all sorts of convoluted reasoning as to how what they have done is OK, legal, above-board, and "ethical". [I didn't reprint it above, but after he threatens the Board, Kevin goes on at some length about what an honest guy he is.] Kevin obfuscates more than a little in his message to the Board. For instance, when he says that they have removed all of Pauline's work, he is referring solely to her notes and remarks, since that is all the ACP considers to be hers.

To recap, this what they have done so far:
--refused for two years to change incorrect information in the transcriptions at the request of the transcriber
--refused to take down the transcriptions at the request of the transcriber

in the last month or so they have:
--took the transcriber's name off the files, replacing it with [NAME DELETED]
--removed that notice and replaced it with one seeking a new transcriber, which was posted over the original transcription still online
--reposted at least one set of transcriptions, which is exactly like the old one, under a new name; this set calls itself an "abstraction" rather than a transcription
--told the Board to mind its own business
--threatened the Board
--reminded us all once again the legal and ethical are not the same thing, especially at the Archives

Really makes you want to donate transcriptions, doesn't it?

30 August 2000: Rats Jumping Ship Corner: Looks like even the "Archives Uber Alles" crowd is hurrying to put some distance between it and them in the face of the recent "explanation" and brush-off offered by Kevin Fraley. John Schunk, for instance, has posted an impassioned letter to just about every general project mailing list out there stating:

"I am extremely disturbed by a posting from Kevin Fraley to BOARD-L. This posting implies that a group of five people (four of them unnamed) have done a fresh transcription of the 1850 Baltimore City census from the original 7 microfilms...What is disturbing is that the Mason transcription and the Leitner transcription are virtually identical. I have been unable to find a single difference in how a name or an age has been transcribed. And there is no way that two individuals acting independently would interpret all handwriting exactly in the same way. It is clear to me that, while there may have been other changes in headers, page numbering, and notations, the Leitner transcription of data has been unchanged and has been attributed by The USGenWeb Archives Census Project to Ms. Mason...I find such behavior indefensible. To remove the name of the person who did all of the transcription work and to give credit for it to someone else is, to me, unthinkable. Moreover, the position presented by Mr. Fraley means that any census transcription (or any other files claimed to be public domain) to The USGenWeb Project (whether it be to the Archives or to any of the county or state websites) are free pickings for any harvester...I trust that the USGenWeb Advisory Board will not endorse such action."

[Interestingly enough, shortly after John posted the above message, which included URLs so people could go to the files and check them out for themselves, the files in question were taken offline. You can still view a subset of them here: http://www.rootsweb.com/~hft/census/]

Board member Pam Reid posted a long message to USGENWEB-DISCUSS saying, "Public domain records are not afforded copyright protection by law... BUT, this in no way means that we should go merrily along and take public domain records that have digitized by others and add them to the Archives, to our County sites or to any of our Special Projects...That would be clearly unethical...The people who do these tasks deserve SOME kind of right to their work. At this point in time, I am not concerned about the legal ramifications of using someone else's transcriptions of public domain records. I am VERY concerned about the ethics of this practice. It bothers me greatly to think that I am associated with an organization that would practice this code of conduct as standard operating procedure in governing the way our various States, Counties, and Projects gather materials. I would GREATLY hope that the principals, ideals, beliefs, and standards that characterize The USGenWeb Project as a whole would strictly oppose such conduct."

Board member Barbara Dore, putting a finger to the wind and figuring out right quick which way it is blowing, posted a message to most of the general distribution lists and both Board lists in which she says, "While I am reserving final judgment until all the evidence has been gathered and presented, I basically agree with the sentiments Pam presented."

We notice a distinct tendency in these various messages to first deny there has been any actual illegal behavior and then to distance themselves from it, just in case. Perhaps the Board members are finally realizing the extent of their own legal exposure should they continue to permit unlawful activity such as copyright violation to occur under the USGenWeb banner?

Deja Vu All Over Again: Those of you who think you've seen this before are right. Just about a year ago a roving reporter sent us a log of a chat between Maggie Stewart Zimmerman [who now heads the Archives Census Project] and Mary Ann Hetrick [COGW SC]. A transcriber had requested that some of her work be removed from the Archives forthwith, and this is what Maggie had to say about it:

"[Maggie] Someone wants half of the public domain records removed from Lawrence County...
[Maggie] they say they are copyrighted.
[CCmahoni] copyrighted by who?
[CCmahoni] when where they done?
[Maggie] Imperial artworks.
[Maggie] They were put there in 1996 for Gods sake.
[CCmahoni] sigh
[CCmahoni] well gee they took there sweet time
[Maggie] Linda said to pull them and have someone else proof the material and resubmit." [from 13 July 1999]

Apparently the policy of affixing a new name to an old transcription rather than take it down comes from the very top. Can Maggie and Kevin get out of this by saying "we were just following orders" or will one or both of them be a good little soldier and fall on their swords?

Shortly after Holly Timm provided her evidence of the similarities between Pauline's files and Kay's, Joy Fisher quietly removed the disputed transcriptions from the Archives for good and nothing further has been heard on this issue. However, the Archives is still apparently up to its old tricks.

On to Chapter VIII!
Back to Chapter VI
Back to the TOC

© 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. The opinions expressed above are solely those of the author; they may not reflect those of the USGenWeb Project or its members. The USGenWeb Project Advisory Board does not endorse this site and is not affiliated with it. Most of the preceding information was gleaned from the archives of various USGW Project-associated mailing lists, personal communications, and interviews with various participants.