From merope@Radix.Net Tue Jan 23 11:02:15 2001 Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 11:02:04 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Same stuff, different day...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Monday 22 January 2001: Richard Howland posts info on the dinner get-together at the GenTech 2001 conference. For further information, contact him directly [richpump@wf.net] Tim Stowell posts the proposed slate for the Election Committee. They are: NE Region: Bill Prokasy, Sara Greer NW Region: Alice Jean Miller, Kathy Welch Heidel SE Region: Debbie Anderson, Carol C-H SW Region: LaRae Halsey-Brooks, Kenneth Thomas Archives / Special Projects: Terasa Hodges, Bob Chada At Large: Linda Haas Davenport, Marti Graham Tim asks for a motion regarding the slate. Richard Harrison moves that the Board accept the slate of committee members as proposed and Rich Howland seconds the motion. Tim gives the motion number 01-02 and, dispensing with the traditional discussion period, calls for a vote. One Board member has voted "yes" thus far. Richard Harrison remarks that "Just because this will be an "up or down vote for the whole slate" doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a discussion period." He reminds Tim that the membership may have questions or comments concerning the proposed committee to address to their Board representatives. Tuesday 23 January 2001: Ken Short also asks if they are doing away with the usual discussion period. Tim asks if anyone else wants to stop the vote and discuss the slate. Voting proceeds on Motion 01-02; thus far five Board members have voted "yes". Richard Harrison thinks it would be wise for the Board "to state its position on Election Procedures in black and white." To this end, he was edited the report of the Standing Election Committee to include only information pertinent to actual election procedures and moves that the Board accept this as its "Standing Election Procedures" and it be posted on the USGW webpage. Maggie Stewart seconds Motion 01-02 and ask Tim to make sure she is still subbed to Board-L. === Old Grudges Never Die Corner: We have received word of yet another grievance filed before the Board [jeez, I wonder how many they are up to by now]. Last night, Anthony and Joanne Abby and three other NYGenWeb coordinators were summarily fired by NYGW SC Holly Timm over a simple mistake. In addition to their NYGW counties, the Abbys run the USGenExchange, and apparently while doing some upgrades to their servers over the weekend, they neglected to move the pages for their NYGW counties. Because the GenExchange server is configured to redirect broken links to the main page, the effect of this oversight was to send people looking for NYGW pages to the USGenExchange home page. The Abbys claim to have been unaware of the situation until yesterday, when they were summarily fired along with David Roberts, Marie Kelly, and Pat Brown. A total of four counties were removed in this action. Holly has been unmoved by explanations of the mistake and refuses to relink the counties in question. Holly claims to have sent an email to Joann at her Nassau county address; Joann claims that she did not receive it. This email was apparently the only notice sent prior to the delinking. After they were delinked, the Abbys contacted Holly explaining the situation and asking to be relinked, but Holly has refused, noting "Frankly I don't care whether you find my claims spurious or not. As I said in my earlier reply, the sites have long been borderline and the source of several complaints, this latest action of redirecting them to the Genexchange Main Page was intolerable." [The Abbys claim to have never received any prior indication that their pages were unacceptable in any way.] Holly also notes quite firmly that she has the authority to remove CCs arbitrarily and has done so and the action against the five CCs will not in any case be reversed. In the interim since yesterday evening, Holly quickly gave two of the counties in question to someone else who, by amazing coincidence, already had extensive pages up and ready to go. As of this morning, one of the pages still goes to the broken GenExchange link and the remaining one contains this paragraph: "The previous Kings County NYGenWeb site no longer links appropriately and has therefore been discontinued. This temporary page has been placed to give you what Kings County researching information we have immediately available." The remainder of the page is little more than a list of county resources available on Root$web. [Although one of Holly's bigger complaints about the Abbys' web pages was that they were little more than a gateway to the USGenExchange, apparently pages that are nothing more than gateways to Root$web are A-OK.] The Abbys have a somewhat rocky history with USGW, which seems to have stemmed mostly from their competition with Root$web way back in the dimly remembered past. Despite their differences with some members of USGW in the past [Holly among them], they have been contributing USGW members for a very long time with apparently no complaints or problems. Apparently however, the past is still alive for some people since a simple mistake was enough to get them booted from the NYGW with extreme prejudice and with no real warning or chance to correct the error. Holly has been making a lot of noise lately about "inclusion" and "tolerance", but apparently this does not extend to long-term USGW members who also happen to run their own genealogy servers and with whom she has long-standing gripes. The truly astonishing thing is that whatever her beef with the Abbys is, it got extended arbirtrarily to three other people, who have been forced to pay with their counties for the Abbys' mistake. Holly is no doubt basking in the warm glow of Babs Dore's approval even as we speak. Although the Abbys have filed a grievance asking to be reinstated, it is unlikely that the Board will even get to it in this lifetime [my outstanding grievances are now 9 and 6 months old, respectively]. If they were by some miracle to address it in a timely fashion, it is not likely they will vote against one of their own, regardless of the merits of the grievance. Given who the Abbys are and their history with several Board members they, like Carole Hammett and Diane Mason before them, have absolutely no hope of a fair or impartial hearing before this Board. So much for a "tolerant" and "inclusive" USGenWeb. [Incidentally, Holly claims that the grievance filed by the Abbys is not factual, but so far has declined to point out exactly where it departs from the truth.] === "Power intoxicates men. When a man is intoxicated by alcohol, he can recover, but when intoxicated by power, he seldom recovers. ---James F. Byrnes This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Wed Jan 24 10:51:29 2001 Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:51:28 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Going the extra mile...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Tuesday 23 January 2001: Teri Pettit notes that she would have liked to have a discussion period on Motion 01-02 but "since 5 or 6 votes have already been cast, the horse is out of the barn by now." She thinks that no vote should be called without first ascertaining whether anyone wants to discuss the motion, and notes that in cases where the vote is called immediately voting often occurs before all Board members have a chance to read the motion. She personally would have liked to have at least the email addresses of the proposed EC members so that she could acquaint herself with their past history of participation in mailing lists. Wednesday 24 January 2001: Tim Stowell gives the "Standing Election Procedures" motion [or at least a part of it] the number O1-03 and opens the floor for discussion. [Apparently the Board is going to vote on Richard Harrison's motion from yesterday piecemeal]. New Board Secretary Esse Frye says she has no documentation of Maggie's second of the above motion. === Tin Dictators Corner: Following in the wake of wholesale delinking in NYGenWeb over the last couple of days, Gerald Westmoreland, a CC in the MSGenWeb sent the following "open letter" [which I found slipped under my door this morning] to the Board and Our National Commander: "...The recent action of Holly Timm in removing David Roberts, Marie Kelly, Pat Brown, Anthony Abby, and Joanne Abby as County Coordinators in the NYGenWeb is the final straw. They were removed over a simple accidental server link error. This is just another thoughtless and hateful act by the "leaders" of the GenWeb project. Ms. Timm can claim anything she wants regarding the situation but it is clearly an action taken in the spirit of hatefulness and spite. Ms. Timm is not just a vengeful member of this project but represents the project as a SC and a member of the Advisory Board...Maybe you are acting this way because you are following the example of the "leader" of this project - Mr. Tim Stowell. Mr. Stowell, Ms. Timm and other "leaders"...of this project have continued to act childish, selfish, and...stupid. Watching these "leaders" is like watching daycare children fighting over toys and fussing with each other...It's like watching children playing a game and making up the rules as they go. You people cannot possibly give a DAMN about genealogy or helping people. True genealogists do NOT have the hateful, malicious attitudes that are so apparent among so many of our "leaders". You people are just plain mean...The Archives controversy, trademark infringements, violations of by-laws, stealing contributors data, random voter qualifications, refusing to face grievances, reluctance to give people credit for their own poetry or to readily apologize when caught......the list goes on and on and on. There are a couple of nice, well meaning leaders at the national level who really do care about what the GenWeb is supposed to be about, but they are so outnumbered. I want them to know that this is not directed at them...I can no longer spend my time and money working for this project. This project's future seems very gloomy unless things change at the national level - and I doubt they will since the antagonists seem firmly entrenched. I am very proud of my association with the MSGenWeb, but unfortunately it is associated with the USGenWeb project "leaders". Therefore effective Saturday, January 27, 2001 I resign as CC for all three of my MSGenWeb counties. I thought about writing a good-bye poem, but I'm afraid someone will try to steal it." We'll See How Long This Lasts Corner: New Board Secretary Esse Frye has posted an extensive summary of the Board's activity yesterday to several major project lists, including CC-L, -ALL, and State-Coord-L. This is a welcome addition and we hope she keeps it up. === "Government is more than the sum of all the interests; it is the paramount interest, the public interest. It must be the efficient, effective agent of a responsible citizenry, not the shelter of the incompetent and the corrupt." ---Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr. This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Thu Jan 25 14:23:01 2001 Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:23:00 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Give 'em enough rope...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Wednesday 24 January 2001: Voting on Motion 01-02 proceeds. Thus far 9 Board members have voted yes and one has abstained. Teri Pettit notes that Motion 01-03 is "so vague that one can't tell what we are voting about." She notes that a subcommittee usually refers to a subset of the full body, which would refer to the Advisory Board. She says "You can't tell whether this is meant to be a one-time directive to the current Advisory Board to appoint a committee now to operate for one year, or whether it is a directive to the current Advisory Board to appoint a committee now to last perpetually, or whether it is an ongoing directive to every Advisory Board to appoint a new committee each year. You can't tell what relationship, if any, this motion has to the motion, which passed, to accept the recommendations of the Election Study Committee's report. You can't tell what relationship, if any, this motion has to the Standing Election Committee slate being voted on in Motion 01-02." She notes that the Board already passed the Election Study Committee report and they are already involved in implementing it. She asks "What is the point of this other motion that relates to the same topic, but in wording that is so non-specific that one can't tell what it means?" Richard Harrison tells Teri she is probably confused because Tim Stowell truncated the full motion when he call for discussion on it. He notes that "The wording is the same as in the Election Study Committee Report. It simply officially adopts the majority portion of the Report as Standing Prodedures for the project." He thinks it is important the Board formally adopt clear written procedures since questions will arise regarding implementation of the report and notes "some of the recommendations of the Study Committee will not work our as anticipated. Necessary changes can also be incorporated into the standing procedures." [So apparently they aren't going to be voting on it piecemeal; Tim was just taking a shortcut.] BS Esse Frye reminds Tim that she made a point of order regarding Motion 01-03, since she has not received documentation on the Board-Exec list of Maggie's second. She says "This motion is out of order as I do not have any documentation sent by Maggie to the list. I asked a question earlier on this motion to ask if anyone received any messages from Maggie verifying the second. So far there has been no answer." Thursday 25 January 2001: Tim notes that "Some confusion seems to have arisen over motion ordering" and clarifies the status of each motion in regards to when it was made and seconded. Maggie Stewart notes that she seconded Motion 01-03 twice, but it must not have made it to the list [it did at least once; Esse must have missed it]. She affirms that she did second it. Voting continues on Motion 01-02. The count is now 10 yes votes and one abstention [and this motion has passed]. === "Deceiving someone for his own good is a responsibility that should be shouldered only by the gods." ---Henry S. Haskins This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Fri Jan 26 13:52:41 2001 Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 13:52:31 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Too little, too late...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains independent thought and editorial content. Read at your own risk! Thursday 25 January 2001: Board Secretary Esse Frye formally rescinds her point of order regarding Motion 01-03 and apologizes for "disrupting the session." === Some Servers Are More Equal Than Others Corner: We are pleased to report that the recent grievance filed by Anthony and Joanne Abby and three other NYGenWeb CCs has at last been acknowledged by their Board representatives, albeit grudgingly. One of them went so far as to say they weren't sure they needed to acknowledge receipt, "given the intial email was forwarded to the world." The other one told Anthony he shouldn't have brought it to the Board in the first place, but they are "attempting to set up a mediation process that may apply..." [see below]. In any case, the Board is hard at work fomenting a reply. Meanwhile, Board member Holly Timm, who is the SC that fired the Anthonys and three other CCs, has been in contact with one of them. She says "If you wish to build a site separate and apart form GenExchange and located on another server (any other server), I will take a look at it and if is is adequate, you can return to being Kings County CC." [Note the "any other server". And I had always believed that it was USGW policy to not discriminate against servers. Silly me.] She also notes that she has "long been disappointed and dismayed by the NYGenWeb sites at GenExchange", but according to the Abbys,she's never bothered to communicate this to them. [I asked her about this; she claims she doesn't save "such informal messages."] Rules and Regulations Corner: Board member Rich Howland let slip yesterday that "there is at this day and time an attempt to setup a mediation process which will address disputes among USGWP members. As called for in the By-Laws." This process will apparently include "a page to assist members with the proper way to ask for mediation," including what grievance filers may expect to happen once they submit a grievance. I'll bet a stolen Archives file that their instructions will include a requirement that any grievances be submitted to the Board and only the Board and any public disclosure will result in automatic denial of a grievance. After all, if we don't know about grievances that are filed, we can't complain about their mishandling. Rich also kindly informed us all yesterday that "Grievances against AB members are not the correct way to attempt to change anything." He suggests we wait until election time and express ourselves at the ballot box. [Sheesh. This makes absolutely no sense at all for grievances involving snatched counties, violated copyright, etc. But it is mighty convenient for the Board.] All Mine Corner: CMGI is back in the news... our favorite venture capital firm has recently announced that it and its property Alta Vista will be attempting "to force companies using search techniques for which it owns the patent to pay it copyright." According to an article in the Financial Times, Alta Vista is claiming that it owns a patent "on what the internet is," namely the technologies by which the web is searched and indexed. CMGI CEO David Wetherell says they will be pursuing lawsuits against "virtually everyone out there who indexes the web..."; this is extended even to intranets. The full article is at: http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3QCDYDDIC [jeez... guess CMGI either needs bucks fast and wants to cow the other internet search engines into paying copyright fees, or they are hoping to cripple competition before they take AV public.] At It Again Corner: FamilyDiscovery.com has reared its ugly head again. A number of USGW members report receiving the following "private offer" to join FamilyDiscovery for a new low price: "We have taken a notice of your interest in genealogy as you have been highly recommended to us by another genealogical publishing company...We're in the process of making our genealogical service the best on the Internet and we feel that with a little help from you we will be able to provide genealogists world wide with all kinds of helpful information. In exchange for your help with filling out a short survey we are offering you access to our service at an all time low of 30% off regular prices. http://www.familydiscovery.com/surveyoffer.htm What we have for you is an online genealogy service giving you access to a comprehensive database of compiled genealogical information on the Internet...We have taken the time and organized thousands of online databases into categories in a point and click atmosphere making it a snap for you to find exactly what you are looking for in under a minute. No more searching for your family and coming up with dead ends on the Internet or on those expensive CD-ROMS...With our recently added search engine you can now search by any criteria you can think of...What type of Information will you find? FamilyDiscovery.com will give you all the information you could possibly search for in a lifetime as we do add more records daily covering all 50 US States and Most Countries Overseas...We feel that you are capable of helping genealogists world wide. That is why we have selected you to participate in this special offer...To show our appreciation we're offering you access to this complete database for the lowest price ever. To take advantage of this special offer all you have to do is answer a few simple questions and join by Saturday 2/10/2001 at the special 30% off One Time Access fee of ONLY $42.00 with absolutely nothing to pay EVER again! This is the lowest price we will be offering so don't let this one pass you by Accept NO Substitutes! The user name and password you select during the ordering process will be active immediately so you can start searching for your family right away!" A visit to the survey page reveals a short, not very professional survey that one must print out and mail to Family Discovery. [Just the fact that one cannot take the survey online is a pretty fair indication of the professionalism of this company.] You need to supply your username and password to them on this form and a disclaimer at the bottom notes that you will be able to use them once they receive your payment and the survey. So their offer of "immediate access" is not, shall we say, entirely accurate. On kind of a humorous note, if one visits their "What's New" page, one finds this notice for 12/1/00-1/26/01: "Too much data added to the search engine to list!" This is probably little more than an attempt to keep the people who actually post the data from finding out that this company is selling access to it, as that does tend to generate complaints to servers and the FTC. === "We are now at the point where we must decide whether we are to honor the concept of a plural society which gains strength through diversity or whether we are to have bitter fragmentation that will result in perpetual tension and strife." ---Justice Earl Warren This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Sat Jan 27 10:03:11 2001 Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 10:03:10 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: We know what's best for you...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Friday 26 January 2001: Rich Howland posts an URL for a proposed "mediation process" that he and Ellen Pack have been working on: http://www.rootsweb.com/~ilgenweb/abm.htm [and its pretty much about what you'd expect.] === Fox Guarding the Henhouse Corner: Leave it up to the Board. While a lively, informative, and useful conversation about forming an impartial and independent committee to address and mediate grievances has proceeded on both CC lists, they manage to come up with a process that, yes, includes only Board members as "mediators. The only nod to "impartiality" and avoiding conflict of interest is that Board members named in complaints can't serve as mediators [which may make it hard to form a five person team]. And we were right again; the process specifically includes a provision that will terminate the mediation process if its secret workings are leaked to the public. It also contains a provision that "that outside discussion with persons not directly involved, or public discussion on various project lists, will only weaken their position, and reduce the likelihood of success." [told ya so.] I will confess to being amazed at this. Its like they have rocks in their heads or something. The general consensus of project members that care to discuss these issues is that the Board should not be mediating grievances against its own members. At all. Period. And in the very midst of a good ongoing discussion as to what would satisfy the project in this regard, they come up with more of the same. The opinions of the rank and file members of this project must be entirely meaningless. The mediation process itself seems doomed to failure. Essentially, the Board is going to sub one mediator, the parties to the grievance, and their chosen "advisors" to a mailing list and let them duke it out, albeit in a decorous fashion. Since its assumed parties in a grievance have already said what they have to say to each other, this seems to have little point and little chance of success. Neither party is likely to be satisfied and nothing will be resolved. The Board however, will be able to say it did what it could, _and_ it can claim that any failures to resolve the issue were just not their fault. They won't be required to take any actions whatsoever other than moderating a mail list and as an added bonus, they can finally claim to be Doing Something. So this is more or less a CYA proposal and pretty much win-win for them. For the rest of us, however, its less than compelling. If we have a grievance, we must submit it via this method and attempt to resolve it via this method, or the Board can refuse to address it all. If it fails, as its likely to, we have no further recourse. For some reason, the process is also limited to USGenWeb members. This means that people who have lost their only county and are therefore not members any more may be denied access to the only process available by which they may be able to regain their county. It also means that members of the outside community who have legitimate beefs with some portion of the project are not eligible. Make It So Corner: Archives Dominatrix Linda Lewis has formally announced that "There is no longer a USGenWeb Archives Census Project and no plans to implement one." The Project Formerly Known as the ACP can now be found at http://www.rootsweb.com/~census/ [please note that this is little more than a semantic change and formalizes a process begun when Linda's lap dogs on the Board got rid of the real Census Project for her. Bets are on that their next move will be to claim that open Board seat. Since the PFKACP is now "independent" no one can argue that letting them take that Board seat constitutes giving the Archives another vote on the Board.] === "Sometimes a majority simply means that all the fools are on the same side." ---Claude McDonald This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Sun Jan 28 08:53:34 2001 Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 08:53:33 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: A dream within a dream...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Saturday 27 January 2001: Tina Vickery posts regarding the USGW get-together at GenTech 2001 next weekend. She notes that several states and counties have provided brochures for the table and thinks this will encourage more people to visit our table. [Probably not many though, we've heard that something around 200 people and less than 20 vendors have signed up for the conference.] She also notes that "In conjunction with GenTech 2001 there will be a mIRC chat to allow all of us who can't attend "to attend" along with all the rest." The chats are at 10:30 am and 2:00 pm [and of course will bo on Root$web, so not all of USGW's members will be able attend even the chats]. Info on the conference, including sample brochures, is available at Holly Timm's website: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nygenweb/gentech.html === Feathering Their Own Nest Corner: Ellen Pack, co-author of the proposed "mediation process", has the following to say about it: "Any committee set up with authority to make judgement decisions of the sort that some think a "Grievance" committee should have, has the effect of re-writing the By-Laws. That type of authority is not granted to the Board, and as I read the By-Laws, the Board is not authorized to so empower such a committee...There are currently several board members who have been working hard in a sincere effort to see that complaints are fairly addressed, sans judgement calls, while still operating within the confines of the By-Laws...Rich Howland and I have drawn this initial working draft, but a lot of valuable input from other Board members has been incorporated. We're trying hard to provide a resolution to some of these problems, but we have to work within the parameters we are given. The best way, and the manner in which the Board is permitted, appears to be in helping the conflicting parties help themselves...Constructive criticism and helpful suggestions are welcomed. May of us think this can work, but only if everyone arrives with a good attitude, and willing spirit." [This sudden concern with following the letter of the bylaws is touching.] One of the biggest problems with the proposal is that there is absolutely no incentive for at least one side [the one being filed against] to agree to participate in mediation. If a SC has wrongly booted a CC why should they bother to agree to mediation? Presumably they feel their action was justified and there is no need for mediation or further resolution. If someone in the Project Formerly Known as the Archives Census Project "procures" a file from a transcriber and posts it under someone else's name, presumably they feel they had the right to do so, so no "mediation" is required. They simply have all the power in this situation and to agree to mediation is not in their best interest. I see no way around this without setting up a system that reviews grievances and publishes findings regardless of whether all parties agree to participate. As it is now written, if all parties to a grievance do not agree to particpate, then the filer is just out of luck regardless of the merits of their claim. === "Human law may know no distinction among men in respect of rights, but human practice may." ---Frederick Douglass This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Mon Jan 29 13:27:53 2001 Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:27:52 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Wake me when its over...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Monday 29 January 2001: Tim Stowell announces the passage of Motion 01-02 with 10 yes votes and one abstention. He also thanks Linda Haas Davenport for her work as temporary chairperson and Holly Timm for her work with the Election Study Committee. Joe Zsedeny also thanks Linda "for a job well done." [Hmmm...interesting that he left Holly out.] === "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." ---George Bernard Shaw This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Wed Jan 31 12:57:06 2001 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 12:57:05 -0500 (EST) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Tremendous feats of prestidigitation...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Wednesday 31 January 2001: Tim Stowell asks if there is any further discussion on Motion 01-03 before he calls for a vote on it. === What We Really Think Of You Corner: As the discussion of the proposed mediation process stutters along, a little bird slipped the following under my door. A CC received this from her Board representative after she filed a grievance against a fellow project member back in the spring of 2000. Except for this communication, the CC has reportedly heard nothing further on her grievance from any Board member. [The message has been edited to remove names and specific incidents. Read it and weep]. "Please do not include me in any more of your inflammatory, libelous remarks about [name deleted]. I have known [name deleted] for years, and she is one of the most patient, kind-hearted, accomodating people I have ever known. If you've got a problem with [name deleted], I would submit that the problem is *you*. I've observed the goings-on with [list name deleted], and while your posts have become increasingly strident, [name deleted] has shown nothing but patience. Much more patience than she should have, IMO. You're going to call [name deleted] "corrupt" and accuse her of [incident deleted]? She has gone so far out of her way to be fair and accomodating, it defies imagination that you would accuse her of any impropriety. You said you removed [name deleted] from being CC'd on this note so she can't "twist" what you say. It doesn't *need* any twisting - you've made yourself quite clear. I think you're just too much of a coward to say these things in a forum in which she can defend herself." Note that the CC was specifically chastised for not airing her grievance in a public forum. Note also that her elected representative is apparently not interested in "mediating" this grievance; she's already made up her mind as to who is at fault. This sort of thing does present a pickle for us lowly CCs. Is it better to be ignored entirely or to get at least _some_ response, even if it is like the one above? Do we share our grievances only with our representatives and get accused of being cowards or do we air them publicly and get told that by doing so we have hampered our chances of having our grievance heard fairly? Do we write all the Board members and risk being told that we shouldn't do that, or do we write only our own reps and risk them declining to forward it to the full Board for consideration? This surely is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation and the Board itself apparently waffles on what it proper procedure to follow. It should not, however, be too much to ask that our elected representatives, who serve at our pleasure, refrain from sending messages like the one above to their constituents. If nothing else, it serves to undermine any confidence in the Board's ability and intention to consider all grievances fairly and impartially without regard to who is friends with who. === "The beatings will continue until morale improves." ---The Management This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.