From merope@Radix.Net Mon Mar 12 13:20:48 2001 Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 13:20:46 -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: Tanned, rested and ready...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Friday 9 March 2001: Tina Vickery reposts a message regarding FamilyDiscovery.com intended for redistribution to other USGenWeb Project lists. The message notes that FamilyDiscovery has moved to Prodigy and how one may contact the abuse department at Progidy to complain if one receives soliciations from FamilyDiscovery. [full message to follow; also see below] Sunday 11 March 2001: Combining two "daily" reports into one, Tim Stowell notes that there are no open motions on the floor. === Its No Wonder Corner: The Election Committee has sent the following request to the State Coordinators: "One of the jobs that the EC is charged with is to maintain (year round) an accurate, up-to-date list of all volunteers of the USGenWeb Project. To do this we have to have a full list of all volunteers within your state to start with. You will be receiving an e-mail shortly from the EC team for your region. They will be asking you for a list of your volunteers. Hopefully, this will be the last time that you will need to compile and submit a full list. From this time forward you will only need to notify your team member representatives of any changes in your volunteers or their jobs. The next election is not that far in the future and there is a lot of work to be done to get everything in place in time. We can only do our job effectively with your help. Please feel free to ask your team representatives any questions you might have or for any help you might need." One of the SCs has already indicated that although she will provide a first-time list, she will not inform the EC of changes to her CC roster. Another has indicated that he will be happy to provide the EC with the URL to his online list of CCs so that they can get the info themselves. Still Broken Corner: Root$web has still apparently not recovered from its recent extensive maintenance downtime. The threaded mailing list search pages located at http://archiver.rootsweb.com/ still display the "Check Back Soon" message and the blurb for Ancestry.com. We've also heard reports of other ongoing problems with Root$web services, including the still missing February GenConnect posts and sporadic problems getting home pags to load. The latter is apparently due to undefined "server problems". Piling On Corner: In his newsletter this week Dick Eastman writes about genealogy scams. He includes this information FamilyDiscovery.com: "Family Discovery.com - an online Web site that claims to have "the Web's most versatile Award Winning collection of genealogical databases." However, they don't mention the "award" they received from the Better Business Bureau! The Bureau says, "Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau due to unanswered complaint(s)." Family Discovery.com charges $59.99 for a one-year subscription. Most of the same information is available elsewhere on the Web at no charge. In fact, many of the links on FamilyDiscovery.com simply take you to free Web sites. You can obtain the same information at no cost by using one of the free search engines. Details are available on the Genealogical Web Site Watchdog site at: http://www.ancestordetective.com/watchdog.htm#Warning. There is an Anti-FamilyDiscovery.com newsletter at: http://compuright.dyndns.org/familydiscovery/" [the last URL is Gene Olson's page; he has updated it considerably since last we were there.] === "Politics should be the part-time profession of every citizen." ---Dwight D. Eisenhower 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 Mar 12 13:21:22 2001 Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 13:21:22 -0500 (EST) From: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Fwd: [BOARD-L] FW: [WIGEN-L] Family Discovery jumps to Prodigy (fwd) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: From: TVick65536@aol.com Reply-To: BOARD-L@rootsweb.com To: BOARD-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [BOARD-L] FW: [WIGEN-L] Family Discovery jumps to Prodigy Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 22:17:42 EST This is forwarded with permission. Please share with other USGenWeb Project lists. Tina Vickery SC WIGenWeb Project _______ Subj: [WIGEN-L] Family Discovery jumps to Prodigy Date: 3/9/01 1:04:09 PM Eastern Standard Time From: zorblitz@mindspring.com (zorblitz) Reply-to: WIGEN-L@rootsweb.com To: WIGEN-L@rootsweb.com True to their history, Family Discovery was getting "heat" for their business (mis) practices and have now jumped to Prodigy and are also using PayPal (info from the Belgium list). Their last server is thought to have dumped them after receiving numerous spam complaints. This company is thought to go to Gen sites of all kinds and pick the e-mail address off them to use for spam mailings of the $49.00 "service". In their spam, they say that another Gen site has suggested that they contact the recipient, when the original gen site does not even know it has been used for the addresses. Please consider encoding the e-mail addresses on sites into the name so they can not be easily picked off the pages. It means an extra "click" for visitors but the spammer's programs only "see" a name and no addresses to pick up. Here is the latest followed by a summery of recent events for anyone who wants a quick update on the matter. It looks like the fictitious Family Discovery genealogy service has moved to Prodigy now. I contacted Prodigy this morning and they have asked that anyone who receives solicitation email from familydiscovery.com to take the following steps immediately: 1) Forward the entire Family Discovery message to: abuse@prodigy.com 2) Include the following information (most of which was provided by Rita from the Oconto County, WI list): Please note that the attached message is now being sent through your ISP service. They have been reported to various State Attorney General's Office on computer fraud, but it is hard to catch up with them. Originally the "company" linked to free information sites and placed the pages in "frames" so that it looked like it was their own work. Customers paid for that information. The scam, now, is paying for the free information links and then they "move" frequently and leave their paid-up customers without services. 3) Post these same instructions on any other lists today so that Prodigy has a better chance of finding the spammers. From merope@Radix.Net Tue Mar 13 13:23:49 2001 Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 13:23:06 -0500 (EST) From: 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: Pure as the driven snow...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Tuesday 13 March 2001: Tim Stowell notes there are no motions open on the floor. Tim opens the floor for nominations for Board Mediators as required under Motion 01-04 [albeit almost two weeks late]. === "Trust, like the soul, never returns, once it is gone." Publius Syrus 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 Mar 16 10:19:38 2001 Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 10:19:37 -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: No news is good news...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Friday 16 March 2001: There has been no Board-L traffic since 13 March. That's right, absolutely no nominations for Board mediators, no daily reports, nothing. === Show Me The Money Corner: There's an interesting new article on on GenSuck today, about Ancestry.com's Affiliate Program. Many USGenWeb mebers participate in the program earning commissions for selling Ancestry memberships via ad banners on their websites. It appears that the Affiliate Progra, has gone South. People have not been paid in months and and apparently the tracking service they run has not showed any updates for a week. [A similar program on Myfamily.com has been shut down outright, although new members can still sign up to participate.] The folks over GenSuck speculate that MyFamily is streamlining with a view toward looking for a buyer. Read All About It at: http://www.gensuck.com/awards/20010313.htm [There's been a number of changes at GenSuck and some new articles posted; thanks to an alert reader for pointing this out to me.] Update on the News Corner: The folks over at the USGenExchange should be in court next week to try and regain control over the servers that house the project. They are optimistic that the court will award them an immediate injunction that will result in their being able to get the GenExchange back online immediately. Forcing A Vote Corner: We've heard through the grapevine that the NCGenWeb is currently voting on whether or not to register its name as a trademark with the state of North Carolina. === "In the human mind one-sidedness has always been the rule, and many-sidedness the exception. Hence, even in revolutions of opinion, one part of the truth usually sets while the other rises." ---John Stuart Mill This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, Daily Board Show