Tuesday, March 29, 2005
The Fat Lady Sings
Mopping up...its your Daily Board Show!

ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTING: With 11 responses in, Shari Handley announced that the
motion to direct the Archives "to remove the Texas State Health Department Records files on
births, marriages and divorces after 1930 out of respect for the privacy of the living" has failed.
The tally was 10 NO votes and 1 abstention. The abstention was Angie Rayfield, who was one of
only three Board members who publicly supported the motion. When casting her "vote", she
noted "I've received input both directions with good arguments on both sides...I wish we could
have more public discussions before we get to motions & votes." [Well, there was actually quite a
bit of discussion of this in various forums before the vote was called, but her point about
discussion prior to making a motion is well taken. There was apparently little or no discussion
about this in any forum, public or private, before Larry made the original motion a few days ago.]

We've heard from various sources that Board member Don Kelly intends to submit David
Samuelsen's proposed policy covering the removal of specific items on request when the Board
reconvenes in a few days.

OUR READERS WRITE: Board member David Morgan dropped by a couple of days ago and
left a comment for us. He noted for the record that he is no longer affiliated with the Archives in
any way, having left his last post there in January 2005. In regards to the amount of discussion the
Board engaged in prior to posting the motion to Board-L, here is what he had to say: "I have been
told that there was no discussion before the current motion was presented. Just a complaint and
then the motion. The person that told me that is completely trustworthy, and I believe her."

LAZY IS AS LAZY DOES: The Board, having voted quickly and decisively, is now heading off
for a well-earned two day vacation. Never ones to miss an opportunity to lounge around the
newsbunker eating bon-bons and reading trashy novels, we'll do the same. See you on All Fools
Day!

BONUS QUOTE: "I took a nap at 5:00 PM, but to then I saw about eight NO and two YES
votes." Don Kelly's alternate universe count of the votes on Motion 05-05


-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Playing with fire since 1998

posted by merope at 6:10 AM 3 comments   
Monday, March 28, 2005
Tilted Windmills
Better late than never...its Your Daily Board Show!

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY: Shari Handley has called for the vote on Motion 05-05 [TX State
VR/Living Persons]. With 7 NO votes cast thus far [8 if you count David Morgan's moderated
vote--see below], this motion has already failed.

Shortly after she announced the vote, Shari also announced that after completion of the voting
period, she would adjourn the Board until April 1. [The vote closes Wednesday. April 1 is Friday.
She's basically giving them a one day vacation. Generous, but pointless.]

FALLOUT: David Morgan, who forwarded numerous comments to Board-L from constituents
unhappy about Motion 05-05, has been placed on moderated status for having the temerity to
share those comments with his colleagues [and he's about to be moderated on SW as well for
snarking at Shari.] He forwarded his NO vote to both DISCUSS and the SW lists, apparently for
a public record.

WRAPPING UP: Unless things change dramatically between now and 2pm Wednesday, it looks
like the motion to have the Texas vital records removed from the Archives will die an inglorious
death. Whether the broader issue of how best to meld privacy concerns and the genealogist's need
for records into a coherent USGenWeb policy will also fade away remains to be seen. We are not
optimistic, for several reasons. The largest one being that even if the Board crafts the most perfect
policy ever, USGenWeb as currently organized is essentially ungovernable.


-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Running with scissors since 1998

posted by merope at 6:06 PM 0 comments   
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Don't Mess With Texas
Going around in circles...its Your Daily Board Show!

CHOOSING SIDES: Since last we wrote, the Board has continued to discuss the Texas vital
records issue. Here are some of their comments:

"Mr. Samuelson's suggested policy reflects my personal policy for records which I personally
maintain on-line...My motion...is an attempt to respond to a specific compliant, not to establish
policy for all on-line records. Is there a better way to address the specific complaint regarding
Texas records?" --Larry Flesher

[In response to Shari's comment yesterday that the project needs to get the records removed]:
"...in other words you are saying that there should not be any discussion,
just pass the motion...Maybe that is part of our problem here, we don't want to discuss anything
and work out something that would be best for the project as a whole...What about these other
states that have the same sort of thing online? Is that fair to TX to single them out?...Maybe some
of the comments I am hearing are correct. Let's do each individual state by what is dictated by
their individual laws...A broader policy - at what point? After we have people upset all over the
project over this one motion...This AB just approved a special project wherein it states: "Only
African American birth certificates prior to 1954 will be accepted." We welcome this project with
open arms and then we go after Texas because of a complaint. Are we going to make narrow little
motions for every complaint that comes in?...Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that MI is
correct in that we cannot have access to this info until it is 100 years old. I was not happy when
these births went online in TX to begin with, however nobody wanted to listen and stop it then.
We thought it was just fine until one complaint was filed with the AB. The state of Texas thought
it was okay and they made no move to stop it, they helped perpetuate it...The whole situation
saddens me. Go ahead and run your motion thru, but I will be voting no on it. Not because I don't
believe that these records should not be available, but because of the way it is being handled."
--Jan Cortez

"...this is wrong. We have complaints from our own members that are many months old that
haven't been dealt with...Why is it that we are dealing with this ONE complaint received only this
week that should have been referred to the Archives for handling?...If this motion passes, it will
slap the face of every person who has transcribed information...The records that are being
targeted are still publicly available for transcription as are all the other records that people put
online...If we are going to purge living people from the project, then say so...The problem here is
that purging ALL living people is going to purge volunteers at the same time...this is going to
cause a project wide gutting. Even if only Texas is targeted, other people see the handwriting on
the walls...Some of the counties in Texas have these same records on their county website...Does
this apply to them also? If so, where does it stop? Okay, it doesn't stop and we are going to be
telling people that everyone in the project...must erase records from their websites. Who is going
to enforce this? Many of the states have their own private state archives. What happens when
Texas sets up their own private archives and puts the info there?...There is no way this motion can
pass with such a narrow focus. It will affect the whole Project and that must be addressed before
taking this action." --Betsy Mills

"I'm in agreement with Mr. Samuelson's suggestion...If we receive one complaint about a
marriage record - we should direct the Archives to remove that record - not all the
records...We're opening an awfully big door by requesting that records more recent
than 1930 be removed." --Teri Brown

"Wouldn't it make more sense to remove all the birth records, & add back when
the time comes, than to have "holes" from the info that was deleted..." --Bettie Wood

"...the marriage/divorce info should be removed, too, to be added back in due time." --Shari
Handley

"The Marriage & Divorce records are still on-line through the TX Dept. of
Health...Removing marriage and divorce index records back to 1930 is more stringent
than the Archives Policy and TX does not have a restriction." --Cyndi Enfinger

"...I agree with you Bettie. This data will now be incomplete information when it falls within the
guidelines of the Archives Policy...I've received negative feedback regarding the disrespect for the
Archives Policies that this motion displays. When there is an issue with a state, we allow the SC
to handle it, but for some reason when it is the Archives the AB has a better right to judge what is
right? I've also received data regarding the various states that have such records public well after
1930...[re: the Samuelsen proposal]...it does address removing information of living persons on a
Project-Wide level instead of targeting one specific instance. In the case of Texas Archives, they
are already doing this, though after visiting a few counties, I don't see where they have this policy
listed." --Cyndi Enfinger

"This must be a first, the AB telling the Archives what to do." --David Morgan

"The problem with "Specific Information" removal is that, basically, what we'd be doing is
removing the information on living persons who "caught" us posting it. That's simply not good
enough...The State of Texas has removed this data...because they recognize that posting it was
the wrong thing to do. Getting data online at ANY expense and no matter who it hurts is not
what USGenWeb ought to be about...we are here to help researchers, but not at the expense of
others. This is a matter of respect. We are morally obligated to do no harm with the information
we provide. As the premier all-volunteer online genealogy project, we must set the example for
others to follow." --Shari Handley

"I am from Texas and...mine is there...I have not requested that it be removed, although I work in
a profession that probably invites people to come hunt me down more than most people. I just
don't believe that the meanies out there are going to use this method to find me." --Betsy Mills

A SLEEPING GIANT: Both David Morgan and Cyndi Enfinger forwarded numerous comments
from TXGenWeb,Texas Archives, general Archives and general members in opposition to the
policy. The Archives list has begun to discuss the motion, the SW/SC list is still going strong [and
we are now subscribed!], and even the torporous DISCUSS list has shaken itself awake. If
popular sentiment is to be believed, the membership opposes this motion mightily. The comments
can be summed up briefly along a few common themes: 1) the records were and are publicly
available, either directly from the Texas government, through public libraries, or from other
onlines sources [including, it is rumored, Ancestry.com-affiliated sites]; 2) the state of Texas has
both implicitly and explicitly condoned and/or supported display of the records in the Archives; 3)
the motion involves one complaint from one person received directly by the Board, which should
have and failed to forward the complaint to the Archives; 4) this matter is internal to the Archives,
and just as the Board traditionally allows state organizations to handle matters internally, it should
do so with the Archives; 5) this entire business bodes very ill for the Project as a whole, since a
very large number of sites contain vital records covering various years, some of which are quite
recent, and logically speaking if its wrong to post the Texas databases its also wrong to post
similar records; 6) this motion is an insult to the hundreds of volunteers and their thousands of
hours of work to get the records transcribed and posted; and 7) gutting the Project's Archives [at
any level] does not help researchers.

Lest you think there is not a faction of the project that supports this motion, be assured that there
is. Although vocally they may be in the minority, it is likely that there are more of them than are
willing to speak up. Their positions can also be summed up in a few points: 1) posting the
materials is an invasion of personal privacy; 2) posting the materials can lead to identity theft, and
even if this is a minor threat, it is still a threat; 3) the vast majority of persons whose personal
information is there for the harvesting don't realize its there and will never have the opportunity to
request its individual removal; 4) the state of Texas itself felt the issue was important enough to
remove the materials from an easily available online index and restrict them to less easily exploited
media; 5) it is probably not the best idea to rely on the personal consciences and opinions of
individual project members in determining what goes online and what does not; and 6) just
because others do it doesn't make it right and USGenWeb should hold itself to the highest
standard. Several of the membership who support the motion speak of their own dismay at finding
personal information about themselves and their families so freely available through the
USGenWeb Project.

One point that the two opposing camps appear to share is a desire for the Board to not consider
the specific incidence of the Texas vital records but to instead address a broader policy aimed at
the Project in general. One common observation is that narrowly tailoring the motion to one set of
records in one state unfairly singles out that set of records, fails to address the larger policy issue,
and is very confusing to the membership. Why should Texas vital records be removed when
Indiana and Kentucky records [two commonly cited examples] remain freely available?
Correspondents have noted that CCs in many cases have already copied the records to their
county sites, that TXGenWeb is considering starting its own state archives in order to continue
displaying the records, and that many other state and local projects have similar sorts of records
that presumably also invade privacy and risk identity theft. The motion as written [and as intended
by Shari] does not address any of these issues and if passed [which is looking increasingly
unlikely] may not even have the desired effect of getting the records offline within USGenWeb.
We suppose the Board could spend the rest of its days chasing the records down wherever in the
project they rear their heads but as someone noted, that may not be the best use of the Board's
time. Establishing a project-wide policy statement regarding vital records and privacy would be a
better approach to the problem and may serve to protect USGenWeb itself in the event of legal
issues. The Board could adapt the Archives' existing policy for project-wide guidance or it could
craft a policy of its own that is either more or less inclusive. In the event, focusing solely on the
Texas vital records on the basis of one complaint smacks somewhat of patching a tiny leak in your
roof while a river is flowing through your living room.

JUMPING SHIP: At present, two Board members [Jan Cortez, Darilee Bednar] have publicly
stated they will not vote for the motion. One has recommended that if it passes, the Archives just
ignore it [David Morgan]. A few have expressed serious reservations about the focus of the
motion [Betsy Mills, Cyndi Enfinger, Teri Brown] and are not likely to support it in its current
form. With just these six probable NO votes, the motion cannot pass. But it is likely there will be
more Board members with reservations serious enough to prevent them from approving the
motion in its current form. Even the originator of the motion, Larry Flesher, has suggested that
perhaps there might be a better way to address the issue. The only Board members that have
publicly spoken for the motion are Shari Handley [who has no vote] and Angie Rayfield, although
Bettie Wood might be considered to have lent it tepid support.

The DBS newsbunker staff admits surprise by this turn of events; it is not often that the Board is
willing to go public with such controversial matters without having at least some idea of how the
pendulum will swing [something about not washing dirty laundry in public]. While we suppose
this could just be some wacky plan to pretend to care about privacy concerns while actually
proposing a motion that cannot pass so that the Texas records will remain safely online, we think
this is highly unlikely. We also think it unlikely that the Board is buckling under pressure from
Ancestry.con to remove the records from a free site so that Ancestry can charge for access to
them. We think its more plausible that the Board received a complaint from someone with enough
clout to scare Shari into treating this as an emergency and proposing a quick band-aid solution
rather than allowing for the admittedly much slower development of a project-wide policy. It is
also plausible that Shari and the other supporters of the motion are acting entirely out of personal
conviction, as are those that do not support it. In any case, we are going to leave off
prognostication for a bit and watch this as it plays out. We honestly have no idea whether this will
fade away without anything happening as so many "urgent" issues eventually do, or whether it will
provoke discussion that will lead in time to a broad policy change for all of USGenWeb.


-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
In the dark since 1998

posted by merope at 7:59 AM 3 comments   
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Sometimes Even I Can Be Surprised
A DAILY BOARD SHOW SPECIAL REPORT

Thanks to our festive little dog getting us up way earlier than we needed to be up, here is a Daily
Board Show Special Report.

900 POUND GORILLA: Last night, to our admitted surprise, National Coordinator Shari
Handley came out firmly in favor of the motion proposed by Larry Flesher and seconded by Angie
Rayfield to direct the Archives to purge a huge set of Texas vital records from their directories.
Our Esteemed Leader said:

"We can make a broader *policy* after this motion is passed. This motion is NOT to set "policy".
It is to order the removal of a particular set of data that is causing problems. I purposely asked for
the narrowly-worded motion so that we would not spend a month-and-a-half debating...We need
to get this data removed. Can we please do that?...just because others are posting the information,
it doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean that we should feel justified in doing it, too. We
should be holding ourselves to a higher standard than that...the data in these birth, marriage and
divorce records has the potential to be used to harm people. Saying that we might as well post it,
because it may also be available elsewhere is not a good enough reason to settle for the moral low
ground."

Then she numbered the motion [05-05] and opened the floor for discussion.

Prior to Shari's announcement there were a few comments from other Board members:

"...we should address only the Texas vital records being online right now as that is what the
complaint was about. Then if someone wants to discuss other records, time cut-off's, etc. then it
should be a separate motion and discussion" --Kathi Jones Hudson

"I don't believe that vital records of living people should be online...I don't like Texas being
singled out...If we are going to set a policy - that policy should be for *all* states...I have never
believed that the birth records of living people should be online...however, once Texas or any
other state has made these records available to the public, via, internet, microfilm, cd's, etc., how
do you close the barn door once the horse is out?...We can set a policy of nothing about living
people online for 75 or 100 years and remove records, however, the bottom line is, that this
information is going to be available whether we remove it or not." --Jan Cortez

"...are we going to make a distinction between actual state vital records and transcriptions of
events? Like death records from state vital records dept vs.
tombstone information, bible information, data supplied by a family member?...each state has
different regulations for time limits on releasing birth and death records so a blanket policy would
be really hard to craft...I think rather than a blanket policy that we should follow whatever is the
policy for the state in regard to official vital records...other records (tombstones, bible, census,
etc.) should not be considered in this motion but only the Texas situation and/or official state vital
records." --Kathi

"The Archives has a policy in place for Vitals...The specific issue here is that the Vitals placed in
Texas Archives were there prior to this policy being adopted. They were also placed...at a time
when the Texas Health Dept. had them publicly posted. When the Texas Health Dept. removed
the vitals to protect the privacy of living individuals, the Texas Archives kept them with a notice
that they would remove individual listings by request...Because the Archives recently adopted this
policy for Vitals, it is not necessary to change this to a blanket motion on the issue. No new Vital
records inside these date ranges are being posted. It will take time for those that were previously
posted to be identified and removed. The Texas Vitals happens to be a specific debated
collection." --Cydni Enfinger [who is the Archives' representative]

THE BABY AND THE BATHWATER: We can guess/assume a few things from the above:

1) A complaint, and probably a pretty serious one, involving these records has been received by
the Board. Although there has been mention of a "very few" complaints in the past, more than one
Board member has referred to a specific complaint in this immediate instance. The issue is also
apparently serious enough that it needs to be dealt with immediately rather than waiting for the
Board to come to some agreement on a blanket policy for the project. An explanation of why a
specific action must be so suddenly taken against a specific project and a specific set of records
might be useful, but we are not likely to get one.
2) The Board has been debating/discussing this complaint secretly for some length of time, long
enough for Shari to have asked them to formally move it to the public arena. Either that or it is of
such urgency that she paused only long enough to ascertain that she had enough support before
getting one of the like-minded Board members to make a public motion.
3) There is apparently enough support on the Board for the proposed action to make going
forward with a public motion worth risking. Shari must have the votes needed to pass this, or
they'd still be dickering about it in the Sekrit Sandbox.
4) The Archives is on board with this, at least at some level. First off, its hard to believe that the
Board would risk an official action that involves the Archives without at least some prior
assurance that the Archives will comply. It would just be too embarassing otherwise [unless they
are trying to cover their backsides legally]. Second, Cyndi's message, although a little cryptic,
does say that the Archives will remove the records. She seems mostly concerned that the Board
will make some blanket policy that will over-ride the Archives' own policy and cause it to remove
even more records [you will recall that the Archives' policy gives substantial leeway to the file
managers in deciding what vital records to remove under the policy].

The peanut galleries have roused themselves, and so far public comment has been firmly opposed
to the idea of forcing the Archives to remove the Texas records:

"I find it interesting that the AB is picking on Texas over this matter when they just approved the
U.S. African American Griots project [whose] ...cut off for birth records is 1954...what is
motivating the AB to make a motion that is going to upset so many volunteers in one of the
largest State projects...A simple "thank you" from the AB for the hard work of the volunteers
would have been nice and possibly an explanation included in the motion...you can go to the State
Library in Austin or almost any public library in Texas today and view these same records on
microfilm or microfiche...I am quite confident that the AB will approve this motion and the
records will mysteriously disappear from the files one night soon. I would like to see an
amendment added to this motion that in the event that rootsweb or it parent company begins
making these records available for a fee that they will be returned to the "archives" so that they
may once again be available free to researchers...I would also like to see the AB change the name
of the "archives"...An "archives" preserves and protects its records. It does not destroy significant
historical records." --Trey Holt

"last year I asked Rootsweb about the records being online, not because I disagreed with it, but
because I wanted to know what Rootsweb stand was. They said that beings the records are public
records they can be posted." --Karen Mitchell

"This question is being asked of Texas file managers right now by...the state manager at my
request in response to the AB motion. And from what I understand...it wasn't birth records, it's
the marriage records but very few if any." --W. David Samuelsen

"I sent a suggestion of replacement motion to at least 5 of the AB who have already on record
being uncomfortable with the motion. The replacement motion is below...
The Specific Information Removal Policy...The specific information shall be removed upon receipt
of the complaint of the living person direct affected within 7 days by the coordinator or file
manager in charge of specific information in question...The policy shall be applied to all parts of
The USGenWeb Project." --W. David Samuelsen

[These comments, as usual, are from the SW/SC regional list. DISCUSS and the SC's list are both
silent, as is the Archives' list--which is another reason to believe that the Archives' compliance has
already been assured and this isn't a surprise to anyone over there. We've decided to resubscribe
to the SW/SC list, but list owner Bettie Woods has decided to play coy with us, first by
pretending she doesn't know who we are, and second by ignoring us after we sent in our
qualifying information at her request. Its unlikely we'll be permitted to join her little teaparty, but
since its where the action is these days, we thought we'd give it a try.]

Anyways, that's where the issue stands now. We imagine that a vote will be called very soon,
probably tonight, if no further substantive comment is made. And perhaps as soon as Monday,
we'll be seeing something we thought we'd never see: The Advisory Board of the USGenWeb
Project telling one of its affiliated programs to actually purge genealogical data from its records.
And the Archives to boot.

You all have a nice day...

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Talking softly and carrying a big stick since 1998

posted by merope at 6:40 AM 3 comments   
Friday, March 25, 2005
Out Of The Frying Pan
Holy swiss cheese Batman...its Your Daily Board Show!

SHAKEN AND STIRRED: Apparently the normal course of inactivity isn't exciting enough for
some of the Board members and they feel moved to roil the waters just a bit. This afternoon, after
the excitement of admitting a new Special Project died down somewhat, Larry Flesher made the
following motion:

"I move that the USGenWeb Archives be directed to remove the Texas State Health Department
Records files on births, marriages and divorces after 1930 our of respect for the privacy of the
living."

[Go ahead, pause a bit and read that again. When was the last time you saw anyone on the Board
suggest that the Board tell the Archives to do something?]

This amazing motion was quickly [and we stress that] seconded by Angie Rayfield, which leads us
to suspect that this was not as out-of-the-blue as it might otherwise appear. Bettie asked that it be
amended "to include all the rest of the Archives, any Special Projects, states, counties," in order
to include all of USGenWeb [hoo boy.] Darilee Bednar noted that "...this motion is in direct
response to a complaint and we should make an effort to satisfy that complaint regarding birth
records online....I can not support the additional removal of marriage records from the archives.
Especially since marriage records are a public record." [so are birth records, but whatever.] David
Morgan [both an Archivist and a Texan, IIRC] tossed his $0.02 worth with the observation that
"There have been a few complaints over the past 5 years, and I mean very few, mostly on
marriage records...This is a disgraceful act." And Don Kelly emoted powerfully thus: "I think I
see what you are all leading up to......some records should go and others should stay...This
archives will be a horrible sort out I think, but can we start with what types of records really need
to go now, and which don't? The archives I feel need some help and guidance now...they work so
hard for what they get that it has to be hard to take anything down."

OUT ON A LIMB: Some time ago the Texas Department of State Health Services removed its
birth, death and marriage indexes from its website, with the following statement:

"Due to the possibility of the indexes being used to fraudulently obtain another's identity or to
reveal the identitites of those involved in an adoption, the birth and death indexes have been
permanently removed...Birth records do not become open public records until they are
seventy-five years old, and death records become open after twenty-five years."

Now, it is also the case that a few months ago the USGenWeb Archives Project changed its policy
regarding records for possibly living people. The full monty can be seen here:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/timetodo.htm, but the pertinent parts can be neatly
summed up:

"All effort will be taken to avoid posting information concerning living persons...The following
guidance applies to Vital Records: Records of births during the last 70 years should not be
posted. Records of marriages during the last 50 years should not be posted. Records of deaths for
any year may be posted. Records of divorces during the last 50 years should not be posted...A
record which has been posted containing information about a living person will be removed
immediately upon the request of the person named in the record...Records which are currently
posted in the USGenWeb Archives which contain information about living persons should be
reviewed by State File Managers to determine if they violate the privacy of living persons. Such
records may be removed at the discretion of the State File Manager. If a complaint is received
about such records, they MUST be removed immediately."

On a brief visit to the Texas Archives, we found a very large number of birth and death records
from the Texas Department of State Health Services in every county we checked [sadly, the DBS
does not have the resources to check all Texas counties; we'd be up all night]. Most have some
version of this notice attached: "Information in this database comes from the Texas Department of
Health. As of March 2000, Birth Indexes from 1926-1995 and Death Indexes from 1964-1998 are
available on the Internet, microfiche or CD-ROM.
http://www.tdh.state.tx.us/bvs/registra/index.htm" All cover the same subsets of years and
provide information in the same format. And many of them are very, very recent, as close to now
as 2000. So it appears that despite Texas' best efforts to keep its vital record indexes away from
terrorists, identity thieves, and other nefarious sorts, the Archives has managed to keep them
online and freely available.

Now, please note that the Archives has done absolutely nothing wrong in acquiring these data and
displaying them. They are violating no law or, for once, no copyright. The records were and are
public domain. At the time they were acquired they were available freely online and via other
mechanisms. You can, if you wish, still acquire them on microfiche and transcribe them and put
them online. And they are a fantastic resource, the sugarplum in all genealogists' dreams, and at
least one of the reasons projects like USGenWeb exist. They have names, dates, parents' names,
county info, all that good stuff. But...the Archives has its guidelines, and those guidelines say "no
births prior to 70 years ago" [which would be 1935 for the math-challenged among us]. The
Archives guidelines do leave a lot of discretion to the state file managers as to whether or not
offending files do get removed, and our guess would be that it is the state file managers' decision
that those files are too valuable to remove. Texas has also indicated that its birth records should
not be fully public for 75 years [which is where the date of 1930 in Larry's motion comes from].

Word from the various cheap seats has been muted thus far, with only a smattering of comments.
However, the motion is yet young and if Shari doesn't find a way to declare it out of order [an
internal Archives matter, perhaps?] it has the potential to be entertaining for any number of days.
Here's what your fellow project members are thinking today:

"I agree with this." --Linda Haas Davenport [SW list]

"We fought hard to get that information on the web. Texas lawmakers PROMISED to have their
indexes on-line if we allowed certain legislation...they removed their indexes after the law was
enacted...Identity theft doesn't rely on these posted bits of information...I believe in keeping
what's posted. It's a little tricky to find, but some people have only this for a source of their
ancestors...let the TX Vital Records people know THEY made the promise - so we're keeping it."
--Lee Aurale Huff [SW list]

"it is extreme flawed and not uniform applied...There is better approach than this. A policy to
remove specific information...If it ever comes to this, The Federation of Genealogical Societies
(FGS) will reject application by the USGenWeb Project for membership because of the restriction.
The FGS has been working to remove restrictions on access to information. This attempt flies in
face of the stae and Federal FOIAs." --David Samuelsen [who seems not to understand that state
and federal freedom of information laws do not pertain to independent non-profits, on the SW
list]

Non-relevant FOIA issues aside, for once David Samuelsen is right about something. Its hard to
see how the Board could "direct" the Archives to remove public domain records [other than
specific personal records that someone has complained about] without also directing every county
and state to do the same. After all, if the Archives is forced to take them down, there is nothing to
prevent individual CCs from reposting them to their counties. It would be a huge blow to
USGenWeb visitors if the Archives had to gut its holdings because someone complained that
records a state government no longer displays are still available in USGenWeb. As much as we'd
like to see the Board pass this one just so we can see what happens when the Archives tell the
Board to mind its own damn business, its really a poor idea to start telling people they have to
take data down. The number of people who WILL be hurt by that sort of action vastly outstrips
the number of people who MAYBE would be hurt if the data stayed up. The Archives' policy of
removing specific data items upon request [if its enforced, and we have no idea if it is] actually
seems about right.

We dimly recall that some months ago when the Archives sent its proposed new policy on vital
records around for comment that there was some argument about it. Some project members felt it
was silly to restrict access to public records; USGenWeb exists to help genealogical researchers
and providing public domain information with reasonable safeguards to protect privacy does that.
Others argued that it didn't go far enough to protect the privacy of the living, and dire
consequences were predicted if any part of USGenWeb were eventually found to have made
available information that helped an identity theft happen. We are probably about to have that
argument again. As always, we'll keep you posted...

[And yes, you got two DBS's today. But you probably won't get one tomorrow. We have plans
tomorrow that involve food, drink, and various sorts of merrymaking from sunup to sundown and
beyond, so any news will just have to wait.]

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Giving 'em what they want since 1998

posted by merope at 5:49 PM 0 comments   
With A Wimper
All the news that's fit for wrapping fish...its Your Daily Board Show!

UNDERWHELMING ENTHUSIASM: Very early this morning, Shari announced that the
proponents of the U.S. African American Griots Project had prevailed, and welcomed the project
to USGenWeb as its newest Special Project. The final vote count was 8 YES votes and 2 NO
votes; a full third of the Board members did not bother to vote. [Shari counted 4 non-voters, but
there are currently 15 voting Board members; the nonvoters were Linda Blum Barton, Richard
Howland, Don Kelly, Jan Cortez, and Denise Woodside.]

WEIGHING IN: Bettie Wood announced her support for the idea of posting the current logos on
the logo contest page and asked if a motion were needed to make it happen. She was ignored, as
were Jan Cortez and David Morgan before her.

MOPPING UP: So, USGenWeb has itself a shiny new Special Project, with all the rights,
privileges, and responsibilities that accompany it. We admit to being a little surprised at the
deep-seated lack of interest in this issue. Usually anything having to do with Special Projects
causes all sorts of grief and despair, but not this time [perhaps because the Archives is not yet
involved in it, although we imagine that an offer to "store" the Griots project data within the
Archives will shortly be forthcoming]. The only public discussion about this issue occurred on the
relative backwater of the SW/SC regional list. The Discuss and CC lists were ghost-towns
throughout, and the State Coordinators have spent the last few days occupying themselves with
happy tales of identified military remains and less happy tales of recent casualties in Bush's Folly.
We saw little of the "enthusiastic" or "overwhelming" support that a couple of Board members
claimed; in fact, what public discussion there was tended toward the skeptical. With few
exceptions, public Board discussion on this important issue was heavy on sycophancy and light on
actual debate, and in the end a full third of the Board apparently had better things to do than vote.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that the majority of the chattering class doesn't really give a
damn one way or the other about our new Special Project or how it came to be that way. Kinda
sad, actually, on so many levels.

CHOPPED LIVER: The other project that requested special project status, the Terrell single
surname study, has apparently fallen forgotten by the wayside. No motion to grant it status was
made and it has not been mentioned. We do hope that Shari doesn't forget to send them a polite
"don't call us, we'll call you" letter.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Testing the waters since 1998

posted by merope at 7:35 AM 1 comments   
Thursday, March 24, 2005
A Fine Hoody Hoo
Roll them bones...its Your Daily Board Show!

TAKIN' CARE OF BUSINESS: After a brief bump, wherein Larry Flesher said he couldn't really
see the Griots project as a special project because it "is "limited" in that it does not research ALL
African-American individuals in the US," Shari Handley yesterday opened the voting on Motion
05-04, which if passed will grant status as a special project to the U.S. African American Griots
Project. We are not sure where Larry got that impression, but both Shari and Griots owner
Charee Harvey set him straight in short order. This detour did delay the start of the vote for a few
hours, but it's cranking right along presently. Thus far the vote stands at 7 YES votes. Both
Archives representatives have voted for it, so apparently the Archives has no objection to some
other project soliciting for records that normally fall under its purview. [That has to be a first.]

As an aside, a couple of days we wrote ago to the various Board members asking if the owners of
the Griots project were aware of the bylaws and had agreed to abide by them, whether or not the
Griots met the definition of a special project as outlined in the bylaws, and whether or not the
Board had followed the bylaws in its approach to making the project part of USGenWeb. As
usual, we did not hear back from most of the Board members, except for Betsy's bounce message
[which we always receive promptly]. The two that did respond, both of whom have voted on the
motion already, did not address either of the first two questions, but made pains to point out that
it is not necesary for the Board to "do everything by the book," and that they didn't see why it
mattered how the Board chose to admit projects to USGenWeb's fold. Both of these Board
members are, shall we say, on the record as supporting rigorous enforcement of the bylaws
against other project members, but apparently do not feel that the Board itself needs to take any
care in the matter. [After all, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?]

In any event, within a few hours we will most likely have a new special project. We'll see how it
works out.

PAINT ME A PICTURE: The number of candidates for the ongoing logo contest has grown
suddenly [http://usgenweb.org/logos/]; there are now quite a few posted. Late last night, David
Morgan requested that Shari Handley add the current official logo to the list of choices, noting
that "Some of us would like the opportunity to vote for it." We will see if he has any better luck
with this request than Jan did; thus far, the current logo is not listed among the available
submissions. We do note, however, that the page of current logos is linked to from the top of the
submissions site, but in such a way that 1) you miss it entirely if you aren't careful; and 2) its not
at all clear that it will be an option when voting time comes around. Of the 10 logos submitted
thus far, most have some variation of the U.S. flag, one sports a tree and color scheme that looks
suspiciously like Root$web's, and the others are rather nondescript variations on simple geometric
themes. A few appear to have been designed by the same person and one of them is similar to the
logo that the Board tried and failed to pass as an alternate a few months ago. There is nothing too
novel and nothing that leaps out at you. However, there are still more than two months remaining
for submissions, so we imagine that the available pool will grow considerably.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Letting the dogs out since 1998

posted by merope at 6:07 AM 2 comments   
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
In Case of Fire, Break Glass
Creeping in on little cat feet...its Your Daily Board Show!

MOVING RIGHT ALONG: Noting that "Feedback on the AAG project has been very positive,"
Shari Handley asked for a motion that "the "U.S. African American Griots" Project be granted
status as a Special Project affiliated with The USGenWeb Project." She also noted that
"Discussion of the one-name USTerrell Project has been mixed," but noted that if anyone wanted
to make a motion regarding that project, "it would be appropriate to bring it forth at the same
time," so that they could be voted on at the same time. Although Betsy Mills said she wouldn't
support "either one becoming a Special Project at this time," Bettie Wood stepped up to the plate
and made the required motion. She also noted that "The SWSC region has been very supportive
of this project, & the majority that I've heard from would like to see it happen...I am most
appreciative of those folks that try to promote & create positive things for The USGenWeb
Project, & our original mission of gathering genealogical & historical information for free online
access by researchers." Linda "Doesn't Usually Speak in Public" Barton seconded the motion, and
it was numbered [05-04] and opened for a very brief discussion period. A vote will be called later
today if there is no further discussion.

NOTHING IN LIFE IS FREE: We are more or less certain that this is a done deal, despite some
obvious issues that the Board has not bothered to discuss in all its fawning over the Griots
project. Who knows, perhaps they have had a full and reasoned discussion in secret; that certainly
wouldn't come as a surprise. Special projects don't usually concern us much, so we reviewed the
bylaws and noted some interesting things. For one, any data donated to the Griots project once it
becomes special project essentially belongs to the USGenWeb Project since the bylaws effectively
grant USGenWeb permanent use of any data submitted to a special project. Although there is no
statement that "Those sections of the website submitted or donated by contributors other than the
website coordinator, shall remain with the website", as there is for CCs, there is this: "In The
USGenWeb Project, copyright to data contributed to any special projects resides with the
contributor, who agrees that The USGenWeb Project, as a not-for-profit group, has permanent
use of the data." This is the provision that the Archives uses to justify its refusal to honor requests
for removal of any data submitted to it. And its interesting, because data submitted to a county
site can be removed at a submitter's request, but data submitted to a special project cannot. Odd,
isn't it?

This leads into another question that has intriqued us before. What exactly is the status of a
"special project" relative to USGenWeb? We've usually talked about this in reference to the
Archives, which are the personal property of one person [who has told us that in the event of her
untimely demise her children, and not USGenWeb, will decide the fate of the Archives]. Should
this probable new special project decide in a few years it would rather go its own way, will
USGenWeb appoint a new coordinator and carry on, or will we then just not have an African
American-focused Special Project anymore? What happened with the Census Project may be
instructive. [Or, given the high emotional content of that issue, it might not be.] In any case, when
the first Census Project was ejected and the second one fled the Archives' umbrella, USGenWeb
decided it had no Census Project and has never established another. This approach, while certainly
representing the path of least resistance, seems a little impermanent and not really helpful to
genealogical researchers.

Its also the case that the Board has failed to follow the bylaws in its method of establishing the
Griots project as a special project within USGenWeb. Technically, the Board does not "grant
status to" a project, it "establishes" a new special project. Thus any motion used to establish a
new special project should read something like this:

"I move that the USGenWeb Advisory Board establish the USGenWeb U.S. African American
Griots Project and that Charee Harvey be appointed as coordinator."

This seems pretty simple and straightforward and has the benefit of complying with the bylaws.
Instead the Board has decided to just grant special project status to the Griots project as is, and
there's no provision in the bylaws for "granting special project status" to an ongoing personal
project. What implications this may have for the Griots project's existence as a "personal project
with special blessing" or a permanent part of USGenWeb we cannot say. But it seems to us that if
the Board "establishes" a project it is a permanent part of USGenWeb and of course as such
would fall under the purview of USGenWeb's bylaws and guidelines, whereas if the Board merely
"grants status" to a project either it or the project coordinator can then later revoke that status,
leaving USGenWeb without a special project that perhaps our researchers have come to rely on.
"Establishing" and "granting status" may also have implications relative to the disposition of
donated materials, as previously discussed.

Finally, we have to wonder if the Board has even discussed the requirements of special project
status with the coordinators of the project. The project is a fine one and we are sure it will be a
credit to USGenWeb. Its originators are long term participants in KYGenWeb and are no doubt
familiar with the rules of the project. But since we run into people in this project all the time who
don't even know that there are bylaws, it wouldn't surprise us if the Griots people figure that
special project status just means they get to fly the logo and call themselves part of USGenWeb
and otherwise they can do whatever they want. If your elected representatives have had this
discussion, they haven't shared it with us. No big surprise there. If they haven't had the discussion,
well, no big surprise there either.


-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Seen it all since 1998

posted by merope at 7:26 AM 0 comments   
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Eminent Domain
Weather prediction is not an exact science...its Your Daily Board Show!

ART AND SCIENCE: Board discussion on the two issues currently before it has slowed a bit
since yesterday. Shari responded to Jan's question about standard pixel sizes and resolutions by
asking wondering what the benchmark should be and noting that if they are going to change the
contest rules they should do so quickly, since they are already receiving submissions [which are
posted online at http://usgenweb.org/logos/]. Shari also noted that "There is no limit to the
number of logos anyone can submit. Also...the contest is open to USGenWeb members AND
non-members..."

Shari also addressed some questions on the proposed new Special Projects. She noted "There will
be AAG sites for all 50 states (and, I would imagine, for DC)...for any state that already has an
African American project going, it would be up to the state as to whether to continue it seperately
or to try to join up with the AAG..." [Actually the Griots project already has a site for DC, as well
as one for Canada and a separate records section for the Underground Railroad, and its correct
name would The USGenWeb U.S. African American Griots Project, or USGWUSAAGP.] Shari
also noted that the Terrell project is thus far the only single surname site to request Special
Project status, but "if this one were made an official SP, we could expect to see MANY more."

SEPARATE AND NOT EQUAL: Discussion of the possible inclusion of the Griots project and
the Terrell surname project appears to be proceeding on only one list currently, the SW/SC
regional list [which is by far the most active of the regional lists, possibly because the two board
members that run it actually encourage discussion. How refreshing is that?] And discussion on
that list is fairly predictable: the Griots project is apparently the best thing since sliced bread and
the Terrell project is damned with faint praise [although this tide is turning somewhat as people
consider the implications of admitting special projects that do not exactly fit the basic USGenWeb
model]. Here is a sampling of comments:

"I...wonder why we would have an "African American Project" and not a project that
encompasses other "future" ethnic groups such as Native American?...granting special project
status to a project should be for those that have state and county specific links, etc. that fit with
our original mission...My question is WHY do they want/need Special Project status?...that is a
missing element in their request." --Betsy Mills [who apparently is now lifting all her good ideas
from the DBS.]

"On the issue of other similiar ones, the only other similiar one would be
Native-Americans and they aren't as organized as the African-American group...Any other ones,
no way, since there are too many independent groups dealing with that aspect...Can you fathom
these groups (they are real!)...Germans from Russia, Germans from Bukovina, Danube-Suabians,
Volhyians, Volga-Germans, Don-Germans, Brazil-Germans, etc?" --W. David Samuelsen [who
apparently considers European immigrants as somehow less deserving of ethno-centric Special
Projects]

"Yes on African American Project...No way no dice on any surname projects...I am very leery of
single surname projects because of the amount of oversight involved. They're better off linked
from county sites where such surnames are common rather than the hundreds of counties where
they don't exist...The Objective of the Project is LOCATION, not surname. --W. David
Samuelsen [of course, the "Objective" of the Project is also LOCATION and not racial or ethnic
identity]

"If you do an "African American Project", then you have to cover the other ethnic groups such as
Hispanic, Native American,...German Americans, Asian Americans, etc, etc, etc...The USGenWeb
Project was founded and based upon the principal of covering ever state/county in the US...each
county should be covering the ethnic groups that encompass that county...we seem to be getting
off the mark with all the special projects when we need to be spending that time getting the
various county sites up to snuff...I think it is time we "clean up" what we already have..." --Elaine
Martin

"I think the African American site would be a great addition to the Project. I don't think the one
name study would be. There are thousands of surnames and I think that once the Project adds one
name it opens us up for many more." --Linda Haas Davenport [And there are thousands of ethnic
identities. Your point?]

"My opinions:...US Terrell Project: NO to any "one name" site...US African-American
Griots:...Although african american research is sorely in need of assistance...I am not convinced
that the scope of this research is nation wide as far as historical data is concerned...I would have
to vote no even though I admire the work they are doing. This is local county and state level not
national level." --Betty Brooks

"I agree with those who believe the African American Griots website would be an
excellent addtion as a USGenWeb Special Project...they do indeed have many state and county
specific databases. I can't think of a single reason they don't fit beautifully with our "original
mission"...I think it would be a wonderful pattern for another Ethnic area like Native American..."
Mike St. Clair [who, bless him, never says an unkind thing about anyone.]

"We are not "creating" an African-American Project. This is a long established group who want to
work within the USGenWeb Project...I am proud to be a member of the
USGenWeb Project. I want people to use it. And the best way is to have special projects that
meet people's needs...I am extremely "pro" in accepting the application of this group...I would be
willing to accept applications from other organized
ethnic groups...I am not willing to add a surname project... for one specific name." --Darilee
Bednar

We here in the DBS newsbunker have visited both of the projects and other than the fact that the
Griots project has a much more professional looking website and nicer graphics, both of them are
still fairly undeveloped. Griots has about half the states open, but many of the "records" they have
are links to other sites. The site was originally established as a state level special project in
KYGenWeb, [and the KY portion of Griots is still part of KYGenWeb] and the KY portion of the
site is by far the best developed [for those of you that care about these things, the data they do
collect does not appear to be going into the Archives]. All the states currently linked to from the
site are apparently run by the same two people. The Terrell project likewise appears to be a labor
of love from a few people interested in the Terrell surname and its many variations throughout the
U.S. It would perhaps work less well as a county-up organized project, but it is specifically
modeling itself on USGenWeb and is actively seeking state level coordinators [the project
coordinator does not appear to have plans for county level organization].

What we fail to understand is why one of these worthy projects should be considered a valuable
addition to the mission of USGenWeb and the other should just be considered as diluting our
purpose. Neither fits the original mission of USGenWeb very well, and both could open
USGenWeb to applications from scores of similar projects. But it is also true that both of them
are "special projects that meet people's needs," both could provide great assistance to researchers
in their specific areas, and both could enhance the value of USGenWeb to its visitors. Which is
supposedly what we are all about.

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS: After a week of inactivity, the Grievance Committee
working group is more or less back in the saddle. Group chair Angie Rayfield posted a draft
outline of a possible grievance process at:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncgenweb/grievance/grievance.txt . Its a bit complicated, but she
basically proposes a two-step process that begins with mediation and proceeds to arbitration [and
if you don't know the difference between those, go look 'em up]. In the mediation phase, a Board
member will serve as a monitor; in the abitration phase that same Board member will serve as the
non-voting chair of an abitration panel. Mediators and arbitration panel members will be project
volunteers and will apparently have more or less the final say in how grievances are resolved.
Other than not including some details of varying importance [how and when will the Grievance
Committee be formed; how will the Grievance Coordinator be selected; how will conflicts of
interest be addressed, etc?] the proposal seems well thought out, and it involves non-Board
project members at each step.

Thus far only two Board members have commented on the outline. Shari's concerned that the
Board itself doesn't have a big enough say in the final outcome of a grievance, and noted, "it is the
responsibility of the Advisory Board, as representatives duly elected by the membership, to have
the final decision on any grievance for which mediation has failed and arbitration as laid out in
your outline...has resulted in a solution one or both of the parties feel they cannot live with. Any
mediators or arbitrators...would NOT have been elected by the membership." She suggested that
Angie add a provision to the outline that "the arbitration decision may be appealed to the
Advisory Board" and that if it is appealed the Board can decide whether or not to hear the appeal.
If the Board decides NOT to hear the appeal, the decision of the arbitration panel stands. But if
does choose to accept the appeal, then Shari proposed that "each side makes ONE statement
laying out its entire argument. The AB then issues its final, binding decision - either to dismiss the
grievance, to uphold the arbitrator's decision, or to modify the arbitrator's decision." [In other
words, if the volunteer members of the arbitration panel rule against one of the Board's chums,
said chum can appeal to the Board and the Board can overturn the panel's decision. Or consider
the scenario where a Board member is party to a grievance. Should they be allowed to appeal the
arbitration panel's ruling and thus have their colleagues decide the final outcome of the grievance?
And where does "dismissing the grievance" come from? Am I understanding correctly that Shari
wants the Board to be able to force eight or more people to go through this process for however
long it takes, so that it can then just decide that the grievance itself has no merit and dismiss it?
Shouldn't that happen earlier in the process?]

Don Kelly noted that "One type of appeal not mentioned here is the frivolous appeal, or even a
frivolous charge...If frivolity...is detected by the AB and supported by the evidence, that might be
a quick way to spend time on good supported cases instead of wasting time playing exchanging
jibs and playing mind games...Is frivolity a fair thing to consider when deciding yes or no to
further contemplate an issue?" [They could deal with this by deciding up front, and posting
publicly, a list of types of complaints that the process cannot and will not address, such as
complaints about Root$web's policies, complaints involving behavior outside the project, etc., or
by just deciding at the outside that what appears "frivolous" to some might appear quite serious to
others and hear all complaints with respect and impartiality.]

Anyways, Angie wants comments on this, so go read it and send them to her.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Giving Board members ideas since 1998

posted by merope at 8:50 AM 1 comments   
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Isn't That Special?
Testing the waters...its Your Daily Board Show!

JOIN THE CLUB: After prodding the logo contest into existence, Shari Handley moves the
Board to one of the remaining items on the January agenda: new special projects. Shari asks the
team to discuss two projects that have requested status as recognized USGenWeb Project Special
Projects. These would be something called the U. S. African American Griots? Project and the
USTerrell Project. The first is proposed to "fill the need for more African American records on
the state and county
level." The second is a single-name project and as Shari noted, "If this is a direction USGenWeb
wants to consider, it would potentially have a very significant
impact on the size of our organization, as other surname projects would undoubtedly also seek to
become affiliates." Shari asked the Board to discuss these issues and so they did:

"We know from osmosis about the African-American project which has been building for some
time now...I think it would make a very good special project. The facet of
research of my greatest interest deals of course with history, and history speaks from excavations
of ruins of old plantation slave quarters...a one name study covering all 50 states strikes me...as a
One Name Study Project where each surname is a part of the whole project. Otherwise we could
end up with 1,000 separate one name study projects. What do you'all think of one special surname
project with each surname menued as part of the whole engine searchable surname project?"
--Don Kelly [His last thought is actually not an entirely bad idea.]

"I think the African-American Project would be a wonderful addition to the special projects of the
USGW...To have a National site and link all the states together would be wonderful...I would fear
that if we have a special project for one name it will spawn more of the same....if we did a special
surname project, linking states to names, etc., it would be much easier to handle instead of having
thousands of one surname special projects." --Jan Cortez

"Our focus is location, not surnames and I don't think we should be going there." --Betsy Mills
[you could make the same argument about race and ethnicity based projects.]

"The African American project is an excellent project, and I think has proven itself...Considering
how well done the project is, I feel a bit flattered that they would be interested in coming under
the USGenWeb Project umbrella...I agree with Don on the one name studies...if we're going to
add one name studies there should probably be one umbrella project for all of them. The
question...would probably be if there would be someone willing to take on the challenge of
organizing and over-seeing a One Name Studies project...are there any provisions for (or
prohibitions against)
recognizing a project as something like an "associate project"? I know a lot of organizations have
both full members and associate members...Associate members generally don't have voting rights,
but they're recognized as members otherwise." --Angie Rayfield

"I heard that Rootsweb no longer issues "users" accounts for one name studies...If true, what are
the potential affects, server account wise, to a one name study special project?" --Don Kelly

"I think the African-American project would be a great asset to the USGenWeb...The one
surname project could get out of control and isn't most of the surname etc., handled with the
message boards, mail lists etc." --Gail Meyer Kilgore

"U. S. African American Griots? Project--what a fantastic project...How would this effect any
state projects that are already being done? Would they all merge in to one?...The "USTerrell
Project" is indeed an interesting project as well...It looks
like it would be quite overwhelming...I would like to take this before the SWSC CCs to see what
they think of both of these. Is there just the one surname involved in this so far? --Bettie Wood
[well duh]

There are some basic questions one should ask regarding the addition of Special Projects, the first
being "is this within USGenWeb's mission?" The second would be "Is this any different from what
we already do?" The basic organization of the Project is, as Betsy "Plain Speaking" Mills noted,
based on locality. As far as the African American project goes, its really a very nicely organized
and well presented project but it collects and presents the same sorts of records (vital records,
draft cards, family histories, tombstones, queries) as other USGenWeb sites and Special Projects.
USGenWeb's other data-collecting Special Projects are based on type of record and not type of
people they involve, so this would be a departure and one that might seem to step on some
well-established toes. Several states already have very well developed African American local
projects and it is doubtful that any of them will be willing to merge with or be subsumed into this
one.

Just like the proposed surname project, allowing one race/ethnicity based Special Project opens
the door to others. Some are obvious (Hispanic, Native American, Japanese, Chinese) but how far
would we want to go with this? We know of a fabulous project for the descendants of Swedish
immigrants and another for Germans from a particular region of what is now Denmark. Ireland
and Russia have both contributed to the makeup of big chunks of the US population, as have all
European countries past and present. We bet a Jewish genealogy website would be an awesome
addition to the Project, and you know, the Melungeons are utterly fascinating. So, at what point
do our other record-type Special Projects become meaningless? Unless we are full-blooded Native
Americans, we all came from somewhere else and wherever we came from is a viable starting
point for a Special Project and a viable sorting method for any collection of records associated
with them. How far are we willing to go with this? Once the Board approves one
race/ethnicity/geographical origin Special Project it will be hard-pressed to deny Special Project
status to any other that applies, if only in order not to appear biased or exclusive. [Descendants of
Grand Fenwickians, anyone?]

Single surname studies pose similar if perhaps more obvious issues. Although I have run across
some pretty impressive surname sites I'm not at all sure they fit the basic organizing principles of
USGenWeb or that they add materials we do not otherwise collect. The Terrell site, for instance,
is only nominally organized by state and does not appear to have much actual data on it currently.
What it does have is, you guessed it, census records, obits, tombstones, and queries. Is this value
added for USGenWeb? Not really. Does it open a big floodgate? You betcha. Does the idea of a
"Single Surname Special Project" umbrella mitigate this? Only a little. We aren't sure for one thing
how such a SP would be organized: by state first, and single surname sites localized in states and
counties, or by surname, with state and county records specific to that surname? Would each
single surname project organizer become a voting member of USGenWeb? [The same question
pertains to the race/ethnicity based projects.]

All that said, there's nothing inherently wrong with the project deciding to go this route. Although
if such a big change in our current organization is being contemplated, the Board might want to
consider putting the issue before the membership come election time. And we would hope that
any project requesting status as a USGenWeb affiliated Special Project submits a detailed
proposal noting 1) how the project is organized; 2) what types of records it will collect; 3) where
records will be stored; 4) who qualifies as a member of the special project and thus a future
USGenWeb voter [both the Terrell project and the Griots project are soliciting for state and/or
county level volunteers; will all these be considered members for the purposes of running in
and/or voting in USGenWeb elections?]; and 5) will the organizers agree to abide by the
USGenWeb bylaws [for instance, the ones requiring that SPs have a specified name format, that
they elect their coordinators, and that coordinators are subject to removal by the Board and their
staffs.]

There hasn't been much traffic on the various lists about this yet. In what little discussion has
occurred, the general consensus seems to be yes on the African American project and no on the
surname project. We'll see what happens as the Board chews on the various implications of this,
though. And once the Archives weights in, the general consensus may change dramatically. Any
sort of non-records-based collecting and sorting system is a threat to their hegemony and they
might have something to say about that.

SWITCHING GEARS: Jan Cortez asked for clarification of the rules of the logo contest,
requesting specifications for size and resolution of the entries and asking how many entries any
one person can submit. So far both her requests on this topic have been completely ignored.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Movin' on up since 1998

posted by merope at 8:25 AM 0 comments   
Friday, March 18, 2005
Let The Games Begin
Putting on the Ritz...its Your Daily Board Show!

AND THE RACE IS ON: After several days of public silence from the Board, Shari Handley
suddenly decided [on her lonesome? Who knows?] that "Upon review of the original motion that
resulted in the just-concluded logo poll, an additional motion is not needed to initiate the
submission process for the logo contest." [Or in other words, "if none of you will submit an
acceptable motion, then who needs you?"]

She then announced the official opening of the "USGenWeb Logo Contest." Here's the rulez:

"Only entries via email will be accepted. Send your finished logo graphic in either JPEG or GIF
format to webmaster@usgenweb.com. Each entry must include your name, address, daytime
phone and email address. The contact information will be kept private. By entering the contest, all
participants unconditionally agree to be bound by all terms of these contest rules. All entries must
be original works, produced by the entrant, and must not contain any copyrighted material. Logos
should include the phrase "The USGenWeb Project" somewhere in the design. (note the
capitalization) By entering a design, each entrant agrees and grants The USGenWeb Project the
irrevocable right to make available, reproduce, distribute, publish, display, edit, modify, create
derivative works and otherwise use the logo for any purpose in any form and on any media in
perpetuity without compensation."

[Several project members have suggested that the Board is overstepping its bounds legally by
requiring that contest participants, even the ones that eventually lose, fork over their copyright to
their designs. But really, go pull out any contest entry form from your recycle pile and read the
small print. Its standard boilerplate. I would actually venture a guess that Shari modeled hers on a
piece of random junk mail. In any case, they are trying to avoid another "millenium logo"
situation, wherein they piss off someone who has designed a logo that half the project uses and
that person then withdraws permission to use the logo and threatens legal action. Can't blame 'em
really.]

Members have until May 31 to submit their designs. The project [well, those of us that are
allowed to vote] will vote on them during the regular election in July. Winners will be determined
by majority vote:

"The top vote-getter will be USGenWeb's main Official Logo. The next three top vote-getting
designs (or less if there are not three additional entries) will be the
Official Alternate Logos. In the event of a tie, the Advisory Board will vote to break the tie. The
decision of the Advisory Board will be final."

The only Board member that bothered to comment on this so far was Jan Cortez. She asked Shari
to state specifically "that the current logos that are in use would also be put into the contest,"
since many members may prefer that logo and would like the opportunity to vote for it.

[Indeed, those of us that are too lazy to update graphics images on our pages might want the
opportunity to vote for the current logo just so that it end up as one of the four logos and we
won't have to change our pages.]

The rules and dates for the contest have been buried under "announcements" on the USGenWeb
home page, but so far no entries have been posted, not even the current logo.


-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Exercising our critical faculties since 1998

posted by merope at 5:57 AM 1 comments   
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Is There Anybody Out There?
No news is good news...its Your Daily Board Show!

Just dropping in on the quick to give a brief summary of all the USGenWeb news of the last few
days:

BOARD-L: Zip since Monday, when the last of the discussion on the proposed data repository
policy statement petered out. The motion made by Don Kelly on Saturday last has apparently died
for lack of a second.

Grievance Committee working group: Nada since last Friday when Angie tried hard to roust the
troops to action.

USGENWEB-DISCUSS: Like a ghost town, you can see the tumbleweeds tumbling through the
middle of the square.

BRC: Roger dropped another bomb from the Bylaws Revision Committee, but it pretty much
sank like a stone. [We are of the opinion that the BRC's stated disinterest in the comments of the
membership have tended to discourage the membership from commenting. Or from caring for that
matter.]

Its been a quiet week...

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Kissing the blarney stone since 1998

posted by merope at 6:10 AM 0 comments   
Monday, March 14, 2005
Clear As Mud
Going over the same old ground...its Your Daily Board Show!

BROKEN RECORD: Much of Board business yesterday included continuing comment on the
proposed data repository policy statement:

"...apparently SOMEONE thought the Archives was a valid place to put data -- it's specifically
recognized in those same by-laws you keep quoting...don't see anything in the by-laws that
specifies that the local site is "superior" to the Archives...The bylaws say "The purpose of this
organization shall be to gather genealogical and historical information for free online access by
researchers ." And "This purpose shall be accomplished by presenting websites which shall be
central repositories of historical and genealogical research data, donated either by the website
coordinator or other contributors." They DON'T say that all the data must go to the county, or to
the Archives, or both...I've never put the first bit of data in the Archives, and I don't see myself
starting now. If the Archives had never been created, then we'd all just plug along putting data on
our individual sites. But the Archives are there, they're recognized as part of the project, and it's
about time to put an end to the petty bickering about which is "better."...We're all one project,
and we should be pursuing one goal -- gathering genealogical and historical information for free
online access by researchers...As near as I can tell, the researcher couldn't care less about the
nitpicking over where to put the data, and who's right, and who's better, and who is *really*
important -- all they want is to find what they're looking for...The submitter is the only person
who can decide what they would like done with their submission...And no CC or FM should be
punished for putting the data where the submitter wants...The point is to get the data online.
That's all the researchers care about, and they'll come back to any page that presents useful
information in an organized manner...They don't care where the links go, as long
as it takes them to what they're looking for." --Angie Rayfield

"...its all about the researcher and putting forth the info to assist them in their research...Do we
ever stop to think that many who visit our pages are new, or haven't
really explored the internet? They don't know where to find those links to the Archives or
elsewhere to find the info they want...A good website gathers materials, if and where they can,
and at the same time linking to all the other valuable resources out there...what happens to the
submitter when they don't receive an answer from the County Coordinator, for whatever reason?
Do they just walk away in disgust and not submit materials that might be of some help to another
researcher? Or shouldn't they try the Archives or any other special project that might have a
coordinator available that would put that bit of info online, before its lost...I think both serve a
very useful purpose, and if we can't see that, then shame on us." --Jan Cortez

After these posts, Don Kelly noted that "Angie's" [Shari actually proposed them] 10 point list
"may bee too short to be comprehensive," and suggested instead the following very brief
statement, which he believed "seems to comport well with existing bylaws, offers options to the
CC, and considers submitter opinions."

"Data can be placed on the county website and in other repositories of choice consistent with the
wishes of the submitters."

Darilee Bednar preferred Don's proposed wording and suggested the following addition:

"All Data is to be considered donated to the USGenWeb Project and can not be removed without
the permission of the submitter."

Don approved Darilee's addition, noting, "...that is a good addition, especially for new CCs who
don't know what the experienced CCs know...no data is removed from a website without written
permission of the submitters...everyone understands what is expected and everyone including the
CC and the original submitters are covered...A small percentage may become angry at someone
and remove records not their own, but the only people they realy hurt are the researchers...These
points seem generally understood, but are still worth repeating...this looks like a good hit. It is
hard to be short and comprehensive...Is there anything else that needs to be added to the brief
statement?"

Hard to believe isn't it? The Board now has four different proposals floating around for one
simple policy statement. And Dandy Don, who expended considerable bytes expounding on some
half-baked interpretation of the bylaws, now appears happily willing to abandon that line of
argument in favor of a boiled down statement that 1) would allow members to violate his
interpretation of the bylaws; and 2) restates what is already in the bylaws.

At this point though, Shari gave up, saying "We've spent enough fruitless time on the data
repository question for now...Let's move on, and perhaps come back to that some other time."

OTHER BUSINESS: Shari asks for a motion "pursuant to the results" of the logo poll. [Our
readers will recall that by very small margins the membership approved having multiple logos and
preferred three alternates. If we understand the wording of the poll correctly, this would actually
result in four official logos.] Don Kelly duly moves "to support the majority will of the voters."

Shari also noted that the January minutes are finally online [hey, its only March 14] and asked that
the Board members note any concerns prior to 11 pm tomorrow night. Larry Flesher notes that he
has no objection to the minutes. [These are the first minutes posted by current Board Secretary
Mike St. Clair; he seems to have done a thorough job if not exactly a timely one. And we made
the minutes! Hoody hoo!]

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Enjoying our 15 minutes of fame since 1998

posted by merope at 6:40 AM 3 comments   
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Nothing New Under the Sun
Going around in circles...its Your Daily Board Show!

BACK TO SQUARE ONE: Whoever remarked some time past that the Board only engages in
discussion once a motion has been made was right. David Morgan's motion to accept a simply
worded policy statement regarding data repositories has opened some sort of floodgate and
overnight there were many comments exchanged among a handful of Board members. We've seen
Betsy's suggestion already; here are some of the other comments:

"...the more I think about it, the more that I think the BRC needs to take it up as an amendment to
the bylaws...this has always been a grey area, yet, I also believe that the information should be put
wherever the contributor wants it to go...Better define the County site and the Archives and let
the contributor decide. Does that entail a tweak of the bylaws? I don't claim to have the best
answer, but, I do support the Archives and I do support raw data on the websites." --Jan Cortez

"I respectfully, in eclectic, seariously gag on the wording here...I fully support Simple Simon
wording that is hard to misinterpret, but I cannot begin to support the statement below because,
though the concept of choice is good, it should not be used as a club to beat the bylaw as written
senseless...The bylaw says counties "will" (or shall) be repositories of local records...This
proposal in affect says counties "may" be repositories of records. May does not mean the same
thing as shall. Can we agree on that?...The bylaw does not say may, it says will, or shall, which
removes the option of ignoring the bylaw at the county level...We need to work on this before
telling anyone of the membership that they can ignore this bylaw at will. We of all members
should be supporting our bylaws, not trying to find a way around them." --Don Kelly

"What we are actually trying to accomplish is to make a statement that the SUBMITTER has the
right to choose where the works they submit go. They are not bound by bylaws or anything else
and a CC should not subvert the will of the submitter. The policy statement is also trying to stop
anyone else who might try to influence a CC to place ALL works in one place or the other or both
or none...[Article II, Section 2] says that WEBSITES shall be central repositories. It says that the
foundation of the organization shall be local websites. It does NOT say that local websites or
counties counties "will" (or shall) be repositories of local records. The above section includes
local websites, state websites and archives websites. They are ALL to be central repositories of
historical and genealogical research data...Please get the facts straight before you get all bent out
of shape...I don't like the wording of the current motion either. So, can we figure out a way to
amend it to better meet the needs of accomplishing the purpose which is to assure that everyone
understands that the submitter is in control of where their donation is placed and NO ONE else
can/should influence this decision?" --Betsy Mills [reading our minds. Or the DBS.]

"I don't think that anyone is getting bent out of shape here, but, rather expressing their opinions...I
was basically told today that I am to lazy to explain to each
submitter the difference between the Archives and a County site, so that the
submitter can make a decisions...I certainly don't think I'm lazy and I certainly don't think that I
favor one depository of information over the other. I don't tell the MI CC's where to place their
information. I *want* to see raw data on the sites...If a CC does not want a specific type of
information on their sites, I would sure rather put it in the Archives than not have it available at
all...To be quite honest, I think that time would be better spent to get things online in this project,
wherever it happens to be placed, rather than to argue over placement. The more we have online,
the better and more worthwhile project we become...I think that we have a certain segment that
favor the Archives and a certain segment that favor the county sites...no matter what we write or
what bylaw is rewritten, I really don't think that the mindset will change. We are all very different
and distinct personalities. So let's just get on with the job that needs to be done, regardless of
where we favor placing it." --Jan Cortez

"If I had my preference it would be to tell every CC to place the data in at least two places...What
really upsets me is when someone gets mad and takes down everything that is online. Our focus
should be the researchers...maybe we should be working on a policy that includes - "if you put it
online, you MUST leave it online no matter what, cross your heart and hope to die." This ripping
down information because we are mad or because we got our feelings hurt or whatever has to
stop...We have GOT to focus on the researchers and when we do, a whole lot of these arguments
will stop." --Betsy Mills

At this point, Shari Handley posted her original 10 point proposal from nine days ago, noting
"Most of us seem to want the very same thing...But as long as we have a dozen different versions
of the wording that we are insisting on, and nobody wants to compromise, we're going to get
nowhere...This is not that difficult an issue, folks. It should not take this long to act on it." Don
Kelly proceeded to pick apart each of the 10 points, noting in particular that several items are
already required by the bylaws or at least not forbidden by them and that basically "Most of 1 thru
10 offers nothing new, but there are two or three points that need to be stressed...JUST to limit
misunderstandings after the fact...We don't need to be giving what they already have, or
explaining what they already know...We don't need to suggest that violating bylaws is OK." In
response to Betsy's question about where exactly the bylaws require that data be placed on county
sites, Don replied "It says so in the word repositories and is in keeping with the spirit of keeping a
set of local records with the local county...Who among us is not saddened by shell websites?...Are
we now going to encourage them as well as tolerate them?" More comments on "shell websites"
and what the bylaws do and do not say followed:

"...we are not encouraging shell websites...Please read the bylaws. It does not say anywhere that
"the county sites are repositories." It says that the PROJECT is to be a repository. That includes
county sites, town sites, state sites, the Archives, and all the other Special Projects. You can't
make the bylaws say something that they don't say." --Betsy Mills

[For what its worth, the interpretation that Article II, Section 2 requires that data be stored at the
county site appears to be relatively new. We don't recall ever hearing it prior to our time on
sabbatical, but once we returned to the fray, it had appeared full blown. We don't know where it
came from or when it made its first appearance, but it does strike us as a very creative
interpretation of the bylaw in question.]

"...what I saw is a county website is a repository of records, or it is a page of links....in other
words, a shell page. A county website cannot be both." --Don Kelly

"As CCs we were taught from day one...that to accommodate researchers who visited our
counties first, it was our duty to provide onsite data...Now eight years later we are hearing
contradictions; you don't have to have data on your site, you can have just links...there is no doubt
that a site of links only is a shell site...it comes to two issues. Are we going to encourage onsite
data, or are we going to encourage shell sites. I am sorry, but I see no middle ground here...Two
issues I heard...accounted for something like 90% of the complaints I received over a period of
eight years; half were about copyright issues and the other half were about shell sites. These were
primarily from disappointed researchers and occasionally from other CCs...and we still hear about
shell sites nearly every month...I personally do not recognize that scenario as a viable
alternative...Our opinions on either of those issues reach sea to shining sea. What can we do? Can
we for example stipulate out these issues...narrow them down, make them more easily
understood?...The spread of opinions is all fair game......everyone needs to be heard, but the
spread is also divisive. Can we agree to try to narrow that gap?...And finally, will we encourage
onsite databases, or will we continue to justify shell sites?...It is as simple a question as
that......simple because we cannot have it both ways. There is no twist there.....we do it or we
don't do it." --Don Kelly

"...let me get this straight...if the county is the central repository, then what you are saying is,
everything that we get in the Archives *must go to the county site, regardless of the CC's wishes
or that of the submitter?...Some how I can't find that portion of the bylaws." --Jan Cortez

"...not everyone agrees with you on this one, Don. Yours may actually be the minority opinion, in
fact, from what I've been reading." --Shari Handley

"Not so...a very large percentage of CCs of the USGenWeb have a little to a lot of data on their
websites, six to sixty pages is not unusual...I suspect 95% of the coordinators will support my
point of view, and perhaps as many as 5% will steadfastly support shell sites...So who is in the
minority here, proponents of onsite data or supporters of empty shell sites?...As proof of the
pudding, show me one bylaw that supports shell sites. If you can't show me just one, then you
have no case and no room for further arguement." --Don Kelly

"Help can be obtained anywhere...mailing lists, other county or state websites, even the
USGenWeb site...What makes such a [shell] site equal in researcher value to another site that has
1,000 pages of data onsite? Researchers don't have to visit the county site to get to the archives,
and they won't bother either...county level data is a lot harder to find in the USGenWeb archives.
That can be a source of great frustration as well...why do we work so hard if we don't have to
work at all...if all we have to do is spend four hours putting up links and then put our name as CC
on that single page of links?" --Don Kelly

Right around this point, David Morgan withdrew his motion and invited the "nitpickers" to have
at it. Taking his suggestion to heart, Betsy Mills suggested forming a new "Standing
Policy/Procedure Committee that would write and review the policies and procedures as needed."
She suggested that the data repository policy that is giving them such fits could be among its first
items of business and that "The committee would remain active and any future needs would be
referred to them. It would save a lot of time and frustration as all that it would require would be a
motion to refer it to the committee." Shari however squished this idea, saying "...We're going to
"committee" ourselves to death. This should be a simple matter of putting forth a motion saying,
basically, that local sites, the Archives, or both are all equally valid data repositories."

As of this morning, that's where the discussion stands. Right about where it stood a week and a
half ago.


-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Pointing out the obvious since 1998

posted by merope at 8:40 AM 2 comments   
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Molasses. Uphill. January.
Waiting to thaw out...its Your Daily Board Show!

TORTOISE AND THE TORTOISE: The Board is still discussing a proposed policy statement
regarding data repositories within USGenWeb. David Morgan moved that:

"It is the policy of The USGenWeb Project that the submitter of original or transcribed data or
other materials to The USGenWeb Project has primary discretion as to whether the data or
materials are to be stored in The USGenWeb Archives or within the local site itself; if the
submitter has no preference, then the determination of an appropriate data repository lies with the
person to whom the data or materials were submitted. The USGenWeb Project considers both
repository choices to be equally acceptable and submitters and local coordinators should not be
discouraged from placing their data or materials in the repository of their choice."

Shari asked for a second, but thus far there has been none. Shortly after David made the motion,
Betsy Mills posted a suggestion from a constituent:

"Unless placement of data is specifically designated by the contributor, the LC/CC has the choice
of placing submitted data on the local site, in the USGW P Archives, or both. No SC/ASC, nor
State bylaws, shall change this right; and no SC/ASC is to exert influence on an LC/CC as to
placement of data."

[This one probably gets closer to the heart of what prompted the Board's immediate concern with
this matter, which was the late GAGenWeb rule that data had to be placed on the county site,
regardless of the wishes of the CC and/or the submitter. It does have the advantage of being
blessedly brief, but it also has the unfortunate consequence of undue meddling in state affairs. It
particularly conflicts with the portion of the bylaws that empowers states to "develop/adopt any
additional rules/bylaws and guidelines, as appropriate, for their state so long as they do not
conflict with these bylaws." A state rule requiring data placement in one repository or another
would conflict with no bylaw, and there are many that would argue that the bylaws actually
require data placement on the county site. And what, we wonder, exactly constitutes "exerting
influence"?]

Angie Rayfield then noted that "The policy statement refers only to the USGenWeb Project
Archives. There are other Special Projects, and I'm assuming that the policy would apply to them
as well...instead of wording that mentions only the Archives, would it be better to refer to Special
Projects? That would cover the Archives, the
FGS, the Tombstone project, even the Census project(s) if one is ever specifically recognized."

[This would certainly be a concern. Naming only two specific repositories, the county site and the
Archives, leaves out many potential alternate repositories, including the Tombstone Project,
Family Group Sheet Project, any state level archives, and any new Special Projects independent of
the Archives that USGenWeb may approve in the future.]

TOMAYTO, TOMAHTO: We know from our study of history that the "need" for a policy
statement or rule regarding data repositories sprang from the by now notorious GAGenWeb state
policies. The specific policies in question appear to be these:

"13.d) A CC refuses to add county-related, transcribed data to their site
from a submitter, if the transcribed data does not appear to violate any
person or entity's copyright." [listed among reasons for declaring a site abandoned]

and

"16.n) a CC or SPC must include (within a reasonable time commensurate with
the amount and format of the data) on their county or project site, any data
submitted by any transcriber that relates to their county or project..." [listed among the minimum
requirements for a GAGenWeb county site]

Tim Stowell and various of his Regional Coordinators used these policies to fire at least one
County Coordinator, and this was among the issues that provoked the Board to in turn fire him.
Whether these policies were enforceable or even wise and whether Tim and his staff used them for
the benefit of USGenWeb and GAGenWeb or to further personal agendas will not be debated
here. The Board is trying to prevent other state projects from adopting similar rules favoring
either county sites or the Archives. Although people have discussed the county vs. Archives issue
with varying degrees of intensity over the years, we are not aware of any other formal state
policies requiring one or the other.

So, is a policy regarding data repositories even needed? And do the proposed policies violate any
bylaws? [We've already discussed the right of states to make their own policies--see above.] The
specific bylaw that Tim and others have cited to support the GAGW policies is Article II, Section
2:

"This purpose shall be accomplished by presenting websites which shall be central repositories of
historical and genealogical research data, donated either by the website coordinator or other
contributors. In presenting this information, the foundation of the organization shall be at the local
websites (county, township, parish, town, etc.) which shall be linked to the state websites which
shall be linked to the national website. The USGenWeb Project shall also provide a "digital
library" called The USGenWeb Project Archives."

What does this section require? First, it requires that websites "presented" as part of the Project
shall serve as a "central repository" of any donated materials. One could read this as absolutely
requiring that any project website serve as a central repository of data. Second, the bylaw serves
to organize the Project from its smallest organizational unit [county, parish, town, etc.] up to the
National level umbrella organization. Although the lowest level is described as the "foundation" of
the project, the bylaw does NOT say that "central repositories" are limited to the lowest
organizational level of the Project, and interpreting this clause thusly could conflict with the
immediately preceding clause. Presumably then any of the proposed organizational levels could
serve as a "central repository" for donated materials, and in practice we do find that counties,
parishes, states, etc., very often maintain their own archives for materials relevant to their
organizational level. But what about the national level? Well, as it turns out, the third sentence of
this bylaw establishes something called "The USGenWeb Project Archives." Although we will not
pursue the issue of whether or not the "USGenWeb Archives Project" fulfills the requirement, if it
is even technically part of the Project, or if it exists merely to trivialize and gut USGenWeb,
historically the Archives Project has been accepted as the national level "central repository" of
data. It differs from the state and county level repositories in that it accepts materials relevant to
all levels of organization within the Project, but it is fundamentally organized in the same
county-state-national fashion, and thus can be construed within itself to fit the first clause of this
bylaw. There are other Special Projects [notably Tombstone and FGS] that also accept data
relevant to all levels of the organization and which also can serve as central repositories of more
specific types of data.

Arguments over the status, agendas [hidden and otherwise], and personal management of the
Archives and over which data repository is more useful to genealogical researchers often gloss
over the fact that some data just aren't relevant to the county level. If states do not want to
maintain state level archives [although perhaps under this bylaw they should be required to],
where should such data go? County coordinators may have very good reasons for not displaying
data relevant to their county [limited storage space, restrictions on file types, concerns over
copyright, etc.]. Submitters may prefer the local sites or the Archives for whatever reason and
that is their right. Nothing in the bylaws prevents or forbids any submitter from providing
materials to any "central repository" of their choice. When it comes down to it, our particular
feeling about this is that if we trust their data we should trust their decision about where to put it.

So, back to our original question: is a policy about data repositories really necessary? Given our
little exercise in bylaws re-interpretation above which is just as reasonable as any other
interpretation of Article II, Section 2, we think the answer is probably "yes." At least one state
coordinator has managed to get his personal interpretation of that bylaw encoded into state law
and it might clarify matters if it were the policy of USGenWeb that the choice of a repository rests
first with the submitter and next with the person to whom the data were submitted and that
USGenWeb itself considers all viable repository options within the Project equally acceptable.
This would not violate any bylaw as far as we can tell, would not limit the states in their right to
make internal guidelines, and would give clear policy guidance should any related grievances
arise.


-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Paving the road to hell since 1998

posted by merope at 10:20 AM 1 comments   
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Ducks In A Row
Sleeping with the enemy...its Your Daily Board Show!

BACK IN THE SADDLE: After a few days of quiet, Shari has asked for a motion to adopt the
following wording as the Project's policy statement regarding data repositories:

"It is the policy of The USGenWeb Project that the submitter of original for transcribed data or
other materials to The USGenWeb Project has primary discretion as to whether the data or
materials are to be stored in The USGenWeb Archives or within the local site itself; if the
submitter has no preference, then the determination of an appropriate data repository lies with the
person to whom the data or materials were submitted. The USGenWeb Project considers both
repository choices to be equally acceptable and submitters and local coordinators should not be
discouraged from placing their data or materials in the repository of their choice."

There has been no motion at this point, but Don Kelly raised an objection to the wording: "...it
does not stress following the bylaws first. People always had the option of where to put the data.
We don't need to reinvent the wheel..." Angie pointed out, however, that "People have always had
the option of where to put the data...but that certainly hasn't stopped the petty bickering,
in-fighting, and back-stabbing that we've seen...Apparently it *is* necessary to remind project
members that it's up to the submitter to decide where to put their donations, not up to the
project."

YIKES!: The results of the logo poll were announced earlier today, and it looks like we'll be
having multiple logos, with one main logo and three alternates. That ought to be complicated
enough to satisfy everyone.

OTHER BUSINESS: The Grievance Committee working group hums along, but slowly. Shari
officially appointed Angie to the chair yesterday, but there has been little other public traffic since,
and nothing of much substance.

OUR READERS WRITE: An anonymous correspondent writes: "...A solution to grievances is
possible. CC Reps and other Reps must take a very pro-active role in solving problems between
SCs and CCs to avoid the grievance and mediation stage. CC Reps should represent CCs...As
long as all Reps believe that the SC has a right to absolute power, USGenWeb will not survive as
we know it today." The editorial position of the DBS has always been more or less that the Board
should just get out of the grievance business entirely, since the structural organization of the
Project ties its hands and by accepting grievances that it can only decide one way it opens itself to
accusations [sometimes well deserved] of bias, unfairness, and cronyism. Despite the Board's little
temper tantrum this last summer and fall, the SCs still wield more power than is healthy over the
CCs and the Board simply has little power to enforce any of its dictates against nearly any project
member. We doubt there are many project members who would accept giving the Board the
power to link/delink any project member at will, or make it a rule that failure to obey the Board is
grounds for sanction up to and including expulsion. Most project members want the Board to
absolutely mind its own business right up to the point they insist the Board "do something right
now" about whatever it is that is bugging them. And if the Board fails to adjudicate the matter to
their liking, well, clearly that's evidence of unfairness, isn't it? [We think that the working group
could devise a grievance procedure combining all the best features of human wisdom and advised
by Solomon and the Supreme Court and people would _still_ scream about it being unfair.]

The uncomfortable fact is that our current bylaws place handling grievances firmly in the list of
the Board's responsibilities, and so their hands are tied in another way. Thus we have seen nearly
seven years of blundering around as the Board tries to figure out how best to resolve the
sometimes laughably petty grievances of scattered volunteers who at a very basic level have no
real loyalty to the Project itself and who recognize the Board's authority only when they agree
with its decisions. This is not a recipe for success. We have seen Board members argue that the
bylaws require that ONLY the Board handle grievances, and others argue that no, the bylaws give
leeway for the Board to create a process that includes non-Board members. We have seen
different strategies employed for handling grievances, ranging from ignoring or denying them, to
trying to institute some sort of mediation process, to immediate and public resolution of them
[usually when the Board has a point it wants to make]. We'd like very much to believe that the
working group will be able to come up with grievance policies and procedures that will at the very
least convince people that they are getting a fair hearing from their peers, that the Board will not
or cannot intervene at its whim to influence the outcome, and that even if a desired outcome is not
possible under our current organizational structure that they can at least have the satisfication of
being vindicated after an impartial hearing. It is perhaps a small comfort, but it beats most of the
other things that tend to happen during whatever the current process involves.


-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Overstepping the bounds of decency since 1998

posted by merope at 10:25 PM 0 comments   
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Flat Busted
Not paid enough for accuracy...its Your Daily Board Show!

THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE NO BUSINESS: There's been no activity on the Board's public
list since Sunday; either they are taking a break, they are busy elsewhere, or Root$web's archiver
is down yet again.

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: The new Grievance Committee working group is, however, off to a
fine start. [Yes, they let us join, although we hear from a singing bird that some folks aren't too
happy about that.] Shari has delivered unto the group its charge and thus far a couple of Board
members have tossed out a handful of ideas about committee organization and processes. These
don't stray too far from what has been discussed previously: the proposed committee will contain
some number of non-Board members, grievances will be numbered similar to service tickets when
received, there will still be a "mediation" phase that may or may not involve a Board member as
the mediator or in an oversight role, there will be follow-up and accounting for status for received
grievances, lists of volunteers will be maintained, etc. Thus far there are more suggestions than
details and the role of the full Board itself in the process is still quite murky, but then we are only
one day into the process [and yes, I have anted up my $0.02 worth]. The biggest news to come
out of the working group thus far is that Betsy Mills has stepped down as Chair and suggested
Angie Rayfield serve as Chair in her stead. Angie has made by far the most detailed post on the
list to this point and has clearly considered the issues in some depth and Shari seems amenable to
the change in Chairs. [Someone has suggested to us that Betsy wants a vote on the
recommendations the group will send to the full Board and gave up the Chair to get it.]

At least one working group member has suggested that they complete this process in a week, but
we think that it will take a bit longer. And it should. Its important enough not to rush through. We
will of course keep you posted on any developments, and please feel free to send your own
suggestions to the working group.


-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Armed and dangerous since 1998

posted by merope at 6:12 PM 1 comments   
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Useful Info
Just dropping by...its Your Daily Board Show!

SIGN UP SHEET: Shari Handley has announced the following instructions for members to sign
up to the read-only mailing list for discussion of grievance procedures:

"If you are a USGenWeb CC, LC, SC, or FM, and you wish to be added as a
subscriber to the mailing list, please send a request to
USGWCONF-2-L-request@rootsweb.com, with the following information
included:

Your name
The address under which you'd like to be subscribed
Your position in The USGenWeb Project (ie Somerset County, MD County
Coordinator)
The URL of the above qualifying site

Once this information is verified, you will be manually subscribed to
the list."

How nice that the trial list freed up so that they could use it for something else! We've checked
Root$web and although the list is freely available to members on a read-only basis, apparently it
will not be archived. Anyways, I've sent it my request, and I urge my readers to do so as well. The
process can only benefit by as many ideas and thoughts as we can provide them.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Opinionated since 1998

posted by merope at 7:25 AM 0 comments   
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Just A Quickie
Rushing about...its Your Daily Board Show!

ONE DOWN: Following a last minute vote, Motion 05-03 [Drafting of Grievance Procedures],
Shari declared the motion passed with 10 YES votes and a full five members not voting. The six
volunteers will be subbed to a mailing list so they can get to work hammering out some process
by which the Board can handle grievances. We'll let you know when the list is opened to member
subscription.

There has been only one further comment on the simpler wording proposed yesterday for the data
repository statement. Angie Rayfield noted that the simple wording "...covers the territory
admirably. The submitter should always have the first, last, and only word in where their
donations should go."

RED-HEADED STEPCHILD: The U.S. Copyright Office is considering changes to its draconian
copyright law involving "orphan works," those copyrighted works where the copyright owner is
difficult or impossible to find. This issue particularly concerns genealogists, since so many
information sources of interest to us fall into copyright "grey areas" and orphan status is one of
them. The public has the opportunity to comment on the issue until March 25. Some useful
websites are these:

OrphanWorks.org [where you may comment]

U.S. Copyright Office Info On Orphan Works

Federal Register Notice [Interesting reading, if a little dry]

Off to the races...

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
So much time, so little to do since 1998

posted by merope at 8:56 AM 0 comments   
Friday, March 04, 2005
Magical Mystery Tour
Coo coo cachoo...its Your Daily Board Show!

SLOW GOING: The vote count on Motion 05-03 stood at 9 YES votes at the time of this
writing.

WILL WONDERS NEVER CEASE: On a bit of a wild hair last night I submitted my proposal
for a simpler wording for a policy statement to the Board. Usually when I share my wisdom pearls
with them I get more or less ignored, but this time was different. Of course I got my usual note
from Betsy reminding me she isn't accepting mail from me and a very odd note from Gail Meyer
Kilgore saying "...I would prefer not to forward anything to Board-L from someone who is not a
member of this project." [She's also requested that I not send her mail anymore.] David "Spittoon
Sam" Morgan thought I'd get a better reception if I changed my name; "Rattlesnake Lizzie" was
his suggestion. However, several of the Board members, including Angie, Cyndie, Don [!], and
Denise, were very supportive and after a bit of chat someone suggested moving the discussion to
BOARD-L. Lo and behold, when I woke up this morning, there it was, along with supportive
words from Shari. [No worries, its with my permission, including the use of "Rattlesnake Lizzie"
as the submitter's name]. All sarcasm aside, I hope they will consider some simpler version of the
policy, either my suggestion or someone else's. If nothing else, it would make their jobs vastly
simpler when it comes time to adjudicate disputes over where data are to be stored.

And yes, I did ask them when I was expelled from the Project.


-Teresa "Rattlesnake Lizzie" Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
All warm & fuzzy since 1998

posted by merope at 6:05 AM 0 comments   
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Making News With The News
Or should that be noose?...its Your Daily Board Show!

WELL, WHAT DO YOU KNOW?: Turns out someone over at Sooper Sekrit HQ reads the DBS
after all. Early today and only 9 YES votes and 1 NO vote into Motion 05-03 [Drafting Grievance
Procedures] Shari suddenly realized that she had somehow "inadvertently" left off half the motion.
[Can you imagine the consternation over at HQ?] She reposted the motion in its entirety and
asked everyone to vote again. There are currently 8 YES votes on the correct version of the
motion.

A BIGGER PIECE OF YOUR PIE: Shortly after re-opening the vote on the correct version of
Motion 05-03 [really, there's no reason to thank us], Shari posted her version of a proposed
policy for data storage. [Honestly, its a good thing someone in this project posts a monthly
agenda; we predict minutes will be posted next.] Noting that, "...there has sometimes been
misunderstandings and disagreements regarding just where transcribed data...should reside," she
proposed that "...the AB draft a basic policy statement to clear up misconceptions and to give our
County and Local Coordinators as much freedom and choice as possible." What follows below is
her proposed policy:

"1. No state will require its CC/LCs to place data on the county/local site instead of the Archives.

2. No state will discourage its CC/LCs from placing data in the Archives.

3. No state will require its CC/LCs to place data in the Archives instead of the county/local site.

4. No state will discourage its CC/LCs from placing data within the structure of their county/local
site.

5. First and foremost, the wishes of the submitter will be honored as to where the data they have
provided will reside.

6. If the submitter IS the CC/LC, he or she may choose whether to house the data in the Archives,
on their local site, or both.

7. If the submitter is a researcher (not the CC/LC), and the submitter has no preference one way
or the other, the CC/LC may choose where to place the transcribed data.

8. Data that HAS been submitted to The USGenWeb Archives is subject to the policies of The
USGenWeb Archives.

For data that has NOT been submitted to The USGenWeb Archives:

9. Data transcribed and submitted by the CC/LC belongs to the CC/LC and may be removed from
the county/local site if the CC/LC chooses to do so.

10. Data transcribed and submitted by researchers belongs with the county/local site and will
remain with the county/local site even through a CC/LC change."

Wow, 10 entire line items to say "The data belong to the submitter and the submitter says where
they go." Although its basically what we expected to see whenever the Board finally got around
to this agenda item, it seems kind of complicated. What Shari has proposed above is 1)
unnecessary [we have bylaws that address these points]; 2) an infringement on the right of the
state projects to make their own guidelines and bylaws; 3) completely unenforceable. Its also very
poorly worded: "states" don't force these things on CCs, people do. And it doesn't read so much
like a "policy statement" as a new set of Ten Commandments. It won't stop the arguing over how
to interpret Article II, Section 2 of the bylaws. It won't protect anyone from SCs who either
support or loathe the Archives. CCs who don't put data in the SC's favored repository can just be
shown the door; there's no "requiring" or "discouraging" necessary.

As seems to be happening rather more than is seemly these days, this particular agenda item
appears driven by the Late Unpleasantness in GAGenWeb. As you recall, Tim Stowell and some
minions managed to put a completely ridiculous and utterly unenforceable item in the state
guidelines requiring CCs to put data on their county pages and not in the archives. One of the
straws that finally broke the camel's back was when he actually allowed someone to be fired over
violating it. Do you think the Board is willing to go the same route for every SC who violates the
policy [and we bet more of them will violate it the other way by too vigorously encouraging the
use of the Archives]? Yes, Tim did some dodo things in GAGenWeb, but should the entire project
have to be whipped into shape because of it? Is something so broken that a 10 item list of "thou
shalt nots" needs to become official policy? Do you ever wonder why the Board makes so much
extra work for themselves? [We've already had correspondents point out that the proposed policy
violates the bylaws both because the bylaws require that the Archives be given an advantage by
the state projects and because the bylaws require that data be placed on the county pages.]

Don't get me wrong; we are actually in favor of some sort of policy statement from the national
"leadership" on this. But it should be simple and it should reassure people and not scare them [like
a 10 item list that reads like it came from your mother on a bad day tends to do]. Something like
"It is the policy of The USGenWeb Project that the submitter of original or transcribed data or
other materials to The USGenWeb Project has primary discretion as to where the data or
materials are to be stored; if the submitter has no preference, then the determination of an
appropriate data repository lies with the person to whom the data or materials were submitted."
[The last bit allows for instances where materials are submitted directly to archives file managers
or state coordinators.] See? Its really very simple. We didn't even have to number the points.

Anyways, comment on the Board's public list on Shari's proposal has thus far been limited. Denise
complimented her on her efforts and noted "...#7 seems to assume that the researcher will submit
to the CC/LC. The data can be submitted directly to the archives manager who will then place it
in the archives...I just think we might ought to mention this just to keep things clear." Cyndi
posted a handful of not very interesting suggested changes from the Archives management. And
Don Kelly...well, what can you say about Don? As always, he's gone too deep for us poor news
hacks: "Is it up to the CC/LC?...It's their data....their copyright.....their work...Nice to have two
locations (safety), but the owner should make that decision...This is really more of a copyright
issue." [*sigh* sheer poetry!]

Stay tuned...we are sure there will be more on this.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
One step ahead of the law since 1998

posted by merope at 7:40 PM 4 comments   
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Sell The Kids For Food
Fresh as a daisy...its Your Daily Board Show!

NEW MONTH, SAME STUFF: Following a few days of no discussion on Motion 05-03
[Drafting of Grievance Procedures], Shari finally called the vote. Thus far, the motion appears
headed to swift victory, with six YES votes.

PRESTO CHANGO: Its an interesting thing and you'd think that at least two of the Board
members would have picked up on it, but the Motion 05-03 that the Board is currently voting on
is not the same Motion 05-03 that Angie proposed and that Larry seconded. Here's Angie's
version:

"I move that the volunteers to the Grievance Committee meet on a separate list in order to
develop and present a new set of procedures and policies for the handling of grievances within the
USGenWeb Project. This list will be open to subscription by any project members on a read-only
basis in order to solicit participation by all members of the USGenWeb Project, and an
announcement/invitation will be announced on all relevant project lists. The procedures and
policies for the handling of grievances will include the handling of requests for mediation within
the USGenWeb Project.
Upon completion of a draft of the procedures and policies, the committee will present their
recommendation to the full Advisory Board for a vote on their acceptance. The volunteers are as
follows: Betsy Mills Angie Rayfield Jan Cortez Denise Woodside Don Kelly Bettie Wood."

And here's Shari's version:

"...that the volunteers to the Grievance Committee meet on a separate list in order to develop and
present a new set of procedures and policies for the handling of grievances within the USGenWeb
Project. This list will be open to subscription by any project members on a read-only basis in order
to solicit participation by all members of the USGenWeb Project, and an announcement/invitation
will be announced on all relevant project lists."

See the difference? Half of Angie's motion is gone, noticeably the parts that include the names of
the volunteers and the procedures by which the discussion group will do its work. I wonder where
it went and how it got summarily lopped off without any public discussion of the motion. You
don't suppose they've been talking about this in secret, do you? Not after all that good wholesome
discussion about using the Sekrit Sandbox only for limited and necessary confidential discussion?
Or perhaps this was an executive decision by Shari to get around Angie's awkward language? In
either case, its unlikely that they'll tell us anytime soon why half of a motion just disappeared or
why no one on the Board seems to notice or care.

FEBRUARY SCORECARD: It appears that Shari has dispensed with the chore of adjourning
each monthly meeting and re-adjourning at the start of a new month. This means she also isn't
posting agendas [or, we have noticed, minutes; apparently these aren't a priority for the new BS].
So, for the February scorecard, we'll need to go back to January's agenda and see how they are
doing. Here we go!

1. Call to order [last done January 3]

2. Continue with closed-session hearing [done, February 21, by abandoning the original charges
against Richard Pettys and substituting new charges at the 11th hour; the Board may have
congratulated itself on a job well-done, but we doubt this is truly over.]

3. Reading, correction, approval, or disposition of minutes [done January 3 for the December
minutes; not done for January or February minutes]

4. NC Report [done, January 5; not done for February]

5. New business
a. BRC request [done, introduced Jan 5, vote completed Jan 9, requested denied]

b. Non-responsive State Coordinators [discussion began Jan 10, not resolved before the end of
February]

c. Policy Statement: County sites vs. Archives as repository of collected data [not done]

d. Evaluation of special projects [not done]

e. Application received for possible new special project [not done]

f. PR committee [not done]

g. other [There were several items that we guess come under the umbrella of "other new
business"; some carried over from January: 1) the motion to establish a Grievance Committee
consisting entirely of Board members failed; 2) the discussion of a Grievance Committee then
morphed into a sort of "Grievance discussion group", which would involve the project
membership in deciding how to compose a Grievance Committee and determine its procedures;
this was not finalized by the end of February; 3) the discussion of the "urgency" of a pair of
bylaws amendments submitted by Betsy Mills was declared out of order by the NC after
consultation with the Board's parliamentarian and the amendments were relegated to the standard
amendment procedures; 4) the introduction and discussion of a "gag rule" that Shari proposed be
administered by the Election Committee prior to and as part of determining eligibility to run for
national office; this idea was not well received, either by the Board or by the rabble, and it has
apparently been dropped [expect to see lots of questions about "respecting confidentiality" during
the upcoming election though].

6. Begin Grievance Hearing in Closed Session when disciplinary hearing complete [done? not
done? Based on discussion on the Board's public list, this has been put on hold pending the
development of an official Grievance Committee.]

7. Announcements [done? not done? It depends on what they consider an announcement, I
suppose.]

8. Adjournment [not done January or February]

Although a lot of hot air was generated, very little actually happened in February. The big item
was the "completion" of the Pettys trial, something that may free the Board up to deal with
business that actually benefits the Project rather than petty personal vendettas. [Its still just
outright astonishing that they took more than eight months to resolve that trial and in the end had
to make up new charges in order to salvage even a limited victory.] During February the Board
appeared to be operating more or less without an agenda, or at least off the posted agenda. Most
of the month was taken up with intermittent discussion of the issues around the proposed
Grievance Committee and the proposed gag rule, neither of which reached any sort of resolution.
As of this writing, no agenda for the March meeting has been posted.

AND IN OTHER NEWS: The BRC released another proposed bylaws amendment:

"Article XII. State Projects Section 1. The state web site shall include direct links to the state's
local and state-level special project sites, the USGenWeb Project national site and USGenWeb
Special Projects websites. In addition, each state web site shall provide links to information for
current and prospective local coordinators, including but not limited to state bylaws, rules and/or
policies, official national and state logos, and the USGenWeb project Bylaws, Rules and Policies
and Copyright Information pages."

For some reason, this has provoked another firestorm of protest. According to some members of
the BRC, the wording change was proposed in order to get away from the current requirement
that the state projects link specifically to the Archives [actually they require a link to the
"USGenWeb Project Archives," which we don't technically have] and not any of the other Special
Projects. [We also notice the proposed amendment drops mention of the WorldGenWeb Project,
which to all appearances seems to be moribund.] Some members object because they interpret the
proposed wording as requiring that each state project link to each and every subproject of the
Archives along with all the other Special Projects. Others object because its overly controlling and
a link back to the National home page or to a page maintained on the national site that links to all
the SPs should suffice. We don't see the basis of the first objection at all [it appears to be little
more than crying "wolf" about the Archives yet again and on the basis of very little evidence] but
we agree with the latter objection. The number, identity and locations of the Special Projects are
moving targets. Linking back to www.usgenweb.org should be sufficient for most of the specific
items required in the proposed amendment. Discussing it at this point will do no good however.
The BRC has already made its decision and discussion by project members after the fact is not
considered. If you don't like this amendment or any of the others they've come up with, you'll
have to have your say in the voting booth.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Keeping it real since 1998