From merope@Radix.Net Mon May 1 12:50:59 2000 Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 12:50:54 -0400 (EDT) From: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: DBS on hiatus Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Dear Readers, The DBS will be on indefinite hiatus. I will update you on events as I get the chance. Right now, Pam Reid has notified the Board that the Census Project has moved its files and the new url will be announced shortly. She is planning on purging their directories once they do so. Since they tell her that Holly's copyright concerns have been addressed [presumably her contributions are now credited], Pam recommends restoring the links to the CP on the National web page. Tim Stowell, ever productive, is consensus building and fence mending by sending snotty messages to the Census mail lists gloating about how they are still delinked. Ellen Pack has forwarded an ...ummm.. interesting proposal to the Board; it is forwarded in its entirely after this post. Other than that, its been the same old he said she said back and forth, and you probably don't want to be bored with it right now. You all take care; I will be back as soon as I can. -Teresa Lindquist Publisher, Daily Board Show From merope@Radix.Net Mon May 1 12:52:38 2000 Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 12:52:37 -0400 (EDT) From: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: FWI: Second Proposal re Special Projects Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Forwarded with permission. -Teresa ---- [USGENWEB-ALL-L] Second Proposal re Special Projects Sun, 30 Apr 2000 18:38:33 -0700 (PDT) Jim Powell Jr I am forwarding this to Board-L although I have been warned not to forward messages to that list. I will not be intimidated. I think Ellen's proposal has merit. At the very least maybe it will start some meaningful discussion. Jim ********** TO: Jim Powell and Teri Pettit, SE/MA County Coordinator Representatives Linda Mason, MS SC As my SE/MA representatives, I am submitting this note in hopes that either or both will consider forwarding it to the Board-L. I would ask that, if submitted, the note be posted in it's entirety. I am also requesting that Linda Mason, MS SC, forward a copy to the SC List. Thank you for your consideration. Ellen Pack Adams Co, MSGenWeb CC Wilkinson Co, MSGenWeb CC Early SW MS Territory, MSGenWeb CC Greene Co, TNGenWeb ACC ------------- To the USGW Advisory Board Members - Since the AB apparently chose not to consider or implement my earlier proposal regarding placing the question of the Archives before a committee, and ultimately the USGW Members, and which received wide favorable attention from the general membership (witness my mailbox), and since the situation has deteriorated further over the past few days, I beg your indulgence in allowing me to submit a second proposal. I'm am still optimistic (though confidence is waning) that there are enough good people out there who will refrain from spending hours and hours picking apart every word in an attempt to find an excuse as to why this or that can't be done. There are enough people who understand that they are not the only ones who can properly and effectively maintain the Archives, and who will sincerely TRY to do something right, and in the best interests of the project, so that this horrendous problem can be resolved once and for all. --------- Proposal II Please carefully read the entire proposal before forming an opinion. This proposal is not designed to end the Archives, but to salvage it, dust it off, and give it fresh life. Simply put, it is time for the Archives to be completely dismantled on a national level, and turned over to the individual states. One of the most potent arguments in favor of a breakup lies within the history of individual state projects, as opposed to the history of the Archives. There have been sporadic (and sometimes very serious) problems within several states. However, those problems were predominately restricted to the states in question. They were eventually resolved within the states themselves, and in accordance with USGW By-Laws. Residual problems are few, and confined. Today, the states reside side-by-side, sometimes disagreeing, but respectful of one another. The same thing can hardly be said of the Special Projects in this endless battle. The Special Projects must take a lesson from the States. I implore the AB to seriously consider drawing and placing before the membership an emergency amendment consisting of the following points: 1. Removal of the Special Projects, USGW Archives, Census Project, Census Archives Project, Tombstone Project, et al, whatever the name, as national entities 2. Formation of State Archives Projects [XXGenWeb State Archives Project] that would fall under the direct auspices, responsibility, and control of each appropriate state, as opposed to any national level person(s) or entity. Each State Archives Project would have the responsibility of recruiting it's own transcribers and material, and of uploading and maintaining all archived files pertinent to it's own state, and to none other. 3. Formation of one USGW General Archives Project to procure, transcribe, upload and maintain general non state-specific files ONLY. Those files would cover such things as general histories, migratory patterns and trails, territorial information, etc. Material relative to individual states would not be allowed to be placed in the General Archives, and must be referred to the appropriate state Archives. Whole scale maintenance of duplicate files should be deemed unnecessary and inappropriate. Duplication of files should only be considered in the instances of material covering major boundary changes, and the like. 4. Continuity and quality of files and uploads would be preserved via clearly defined policy and procedure specifications re uploading and copyright disclaimer/info, as outlined within the By-Laws amendment. [For the purposes of this note, consider the proposed USGW General Archives as simply another (though unnamed) state, unless otherwise specified.] 5. Each state would be granted the right to name it's State Archive Coordinator, and indeed the number of coordinators and/or State Archive File Managers as befits the individual needs and structure of that state. State Archive Coordinators would be named via either a state election or appointment by the SC, in accordance with individual state procedure. Each State Archive Coordinator would have responsibility and authority to recruit individual State File Managers on an as-needed basis. 6. In the case of the General USGW Archives, a General USGW Archives Coordinator would be appointed by the AB, for a limited term - suggest no more than one year. Thereafter, the General USGW Archives Coordinator would be elected by it's own File Managers for two-year terms. The General USGW Archives would come directly under the responsibility and control of the AB which, in turn, is answerable to the states and to the electorate. 7. All files would be uploaded to and maintained on one USGW Archives server 8. No person or persons, on any level, will be considered overall SP or Archives Coordinator, or overall coordinator of any fraction of the Archives including census records, cemetery records, etc. 9. No person or persons other than the appropriate SC, State Archives Coordinator and/or assigned State File Managers will upload, copy, alter, or remove any file. 10. Each state should have it's own password to the appropriate directory. Each SC would have access to it's State Archives password, or in the case of the USGW General Archives, the AB Secretary would be charged with retaining the password which would be passed on to the AB or NC only after a motion to do so has been legally entered and passed by the AB, and not at the discretion or demand of any one individual. The General Archives password, if used under an AB motion, will be changed, after the specific motion has been carried out, and once again retained by the Board Secretary. 11. No person or persons other than the appropriate SC, or the AB acting on a legally submitted and passed motion, will be authorized to fire a State Archives Coordinator, change a password, alter "write" privileges, directory structure, upload, delete, or alter any archived files. 12. An Archives server change would require a special proposition presented by the AB, voted upon and passed by the general membership in either a special or general election. 13. The AB would have the responsibility of maintaining a USGW Archives TOC as part of the National pages. Links should point to the USGW Index page, each state Archives TOC, the Archives Search pages, and to a GENERAL information page that, among other things, refers potential volunteers to the appropriate state. The USGW Archives TOC, and any collateral pages, must bear USGW official logo. 14. Each state would have the responsibility of maintaining it's individual State Archives TOC, with a link to the USGW Archives TOC, the Archives search page, and to the state index page. Layout and design of that page would be determined by the State Archive Coordinator, but each State Archives TOC must bear the USGW logo, and the state logo if individual state regulations so require. 15. Each state would have the responsibility of insuring that no Archives copyright violations occurred, just like they do now relative to the counties. Pre-existing copyright violation allegations should be addressed as soon as possible after acquisition of files currently residing in the Archives or Census project (although I believe most of those allegations would evaporate once the breakup occurred.) Copyright allegations/infringements should be dealt with swiftly, firmly, and appropriately on a case-to-case basis within each state responsible for the file(s) in question. 16. State participation in the State Archives Project would be mandatory, just as queries, and pertinent logo and links are mandatory, but would *not* preclude a state from continuing with or putting in place it's own state archives, if desired. I would also strongly urge the AB to submit a second emergency amendment to the effect that any national level action by the AB or the NC be allowed ONLY upon a legally presented and passed AB motion, and not by arbitrary decision by any one person, NC included. If a picture needs to be drawn, then draw it. ------------- I believe I have given the AB more than enough food for thought, as well as an outstanding foundation upon which an effective, fair, and permanent resolution can be constructed. The States and CCs have a proven track record, and can handle things quite nicely. Let them. Permission is hereby granted to forward this note to any USGW member, and to post to any USGW List. Respectfully, Ellen Pack Adams Co, MSGenWeb CC Wilkinson Co, MSGenWeb CC Early SW MS Territory, MSGenWeb CC Greene Co, TNGenWeb ACC ==== USGENWEB-ALL Mailing List ==== Remember the elections start July 1. From merope@Radix.Net Fri May 12 11:09:35 2000 Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 11:09:33 -0400 (EDT) From: merope To: USGW-CC-L@usgennet.org, Daily Board Show Subject: On a Roll Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Not content with delinking the census project, the Board is now entertaining a motion to delink the state of Ohio, basically because it is protesting the delinking of the CP. No evidence is provided in support of the statement that OHGW joined the protest contrary to the wishes of its members, and no violation of the bylaws is noted. As we've all been told many times [often by Board members] guidelines and bylaws are not laws but merely suggestions and can be flexible and interpreted differently based on the circumstances. [incidentally, if anyone wishes to join in the civil disobedience, the url mentioned in the motion will remain live indefinitely.] -Teresa merope@radix.net === Full text of motion to "accept the resignation" of the OHGenWeb, made by Tina Vickery: "The USGenWeb Logo on the OHGenWeb Main State Page http://www.scioto.org/OHGenWeb/ has a link to http://www.radix.net/~merope/usgwcd.htm. On this page is a blackened USGenWeb Logo and the title "A SIMPLE ACT OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE". This is a protest page that says "...all links to the USGenWeb Project have been removed from this site. ..." This is a blatant violation of the standards for state web sites as outlined at http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/statepage.html. The following links are required for all state pages: counties within the state The USGenWeb Project -http://www.usgenweb.org or http://www.usgenweb.net, and the USGenWeb Archives Project - http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb. An optional link to the archives search option might also be included http://searches.rootsweb.com/usgwarch.html. A link to The USGenWeb Project's Guidelines/Standards for county web sites, including a link the Official Project Name/Logo page. The USGenWeb Project Copyright Information page, WorldGenWeb Project - http://www.worldgegenweb.org/which dates back to the earliest days of the project and predate the bylaws. These actions are interpreted as constituting a resignation. I, therefore, move that we accept the resignation of OHGenWeb from the USGenWeb Project. This motion is made with the utmost respect for the OHGW County coordinators, and in no way is meant to jeopardize their good standing within the USGenWeb Project. This action was taken by the SC contrary to the expressed wishes of the county coordinators." From merope@Radix.Net Fri May 12 11:38:22 2000 Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 11:38:20 -0400 (EDT) From: merope To: Daily Board Show , USGW-CC-L@usgennet.org Subject: Class action grievance Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: I have forwarded the attached to each board member in order to attach my name to the grievance originally filed by Nate Zipfel on 6 May 2000. You are all welcome to do the same and to forward my message to any state or other project list you may feel is appropriate so that all interested parties may have the opportunity to join with the grievance. [Incidentally, the Board is now apparently discussing delinking two state projects, OHGW and NEGW, for their protest of the actions against the CP.] -Teresa merope@radix.net ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 11:33:59 -0400 (EDT) From: merope To: Tim Stowell , jzsed@slic.com, pamreid@home.com, hollyft@bright.net, gingerh@shawneelink.com, richpump@wf.net, jfisher@ucla.edu, Ginger Cisewski , maggieohio@columbus.rr.com, shari@klondyke.net, jpowelljr@gru.net, pettit@adobe.com, betsym@1starnet.com, gbmayfiled@tyler.net, rootslady@email.msn.com Subject: Formal Grievance [The following grievance is adapted from that filed by Nate Zipfel on 6 May 2000; I wish to join my name to his in this grievance. My representatives are respectfully requested to forward this to Board-L.] I wish to file a formal Grievance against the USGenWeb Project National Coordinator for violation of the USGenWeb Project Bylaws, specifically Article VIII, Section 3 and Article VI Section 2. I further wish to file a formal grievance against the USGenWeb Project Advisory Board members who supported the actions of the National Coordinator, specifically for violation of Article VIII, Section 3 and Article VI Section 3. The specific issues in regard to the National Coordinator are: 1 - He willfully de-linked a recognized Special Project which was outside is authority to do. 2 - He purposefully called for votes on very important issues without calling for a 48 hour notice for members of the USGenWeb Project to provide comment. The specific issues in regard to the Advisory Board members who supported the National Coordinator that they endorsed willful violations of the By-laws by: 1 - Endorsing the National Coordinators violation of the By-laws 2 - Violating the USGenWeb By-laws Being that this grievance is being filed against board members and the National Coordinator I request that neutral parties be appointed to address this grievance. sincerely, -Teresa Lindquist, CC for Johnson, Anderson, and Shawnee counties, KSGenWeb Publisher, Daily Board Show merope@radix.net From merope@Radix.Net Sat May 13 12:10:54 2000 Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 12:10:53 -0400 (EDT) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, part 1 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Back in black...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content and righteous indignation. Read at your own risk! [Folks, lots has happened since I've been been away. The following is a recap that should bring us up to date. It will come in more than one part and regular transmission should resume tomorrow.] 30 April 2000: When we last left the Board they were dickering about copyright issues, mainly concerning Holly Fee Timm's complaint that the Census Project was using her coding and design for its web pages without her permission. [Holly has a lot of residual bitterness behind this issue and pouts about it every chance she gets, but has apparently never bothered to file any sort of formal complaint with the Board.] Ginger Hayes pointed out that several members of the USGW Project have filed formal complaints about the Archives violating their copyright and asked why the Board has not addressed those, and notes that to failure to do so constitutes a double standard. She says "It seems to be ok if some violate that copyright because we "like" them and we "didn't like" the other folks. ...Do we only hand out justice to those we "like", or are all the members of this Project going to be treated equally?" [Holly claims that no one from the CP has ever attempted to address the issue with her, but a copy of a Jan 1999 email to her [and others] from Kay Mason calling a meeting _expressly_ for the purpose of discussing the web pages has come into this author's possession. According to the source, Holly neither acknowldeged the mail nor attended the meeting.] Also on this date, the Board was shocked, _shocked_ to find out that Ron Eason has [and has had for 18 months] write access to a portion of the USGW national website [the portion that holds the CP files]. Tim Stowell cut off the access without notifying the CP, who discovered his actions when they found they could no longer access their pages for editing. They also discovered at this time that some of their pages had been altered to make it appear that the pages belonged to the Archives Census Project, but without access they could not fix them. Jim Powell forwarded Ellen Pack's proposal for a committee approach to the Census Project problem to the Board [already posted here]. 1 May 2000--2 May 2000: Pam Reid reports to the Board that Ron Eason has notified her that all the CP files will be moved as of May 2 and that Holly has been credited on the web pages. She says that she will restored the links to the CP from the National page and delete all the census files and the directory from the USGW directory. Pam also moves to: "Commit the question of resolving the issues regarding the USGenWeb Census Project and USGenWeb Archives Census Project to a Committee as follows; 1) The committee shall consist of twelve USGW members selected by ballot from open nominations of candidates by each Advisory Board member in turn until sufficient candidates have been elected. A plurality of the Advisory Board shall elect. 2) The Advisory Board shall elect a Committee Chairperson by ballot from the Committee membership. A plurality shall elect. 3) The committee is authorized to obtain any information deemed necessary for their deliberations and is authorized to solicit consultation from non-USGW members insofar as related to the task. 4) The committee deliberations shall adhere to accepted parliamentary procedures for committees and USGW bylaws. Nine members shall constitute a quorum for the conduct of committee business. A 2/3 majority of members voting on main motions is required for approval. 5) The committee report shall take the form of a Resolution for consideration by the USGW Advisory Board to include but not limited to; a) Recommended actions necessary to facilitate a merger of the census projects, b) Recommended actions necessary to restore the links to the USGenWeb Census Project, c) Any additional actions germane to the issue(s) in question. 6) Supplemental instructions may be given to the committee in accordance with accepted parliamentary procedures. 7) The Committee should report on their progress to the Board on a regular basis, through the committee chairman. The Board will make itself available to answer any questions that may arise during Committee sessions." [This motion is almost immediately withdrawn following the Census Project's announcement that it incorporated.] Holly Fee Timm formally revokes permission for the CP to use her pages, noting "I can NOT in anyway condone or give any implication of condoning a for profit incorporation of the Census Project nor stomach the use of my hard work within that setting. ... The design of the tables and the concept and basic design of the buttons used are mine and they are being used without my permission and that are to be removed immediately." Joy Fisher moves "that the USGenWeb Project sever its relationship with the USGenWeb Census Project, Inc. headed by Ron Eason. This Census Project has incorporated as a FOR PROFIT corporation using the reserved term USGenWeb" without the Advisory Board's knowledge or approval. I further move that USGenWeb post a notice on all pages stating that USGenWeb Project, Inc headed by Ron Eason is in no way connected with the USGenWeb Project. I further move that the USGenWeb Project attempt to notify each and every submitter of the fact that the USGenWeb Census Project, Inc headed by Ron Eason is no longer associated with the USGenWeb Project." The motion is seconded by Holly Fee Timm, and given number 00-10. Ginger Hayes calls the question; this is seconded by Shari Handley. The motion to call the question passes, with 10 yes votes, 2 no votes, and 3 not voting [Tim's published count is incorrect], and Tim asks the Board to vote on Motion 00-10. That motion also passes, with 10 yes votes, 2 no votes, and 3 not voting. During the course of the vote on Motion 00-10, Teri Pettit asked Joy Fisher to clarify the scope and meaning of the motion before she voted on it. Teri noted that "Since the only for-profit "USGenWeb Census Project, Inc." corporation headed by Ron Eason is not associated in any way with the USGenWeb Census Project non-profit volunteer organization headed by Ron Eason with web pages now located at http://www.us-census.org/, I am wondering if Motion 0-10 refers only to the for-profit corporation "USGenWeb Census Project, Inc", as the motion literally states, or whether a vote for Motion 00-10 might also be interpreted as referring to the web pages located at http://www.us-census.org/, and to the group of transcribers, file managers and other volunteers who affiliate themselves with the non-profit unincorporated USGenWeb Census Project headed by Ron Eason?" GingerC also notes that "The USGenWeb Project has never had a relationship with an entity known as "USGenWeb Census Project, Inc." We have only a "USGenWeb Census Project" which is now housed on the USGenNet server at: http://www.us-census.org/ and clearly states on the main page that it is NOT affiliated with "The USGenWeb Census Project, Inc.," and requests that the inaccurate motion be withdrawn. Joy Fisher responds that "The group presently calling itself The USGenWeb Census Project headed by Ron Eason is engaging in a shell game by re-inventing itself after I made the motion 00-10....My motion is intended to sever the relationship with the Census Project (whatever it is called), presently headed by Ron Eason (or whoever he designated to be the front man of the day) that is presently located at http://www. us-census.org and/or http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgwcens/ or wherever they choose to move it between now and the close of voting." She also notes "The fact remains, Mr. Eason has unilaterally decided to incorporate using the term *USGenWeb* without Board authorization and this is the sole reason for the motion. No amount of back tracking can change that." [After receiving the "clarification", Teri voted "no" on the motion.] [According to Ron Eason, National Coordinator for the USGenWeb Census Project, the incorporation of the CP as a for-profit corporation was simply a mistake, due mostly to his failure to completely read the forms sent to him. The corporation was dissolved immediately upon the realization of the error and the CP is currently in the process of incorporating as a not-for profit organization. Ron has publicly stated that neither he nor anyone else in the CP _ever_ intended to derive any sort of personal benefit from the work of the CP transcribers. Was he believed? Of course not. He essentially handed the Board the means to get rid of the "census problem" once and for all on a silver platter and they were not about to let that opportunity get away. They acted on it, in fact, with most unseemly haste, not even bothering to give the project members the required 48 hour comment period. Linda "Screaming Harpy" Lewis noted that the Board severed ties with the CP incorporation "Almost as fast as the board two years ago voted to sever all links and relationships with USGenWeb, Inc., the for-profit Idaho corporation formed in 1997, which also claimed it was faster to incorporate as a for-profit... yada yada yada." Of course, as we all know by now, the first online genealogy business to claim it was "easier and cheaper" to register as a for-profit business was Root$web, but hypocrisy is a way of life in USGW, andis just one more aspect of the "Alice in Wonderland" experience one gets in this project.] 3 May 2000: Pam Reid forwards a message from John Schunk regarding his decision to no longer supply S-K Publications materials to CP transcribers. He says he will not publicly explain why his decision was prompted by the CP's move to USGenNet, but he does note that "my decision was *NOT* because of a fear that Ron Eason (or anyone else who has been associated the Census Project) might profit financially in any way from it." 4 May 2000: Tim announces the result of the vote on Motion 00-10, and Pam Reid asks "what does this really mean? Since Ron dissolved the corporation, it really is a non-issue. Of course, he still has the Project housed on USGenNet (as far I know - seems everything about this issue changes from moment to moment) and that was a problem for some." [But hardly a serious offense.] [Yes, the Board voted to delink the Census Project, a valued part of the USGenWeb Project for three years, without honoring the 48 hour rule in the bylaws, and without giving the membership time to comment. Just more evidence of their deep respect for our bylaws, no doubt. As someone noted elsewhere, if they don't consider severing an entire Special Project and all its members important enough to get input from their constituents during the required 48 hour period, what do they consider important enough? Some have noted that they voted to waive the discussion period, but that is not correct. They waived their own 48 hour discussion period; the bylaws give no provision for the waiver of the project-wide 48 discussion period and I for one most certainly do not give them the right to waive that on my behalf.] To be continued... -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Sat May 13 20:45:36 2000 Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 20:45:35 -0400 (EDT) From: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Correction Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: A reader has written to correct a statement made in today's DBS: --- " On Saturday, May 13, 2000, merope@Radix.Net wrote: > [Yes, the Board voted to delink the Census Project, a valued part of the > USGenWeb Project for three years, without honoring the 48 hour rule in the > bylaws, and without giving the membership time to comment. I'm confused by this statement ... they have never voted to delink the census project, in my tally. They: (a) voted to sever a relationship that never existed (with "USGenWeb Census Project, Inc.") [00-10]; (b) failed to ratify the delinking of the Census Project [00-09]; (c) failed to override the delinking of the Census Project [00-08]. In other words, in more than two months time they have done absolutely nothing!" --- Our reader is absolutely correct, and we apologize for the error. -Teresa merope@radix.net From merope@Radix.Net Sat May 13 22:01:13 2000 Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 22:01:11 -0400 (EDT) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, part 2 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: [continued...] 5 May 2000: A letter from CART programm Phil Beshear is forwarded to the Board, in which he states that CART is reserved solely for the use of the USGEnWeb Census Project, and explicitly states that members of the Archives Census Project are not allowed to use it or to post pages derived from it. Tim Stowell posts the "Cease and Desist" notice he sent to Ron Eason in which he states: "Pursuant to action taken by the USGenWeb Advisory Board and to the passage of Motion 00-10, the USGenWeb Census Project, Inc. and the USGenWeb Census Project headed by Mr. Ronald Eason and housed at http://www.us-census.org/ has hereby been severed from the USGenWeb Project. Since us-census.org was a part of the Inc., the Motion includes the .org even though the Inc is no longer in existance. Continued use of the term "USGenWeb" and/or use of any USGenWeb logos is now in violation of the USGenWeb Project's trademark/servicemark. We therefore ask that you cease and desist displaying the USGenWeb Project (or any of it's commonly known doing business as names such as USGW, GenWeb, etc.) name, logos,and URLs on your pages and text files on your pages at USGenNet and Rootsweb. We further request that you cease and desist making solicitations in the name of the USGenWeb Project." 6 May 2000: Ginger Hayes fowards a formal grievance from project Nate Zipfel, which reads in part: "I wish to file a formal Grievance against the USGenWeb Project National Coordinator for violation of the USGenWeb Project Bylaws, specifically Article VIII, Section 3 and Article VI Section 2. I further wish to file a formal grievance against the USGenWeb Project Advisory Board members who supported the actions of the National Coordinator, specifically for violation of Article VIII, Section 3 and Article VI Section 3. The specific issues in regard to the National Coordinator are: 1 - He willfully de-linked a recognized Special Project which was outside his authority to do. 2 - He purposefully called for votes on very important issues without calling for a 48 hour notice for members of the USGenWeb Project to provide comment. The specific issues in regard to the Advisory Board members who supported the National Coordinator that they endorsed willful violations of the By-laws by: 1 - Endorsing the National Coordinators violation of the By-laws 2 - Violating the USGenWeb By-laws. Being that this grievance is being filed against board members and the National Coordinator I request that neutral parties be appointed to address this grievance." In an additioinal note, Nate states "I further wish to state that Motion #00-04 did not have standing from the by-laws to be a legal vote. Article III, Section 3 states: "The staff members of The USGenWeb Archives Project, The USGenWeb Census Project, and The USGenWeb Tombstone Project shall each elect one Special Project Representative to serve as a voting member of The USGenWeb Project Advisory Board." The Advisory Board and the National Coordinator has refused to allow the elected representative from the USGenWeb Census Project to participate on the Advisory Board as the duly elected representative." 7 May 2000: GingerH notes that several grievances have been filed by members of the USGW Project and have not been addressed. She says "Since most, if not all, of those grievances are against the National Coordinator and/or members of The USGenWeb Project Advisory Board, it would clearly constitude [sic] a conflict of interest for the Adviory Board to address these grievances." She then moves: "that the USGW Advisory Board establish a Grievance Committee to be comprised of volunteers from within the USGW Project as follows: 1 State Coordinator from each Region, to be chosen by the state coordinators in the respective region. 2 County Coordinators from each Region, to be chosen by the State Coordinators in each Region. Each SC in a region will submit one name from their state project for consideration. The following board members to serve on the committee as non-voting members to answer questions from the committee: Joy Fisher, Jim Powell, Richard Howland, Virginia "Ginger" Cisweski. The committee will elect a chair from among their members, excluding members of the AB. The committee may meet in any manner it chooses, although an unarchived mailing list is strongly recommended. The committee may call on anyone it deems approriate for the purpose of interviewing and fact finding. Members of the committee, including members of the Advisory board, are bound, both by honor and instruction, to keep all proceedings of the committee confidential, this includes the names, or other identifying information, of any and all persons the committee may interview. The committee will have have 30 days to conduct their investigation and report back to the Advisory Board with their findings and recommendations. Such findings and recommendations shall be published on Board-L, the State Coordinator list for distibution to the State Project lists, USGENWEB-ALL-L, and any other USGW lists the committee deems appropriate. The committee may find in the following manner: Dismiss - no basis; Not guilty; Guilty - find to censure; Guilty - find to expel. In the case of a finding of Guilty-find to expel the question will be brought to the entire membership for vote." Ginger Cisewski agrees with GingerH's proposal but suggests that "the SCs and CCs chosen should have no current or previous affiliation with any of the Special Projects. This will eliminate charges of "stacking the committee" by this group or that." She also suggests "that the CCs should be chosen by their fellow CCs within each state, and that name put forth for consideration. I know of at least several instances where a CC might not be chosen by their SC because of bias or personality issues, yet is a member in good standing within the USGenWeb Project and is well respected by the CCs in their state." 10 May 2000: Tim Stowell declares GingerH's motion dead for lack of a second. He notes further that the motion itself was out of order because "1. The Bylaws state that grievances are to be handled by the Board 2. the NC is to be an ex officio member of all subcommittees." Jim Powell moves "that our NC provide a FAIR forum to hear the grievance(s) against himself and Board Members." This motion is seconded by GingerC. Pam Reid posts her thoughts on copyright issues as regards the census files. She says "Public records are not subject to copyright protection. (from the U.S. Copyright Office web site under the heading of what is not copyright protected: "Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship" The Census Records put online by The Census Project certainly are NOT works containing ANY original authorship. It would most certainly be an interesting case if something like a suit were brought. As far as copyright goes, I really don't think you have a leg to stand on. I believe that making a legal issue out of this would be interesting (not to mention ridiculous) and I don't believe that The Census Project has a leg to stand on. And, again, I don't believe this is an issue of copyright violation since these records weren't copyright protected to begin with. You can put the "copyright xxxx" on anything you want to put it on, but that doesn't mean that it is automatically given protection, under the law. Even with printed materials that are gleaned from public records, the only thing that MIGHT possibly be copyright protected would be the formatting. In the case of The Tombstone Project, almost every survey that we receive has to be reformatted in some way, but we still maintain that the submitter owns the copyright, when in reality, the records are not copyright protected in the first place.legal recourse is not an option, IMO and from what I understand of copyright law. Actually, I made a point of educating myself pretty thoroughly on this topic when I first started The Tombstone Project. Our decision to NOT use materials from a genealogical or historical society publication without permission was actually one of ETHICS and GOODWILL as opposed to one of COPYRIGHT." [Right decent of her. I wonder if the Archives shares her philospohy on who can and does hold the copyright to the transcribed files in the Archives that have apparently not yet been removed as requested by their transcribers. Or the files that have been altered without the knowledge or permission of the submitters. Or the files that were reposted under a different name after the original submitter asked them to be removed. It is also refreshing to see someone who works for the Archives use the words "ethics" and "goodwill", apparently without irony, in the same sentence.] 11 May 2000: Tim gives Jim's motion number 00-11 and opens the floor for discussion. Pam Reid asks if there's been any grievances files other than Nate's. She admits to not thoroughly reading her mail, so she may have missed them. Joy Fisher asks what the forum proposed in Motion 00-11 would have the power to do, as it is not spelled out in the motion. She also notes, "I am sure Nathan has already received a fair hearing from the DBS." [Well, actually, yes, he has and he will. But oddly enough, he deserves one from his elected representatives too.] 12 May 2000: Tina Vickery notes to the Board that the OHGenWeb page is no longer in compliance with the guidelines postes on the USgW national page for state pages. OHGW is participating in the civil disobedience by flying the "USGW in mourning" logo and linking to the Civil Disobedience page at: http://www.radix.net/~merope/usgwcd.htm. She notes, without providing any evidence, that the SC of the OHGW participated in the protest "contrary to the expressed wishes of the county coordinators." [Another OH CC notes that only 5 of some 88 OHGW CCs expressed a negative opinion of the protest.] Tina states "These actions are interpreted as constituting a resignation. I, therefore, move that we accept the resignation of OHGenWeb from the USGenWeb Project." [Also of interest, although Tina never bothers to mention it, is that neither she nor any else on the Baord bothered to contact the OHGW SC to ask that the page be brought into compliance, nor was the two week period observed. Her motion is also phrased in such as way that the _entire_ OHGW would be delinked, thus avoiding the necessity of 2/3 of the Board and 2/3 of the OH CCs voting to fire the SC. We know that Maggie Stewart Zimmerman has been trying to get rid of her SC ever since he moved the OHGW off of RW; what a novel way to try to accomplish her goals.] Tina withdraws her motion when the OHGW repairs the violations of the state guidelines on its web page. [A brief and unofficial survey is being undertaken of USGW state pages; thus far none, including Tim Stowell's GAGW page, is in full compliance with the guidelines.] Barbara Dore posts a timeline for the incorporation of the USGenWeb Census Project, which reads in part: "Mar 15, 2000 - A massive download of BOTH USGenWeb Census Project files and USGenWeb ARCHIVES CENSUS PROJECT files from BOTH project's directories, was discovered in progress by RW staff and the session was killed and is logged. Mar 17th, 2000 File (original) date for most of the ftp directories for storing Census Project files on USGENNET.ORG ftp://ftp.us-census.org/pub/usgenweb/census/ (also see below) Mar 26, 2000 - Ron Eason registered us-census.net & us-census.org domains April 3, 2000 - Ron Eason filled and signed a form for incorporating the above project as a "DOMESTIC PROFIT CORPORATION". April 3, 2000 - Name of corporation: USGENWEB CENSUS PROJECT, Inc. April 3, 2000 - File #40950A April 3, 2000 - Stated that the initial number of common stock is - 500 shares April 4, 2000 - Ron Eason paid $60.00 for filing fees for the above April 6, 2000 - The above Census Project was DELINKED by Tim Sowell, National Coordinator of USGWP April 19, 2000 - Official filing date due to "waiting period" in the state of Michigan May 1, 2000 - The Census project announced that they had moved to the USGENNET.org server and proclaimed on their pages that they were a corporation. May 1, 2000 - The State of Michigan was contacted and confirmed the above incorporation status of the for-profit USGENWEB CENSUS PROJECT, INC. May 1, 2000 - News of the above incorporation hit cyberspace. May 1, 2000 - Motion 00-10 to sever its relationship with the USGenWeb Census Project, Inc. headed by Ron Eason was made. May 3, 2000 Mr. Fred Smoot, of USGENNET, Inc., reports that .Mr. Eason has dissolved the above domestic for-profit corporation. May 6, 2000 - Carole Hammett, secretary of USGENNET posts a statement on USGW-CC-L, that Ron Eason claims the State of Michigan had mailed him the for-profit corporation forms instead of the nonprofit forms. She also states because he did not have expertise in this field, and because the form didn't include the phrases for-profit or commercial (Note: it plainly says: DOMESTIC PROFIT CORPORATION in bold), Ron had no idea that he had completed the wrong form, and was terribly upset. [Barbara seems to be trying to make the point here that Ron's incorporation and registering the CP domains could not have been caused by Tim's delinking because they preceeded the delinking, and she is absolutely correct. Ron began proceedings to incorporate the CP and register its domains in response to Motion 00-6 which, if you recall, included a provision for delinking the CP and/or the ACP if either appeared to acting in bad faith during the Board's attempt to force a merger. It had nothing to do with the delinking, but the delinking surely reinforced the need for protection from the rapacious predations of a vindictive and power hungry tin dictator and his herd of lap dogs.] Tim calls for a vote on Motion 00-11. 13 May 2000: Joy Fisher again asks "Could someone define a "fair" forum?" She notes there is nothing in the bylaws regaring this and says the Board should be careful of setting precedent. She notes that to her "a "fair" forum would be held in person, with all CCs present. 12 (or a similar representative number) of CC names are drawn from a hat -- regardless of their affiliations within the organization. These 12 then could ask questions of the Board, the NC, and all the folks in the census projects." She seems to believe the forum should be held face to face rather than by email, unless it is just for talk and posturing;" in that case, email would be acceptable. Thus far, two Board members have voted "yes" on Motion 00-11. Pam Reid forwards a message from Sue Soden, of the Census Project, and notes she will answer her questions tomorrow. Sue makes several points in her message, which is a rebuttal to several of Pam's messages on Board-L and in other forums: "1) Kay Mason never refused to format the files in the set standardsPlease remember, I was the one who formatted most of the files when Kay was in charge. 2) Kay Mason started the second ftp directory because Linda and the Archives would not allow the Census Project to upload to their own password protected directory. Linda did not want the CP to have their own file managers like the Tombstone Project either. She wanted the databases to be sent to the Archives FM's instead of Kay and I training new file managers for the CP. The Archives FM's did not want their passwords handed out to another group of file managers 3) I personally offered to Linda and Brian (on the phone at different times) to move the CP pages to a different account/server on Rootsweb. Both Brian and Linda said it was not necessary. They also did not tell me that the Census Project accounts were vulnerable to other account holder's changes. I was not told that Tim could do what he did. Without our knowledge, Tim locked us out of the account that has been the Census Project's web pages for years. 4) It was not the Census Project who refused to participate in the last negotiations. The Census Project was very open to working with the Archives to find a peaceful solution. It was the Archives Census Project who would not participate. I was told they were shy and did not want to speak on a publicly archived mail list. Why? Weren't they able to speak their true thoughts in the open? Why the closed door conferences? Why shouldn't the entire USGW have access to the negotiations? 5) The national coordinator did not follow the bylaws when he unlinked the Census Project. The board should have had a discussion and formal vote first. 5) The CP pages were moved to a different server because the national coordinator had tampered with our RootsWeb account and we were locked out of our account. We could not update the Census Project web pages. 6) The incorporation was to be non-profit. Filing with the state was necessary before federal non-profit status could be accomplished. If time had allowed, it would have been completed as non-profit. Non-Profit status for the Census Project was desired to protect the copyrights of the transcriber's files. The server the Census Project is on now, is totally non-profit, so exactly why should anyone have concerns about what our motive are?" Sue also asks Pam, "isn't it deceptive to tell transcribers that their work is copyrighted and then turn around and tell them that it never was eligible for copyright in the first place? If the transcription work isn't eligible for copyright by the transcribers, and the USGW isn't a non-profit inc., just who does this published work belong to? By the way, if the USGW isn't incorporated, it has no identity and cannot own material. Just what is the USGW doing? Can you explain?" === That, folks, brings us up to date. I'm sure more exciting developments await us in Board-land. Until next time! This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ----- Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Sun May 14 16:56:27 2000 Date: Sun, 14 May 2000 16:56:26 -0400 (EDT) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Go ahead, make my day...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Sunday 14 May 2000: Voting continues on Motion 00-11, "that our NC provide a FAIR forum to hear the grievance(s) against himself and Board Members." Thus far, 3 members have voted "yes" and one has voted "no." In the process of voting "no", Joy Fisher notes that she feels "as though I have been handed a blank check and asked to sign it and am being told "Don't worry about the details, we'll fill them in later." In response, Jim notes "it would be better than just sweeping it under the rug. Is there another way? Or are we going to just refuse to deal with it? Should everyone that disagrees with the way things were done just go away?..We can not judge ourselves, so the bylaws don't apply in this situation. If Tim and the Majority of the Board really feel that they have done nothing wrong, let Tim appoint some volunteers to look at the situation and make a determination...If Tim makes an attempt to appoint a fair committee to look at each point in the grievance, I would live by their determination, how about you?" === Thieves' Honor Corner: Turns out that even though CART programmer Phil Beshear has explicitly denied permission to use the software or any pages derived from to members of the Archives Census Project, the ACP is still handing the software out to its transcribers, _and_ presenting it as designed by and for the ACP. See: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/usgwcart/index.html. This page contains the statement that "CART was designed and developed by the USGenWeb Archives Census Project to assist its volunteers in transcribing the census," and Phil Beshear's name is nowhere mentioned on the page. We understand that the owner of Root$web has been contacted in regards to this "oversight." Slight Misrepresentation Corner: We also hear that at least one file manager for the Archives Census Project is contacting transcription and proofreading volunteers for the CP and representing himself as coordinator for the Census Project. Kevin Fraley, who coordinates the Oregon portion of the ACP has recently sent out a letter to transcribers and proof-readers insisting that they join some mailing list or other, and signs himself "Kevin Fraley Oregon State Coordinator USGenweb Census Project." Ignorance Is No Defense Corner: Finally, our somewhat-less-than-glorious leader, Tim Stowell, has invoked a "the format is ours" defense in response to numerous complaints about Census Project transcriptions that were altered to appear as though they were submitted to the the ACP [the list of 95 or so files given here a few weeks ago.] Tim, on April 26, wrote to the complainants, "When one submits material to be added to webpages - the material must have extra wrapping (HTML code) to surround it so that folks can see the material online. As I understand it, the ACP standard just means that your files met their standards. Your copyright only extends to the data, which has not been changed. The 'wrapper' belongs to our archives..." [All well and good, but Tim seems unaware that 1) the files in question are text files and have no HTML coding; and 2) the files were not submitted to the ACP and the ACP has no business wrapping its code or attaching its "standards" statement to them. Bottom line, of course, is the files are still there, still incorrect, still in violation of both the submitter's wishes and the letter and spirit of the project guidelines, and still being defended by our integrity-challenged NC.] All in all, a stunning display of moral, ethics, and dare I say it, goodwill, from the Archives, its staff, and supporters. === "Tell the truth and the world will come to see it at last." ---Ralph Emerson This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ----- Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.