Monday, November 29, 2004
When First We Practice To Deceive
When there is nothing better to do...Its Your Daily Board Show!

ABANDON SHIP: Although the Board is still in recess, that doesn't mean that interesting
Board-things aren't happening. For example, over on the DISCUSS list today, David Morgan
announced the following:

"I have removed myself from the two confidential lists of the AB, and will be doing AB business
on BOARD-L only. At least on what I am allowed to post there. My test message has not gone
through so I can only assume that I am being monitored on that list. I will be glad to try to answer
any questions you may have in private mail."

Speculation on his reasons for unsubbing are running rampant but my guess is that he's been
fighting with the Board over the ungodly long time it is taking them to handle Richard's trial [its
been 5 months since they threw him out of Georgia], and the Special Projects bylaws amendment
that Betsy is desperate to get taken care of before the next election. That discussion apparently
died an undignified death on ARGEN-L after David and Betsy tiffed on it, but I doubt that lack of
enthusiasm in the state will prevent Betsy from putting it forward anyways. Shari probably
decided to moderate him and he probably decided to hell with it. In any case, we have asked him
for a statement; we'll see what [if anything] he says.

WALKING IN THE SPIDER WEBS: An loyal reader has alerted me to the interesting fact that
Jana Black's email address is WebsWeWeave.net. Aside from the utter perfection of that
particular address [right up there with her growing nuts], it turns out that this is Jana's personal
business [no, she does not advertise it on her USGW county site, at least not on the *splash
page*]. She apparently fancies herself a web designer of some sort. But all this gives me an idea...

THE CASE AGAINST JANA: Since the Board has recently engaged in a trial of a USGenWeb
volunteer in which the failure to dot i's and cross t's was considered compelling evidence of evil,
we here in the newsbunker think it might be interesting to see how well Jana might fare should the
Board's lidless eye ever wander over her way. For one thing, Jana considers it the crowning
accomplishment of her Board tenure that she laid the groundwork for the plot that eventually
resulted in Tim's ouster. For another thing, the Board is currently trying one of Tim's ASCs for
things that really, an SC should be responsible for, and Jana is now an ASC in CAGenWeb. So
logically, she not only can be held responsible for any of Richard's shortcomings, she should be
held responsible for them. Lets take a look, shall we?

First off, Jana's address as listed on the CA state page is not the same as the address she has listed
on her web site. Is this evidence that she does not exist and is a phantom CC? Clearly the state
pages are not being updated in a timely fashion and I am sure a guideline is being violated
somewhere. Jana's name is still not listed on the state page as Assistant State Coordinator
although she was elected in the summer [even by the most liberal definition of summer that's over
two months ago]. What are they trying to hide from the CCs? Jana also claims that there are new
guidelines that have not yet been posted but which are still in effect and she's still advertising
herself on her website as being a CC representative on the Advisory Board, a position she has not
held for over a year. Do you suppose other CCs are allowed to go for so long without updating
such obviously incorrect information? Also, there is at least one bad link on her page.

A few days ago, Jana told a new CC that:

"you need to introduce your self as a member of the USGW Project in your personal
paragraph...you can write the sentence any way you prefer, but it must include affiliation with
USGenWeb."

A visit to the several CAGenWeb county home pages reveals several that do not do this, including
Trinity, Del Norte, Lake, Napa, Tehama, Sonoma, San Benito, Glenn, Kern, Kings, etc. [I'm lazy,
I didn't check them all. My bad.] Uh oh, evidence of selective enforcement of the Guidelines [the
ones in Jana's head, not the ones published here.]

Jana also accused this new volunteer CC of infiltrating CAGenWeb in order to create a "shell"
page for another genealogy project. Her proof of this appears to be little more than the fact that
the person's pages are linked to from another project and she in turn links back. In any case, along
with the above and an order to remove the Ancestry affiliate links from their pages, here are the
things that Jana insisted this person do in order to continue to enjoy the "privilege" of
volunteering their time with CAGenWeb:

"...the search engine linked to California genealogy has to go. Feel free to use a site search engine,
but the search engine *must* be internal to the site...If you are going to link to other CA counties
the links need to go to county sites *within* the USGW Project...WE encourage you to add links
to the counties that surround Modoc...Just as the new CAGEN site will no longer link to Access
Genealogy from the splash page, neither may your pages have that link from the splash page."

Except for the "no affiliate links", these rules seem to have appeared out of thin air. None of them
are based on either the published CAGenWeb Guidelines or the USGenWeb bylaws or guidelines.
You don't suppose Jana was creating impossible to follow rules for this person just because she
thought they were a member of another project, do you? Or that she was intending to either drive
them off or manufacture enough evidence against them to fire them? Why that would be Just Like
Tim targeting Archives people, wouldn't it?

All of which brings us to San Francisco [and I swear that I did not know whose county this is
until well after I had started looking into it]. Talk about a shell page! The front page of San
Francisco is quite barren. Nope, there is no "CC Introduction" at all, not to mention one that
"includes affiliation with USGenWeb." It includes a non-standard and apparently not official state
logo that incorrectly refers to the state project name; there is no sign of the official logo. There is
no update information other than a copyright of 2004. The page has few links. One goes to
"Queries". This is the only page that has a USGenWeb logo on it. It includes a prominent notice
that the site is no longer accepting queries. Visitors are instead directed to Ancestry, GenForum
and something called "CousinConnect" which I could not get to load. This is also the only link
that goes to what might be called the "county page" [its on the same site as the splash page,
cagenweb.com] The "Lookups" link, on the other hand, goes to something called "San Francisco
Genealogy" on the sfgenealogyy.com domain. It has no logos and no reference to USGenWeb or
CAGenWeb at all. All references to a project are to "San Francisco Genealogy". Same with the
"History" link: no USGenWeb logo, no CAGenWeb logo [official or not], no mention of either
project, and housed on sfgenealogy.com. Oh, and what's this? A search engine that searches
material external to the site. My. Clearly this is a shell page, erected solely to direct data from
USGenWeb to another project. San Francisco is Marin's neighbor to the south and Jana links
directly to the San Francisco Genealogy site, which one could consider outside of both
USGenWeb and CAGenWeb as it contains no logos, no mentions of the projects, no links to the
projects, and no mention of the managers of this page being members of, CCs for, or participants
in either USGenWeb or CAGenWeb. If you came across it via, oh say a search engine, you'd have
no idea it was affiliated in any way with USGenWeb or CAGenWeb.

The point in all this is not to dis Pammy's page; its a nice page and a credit to whatever project its
part of. But its pretty clear that some people in CAGenWeb aren't being given the leeway that
some others are, and its pretty clear why that is. And I do recall that this sort of thing was exactly
what got Jana's back up over Tim. Its also pretty clear that its easy to spend 30 minutes visiting a
few pages [heh, I didn't even have to touch the Wayback Machine] and compile evidence much
like that the Board used to braise Tim over hot coals. The only difference is quantity and if I
wanted to spend the epic amounts of time that Linda Blum-Barton devotes to this, I could
probably get Richard and Jana both fired.

SLACKER: There's no trial update today. Sometimes you just need a break.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Shoveling alpaca poo since 1998








posted by merope at 5:28 PM 0 comments   
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Turning Over Rocks
Roll for initiative...its Your Daily Board Show!

SPY VS. SPY: Many, many people have noticed of late that Board members and their fellow
travelers have been adopting vacant counties in certain states, some of which are the Board's
"problem to be dealt with" list. What generally seems to happen is that a Board member adopts a
state, gets themselves signed up to the required list, and then starts making comments more or
less designed to start fights. In fact, they appear to be using the "Georgia strategy", which only
recently worked quite well for them. The "Georgia strategy" works as follows: 1) send in a few
plants to a state you want to take over and have them add in as many friendly co-CCs as they can
get away with; 2) have them start doing disruptive things such as attack other CCs or the SCs on
the state mailing list or start endlessly harassing the state management both publicly and privately ;
3) contact new CCs privately with exaggerated or manufactured tales of attacks on other poor
volunteers who dared to express an opinion publicly; 4) never accept the innocent explanation or
the simple apology but ascribe evil or ulterior motives to anyone who disagrees with you publicly
or privately; 5) never let anyone else get in the last word even if it means you have to blow minor
things up to epic proportions and keep meaningless threads alive for days or weeks; 6) sit back
and wait for the endless flame wars to start, the exodus of volunteers who don't have time for it,
and the inevitable choosing up of sides; 7) be patient until the SC cracks and fires one or more of
the troublemakers out of frustration and then twist everything s/he has ever said or done into
evidence of a diabolical plot against innocent volunteers; 8) have someone file a grievance with
the Board so they have a "legitimate" reason to take extreme action; 9)if necessary, rinse and
repeat [It took four tries and an election before they could make charges stick against Tim].

Of course, when one is a conspirator, one sees conspiracy everywhere. And so it is with certain
members of USGenWeb, who are now concerned to see that members of other online genealogy
projects also have counties in USGenWeb. The assumption is that, OF COURSE, these people
are "infiltrating" USGenWeb and creating "shell pages" in order to trick donors who believe they
are donating to USGW into actually donating the materials to these other projects. OF COURSE,
this is in no way analogous to the Archives' automatic submission process which very often shows
up on USGenWeb pages with the suggestion that donors "submit data to XXGenWeb" or to the
county, with no mention that the data will be going to a privately owned project that is in no way
under the control of USGenWeb. OF COURSE, we must take whatever measures we can to
identify these moles and chase them away.

And thus it is that our *old* and *dear* friend Jana Black has recently taken it upon herself to
torment and harrass a new member of CAGenWeb. To another correspondent, Jana has admitted
that she believes this new CC to be "infiltrating" CAGenWeb and "using a minor county as a
shell" for another genealogy project. In recent days, Jana has told this person they cannot link to
Cyndi's List, post a search engine to their site, link to neighboring counties, or link to
non-USGenWeb resources. Although none of these things are forbidden in CAGenWeb's
published guidelines [Cyndi's List is specifically recommended], it seems they exist on some secret
set of Guidelines in Jana's otherwise empty head that are neither arguable nor stretchable.
Apparently CCs are expected to not only anticipate what these cryptic guidelines may be but
implement them to Jana's liking. And be quick about it too. Of course, since these secret
guidelines aren't published anywhere Jana can change them as needed to accomplish her wish,
which is to get rid of some poor newbie who right about now is probably wondering what she's
stepped in [alpaca dung, maybe?].

Really, I can't stress enough how good an impression this sort of thing leaves on the membership.

PILING ON: Day 37 of Tim's Trial is now online. Today, for a change of pace, someone other
than Linda Blum-Barton is in the spotlight, as Bettie Wood highlights all the reasons she felt Tim
was targetting her over the last year.

Something For A Rainy Day

BONUS QUOTE: Because we've *missed* Jana *so much*, we will publish this marvelous quote
from the alpaca's mouth sent to us by an alert reader.

"Jana Black did serve for two very long years on the AB in which the best things that were
accomplished were the reduction of Teresa Lindquist's influence to something non-viable, plus the
laying of the important groundwork that got eventually exposed Tim Stowell." --Jana Black,
singing her own praises, November 2004

[She's right though...through two long years on the Board all she ever managed to do was fight
with me and attack Tim mercilessly. I'm not sure I would be so proud of that record of
"accomplishments" if I were her.]

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Finding the cloud in every silver lining since 1998






posted by merope at 6:24 AM 0 comments   
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Just Dropping By
Nothing else to report on today...so here's Day 36 of Tim's Trial in all its glory. Day 36 was ALL
about Linda "Bloomers" Blum-Barton. For the low, low cost of hours of your precious time you
can see her whinging about how crappy some GA counties were, and how it was so unfair to her,
and how afraid she was to talk to anyone because "they" would get her. For someone who was so
afraid of being noticed by "the powers" [as she calls them] she sure made a lot of noise. As an
added bonus and at no extra charge, you can witness her griping because the management
wouldn't give her the counties she wanted and apparently felt she had some right to. I'll tell you
what...if I had 20 whiny emails a day in my inbox from someone who could use a quick tutorial in
the meaning of "MYOB", I wouldn't give them a county either. Its amazing to me that while Tim
et. al were allegedly "cleaning house," they didn't put her sorry ass out the door.

I have a headache now, and need some soothing tea. Or something. Do Enjoy!

Attack of the 50-foot Woman

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Telling It Like It Is Since 1998




posted by merope at 1:58 PM 0 comments   
Friday, November 26, 2004
Are We Having Fun Yet?
Getting better all the time...its Your Daily Board Show!

Overstuffed: Its another quiet and peaceful morning here in the land of overfed people; I trust
everyone had a peaceful and satisfying holiday. Now, on to the show!

False Advertising: Since yesterday I have received a number of copies of emails advertising Brian
"No Ideas of His Own" Leverich's "new" genealogy service. Here is an excerpt of one:

"Dr. Brian Leverich and Karen I. Leverich, the Founders of Rootsweb.com, have begun a new
genealogical venture...It is not finished yet, but is functional and has much to offer. It's future is
something that will only be a boon to genealogists. It will be truly exciting. It is pretty impressive
right now...Linkpendium.com...Brian says it will be over 2 million soon...They already have
Burkes Peerage content available to search."

[When did Karen start using Brian's name? Now that IS something new and different!]

I really don't get how people see this as something new and different. All they are doing is linking
to other sites, something Cyndi Howells has been doing for 7 or 8 years now. They probably
mined Cyndi's list to get started. There is no search feature that I can find and even if they indexed
everything they linked to so that you could search them all from one place, searching is something
that Google does better and far more inclusively and it won't miss those places that Brian won't
link to. Visiting a few states reveals that a large number of links goes to Ancestry's pay sites,
which I doubt will be indexed for searching if and when a search feature is made available. Many
links are already dead and some just go to places where there isn't really any information. Even
better, a large number of links go to other sites that are just other link compilations. So if you
aren't careful, you can get caught in an endless loop...

What this boils down to is that Brian probably has a non-compete agreement with MyFamily and
this is the only thing he could come up with that doesn't violate that. But its nice to see that Brain
is up to his old tricks. Everything he does is "new and different" and is someday going to be the
best thing for genealogy since GEDCOM was invented [and I'm surprised that he hasn't found a
way to claim credit for that]. I particularly like the implication that they "have" Burke's Peerage
"available for searching." Their link to Burke's Peerage is an advertisement.

Time for the Dancing Monkeys: We've published more on Tim's trial and are up through Day 35
now. This set includes some interesting BOARD-EXEC stuff: a Board member admits he's
already made up his mind that 1) Tim is guilty even before the evidence phase is finished and
before Tim has presented a defense; and 2) he won't be voting to remove Tim from USGenWeb as
he's pretty happy with how things have turned out. Another Board member remarks just how
many of the Board members had/have "interests" in Georgia. And yes, there is LOTS of evidence
from Linda [if I ever get a trial, I'm gonna ask for her to be my representative. I'd love to see her
use her ferret skills for something other than her own agenda.]

BTW, I have noticed something about her. Her adoption of *asterisks* a la Jana Black is a
relatively new thing. She didn't use to do it. Has anyone ever seen them in the same room
together? Anyways, let's get on with it!

At Play In the Fields of the Board

[sorry...]

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Overeating on holidays since 1998



posted by merope at 6:21 AM 0 comments   
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Miles To Go Before I Sleep
Gobble, gobble...its Your Daily Board Show!

Already Asleep: There is not too much to report today. The Board is adjourned, there is no news
of Richard Pettys' ongoing trial, and even the ARGEN mailing list is slow except for a response
from David Morgan to Betsy "Big Mama" Mills. Its not too interesting: David apologizes for
assuming that Betsy actually wanted discussion when she called for it, and points out that her
threats to unsub list members for sharing information outside the list is silly, because the list is
archived and publicly available. [We get a good laugh out of these things. Betsy spends way too
much time trying to figure out how to keep everything all secret-like, and then warns people
about sharing information from a public list that she manages. She should know better, but
perhaps she just likes making threats.]

In the absence of anything better to do [other than play Half Life 2 all day], I have completed the
abstracts of Tim's Trial up through Day 31, when Ginger Cisewski joins the trial as Tim's
representative. This also takes us through the voting on Charge #2 [guilty! as if you had to ask]
and the first inklings of the Board considering the "penalty phase" of the trial. Unless I miss my
guess, we are also past the halfway point in the trial. The records for Day 32 appear to be mostly
full of Linda's blathering on; hopefully we will be recovered enough from today's festitivies to
tackle them bright and early tomorrow morning.

My Cup Runneth Over

Best Wishes: The DBS newsbunker would like to wish all our readers a most happy, thankful, and
filling holiday. If you are traveling, be safe. If you cooking, be generous. And if you are reading
this, my thanks to you for your continued support. Now, go get a life. :)

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show

posted by merope at 9:53 AM 0 comments   
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Like Endless Rain Into a Paper Cup
Don't Worry, Be Happy...Its Your Daily Board Show!

No Friend Like an Old Friend: With 14 members voting yes, Shari Handley declares Mike St.
Clair the new Board Secretary.

Skipping Town: Shari Handley adjourns the Board meeting until December.

Circling The Wagons: Over in the ARGenWeb, there hasn't been a whole lot of public discussion
of Betsy's proposed emergency amendment to institute a single Special Projects seat and hand it
over to the Archives. Don Kelly of course thinks its a fabulous idea, and claims that his fellow
Northwest/Plains SCs also support it. One other ARGW member speaks in favor of it, while one
notes "I do not believe anything positive will be accomplished by trying to push through this
proposed amendent by marking it *urgent* and creating an election prior to next July...an
amemdment to totally eliminate of all SP board seats is a better solution, but should presented
during a normal election...To vote for it would be to make "The USGenWeb Census Project" a
non entity, and to deny their usefulness for researchers in general. These folks have worked
equally hard and deserve the same recognition...this amendment as written would minimize the
perceived importance of all sub categories of the Archives and the people that do put forth a great
deal of effort." Another member notes "I am ready to vote and it would be against...As the Project
coordinator of 2 of these "minority" projects" I am insulted. My coordinators are for the most part
very dedicated to what they do and the majority of them are also on other "majority" projects...a
lot of the obituaries that are in some of the Archives are placed there by the "minority" projects
and that we field all of the questions that the county and Archive projects won't. For this
amendment to be passed would be a dis-service to the project as a whole."

In response to this Betsy posts some demographics of current Board representation:

2200 CCs - 8 AB members = 1 for 275 CCs
213 Archives vols - 1 AB members = 1 for 213 vols
30 Tombstone vols - 1 AB member = 1 for 30 vols
60 Census vols - 1 AB member = 1 for 60 vols
*** Other Special Project vols - 0 AB members = 0 for about 30 vols

Then she notes: "Understand that there are many of the Special Project vols who are also CCs and
members of other Special Projects. I do not believe that this would leave anyone without
representation. Taking all Special Project vols together, there are about 230 individuals. So, if
there was one AB rep for Special Projects, that would certainly equalize the representation a lot
better. It appears the Archives vols would still be more or less "in control" of the AB seat."
[emphasis added.]

David Morgan then wonders how she came up with the number of 60 volunteers for the Census
Project, and asks "Which census project are you referring to? How do you solve the problem of
the two census projects with your amendment?" Betsy claims to have gotten her figures from the
EC [which, IIRC, should not be compiling figures on either of the Census Projects, since they are
not part of USGenWeb at this time.] She notes "The amendment would cover any census project
recognized by the AB/membership as a Special Project which there are currently 3." [The Board
and membership currently recognize NO Census Projects, but whatever.] Then for no apparent
reason, she snarks at David: "This discussion is among members of the ARGenWeb Project and is
a discussion of whether or not to sponsor this amendment. Because you are a board member, you
are on this list as a courtesy and I would ask that you remember that you will not have a vote in
this matter."

Betsy then goes on to threaten the ARGW membership in general. She reminds them that the list
is private and notes "Do NOT be passing emails from this list to anyone else. If I find that that is
happening, I will unsubscribe the offender immediately." [Looks like someone's been reading the
DBS.]

Onward and Upward: Day 21 of Tim's Trial is now online.

Be Glad This Isn't You

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Having Too Much Fun Since 1998







posted by merope at 4:53 AM 0 comments   
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Never Post Before Breakfast
Tit for Tat...its Your Daily Board Show!

Marching On: After Don and Darilee call for a vote on the appointment of a new Board
Secretary, Shari opens the voting. Thus far 7 Board members have voted yes to confirm Mike St.
Clair as the new Board Secretary.

Bailing Out: I don't think there will be a trial update today. Day 21 is pretty much nothing but
Linda Barton's caterwauling, and I. Just. Can't. Take. It. Anymore. We'll see how I feel about it
after I get home from work. If I have a good day...

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Smarter than your average bear since 1998

posted by merope at 5:18 AM 0 comments   
Monday, November 22, 2004
Going To The Dogs
Packed with peanuts...its Your Daily Board Show!

Waiting in the Wings: There is no further discussion on the appointment of Mike St. Clair to the
post of Board Secretary. We imagine that Shari will call the vote later today. While you are
waiting for news of his triumphant victory, you can go read all about our new BS here:

All About Mike!

[and thanks to the little bird who sent this!]

If It Walks Like a Duck: Our trial summary today takes us up through Day 20. Tim has been
found "guilty" of Charge #1 and the 15 prosecuters [some of whom double as witnesses against
Tim to save on court costs] have moved on Charge #2. We also get to hear why its OK for
witnesses against the accused to also sit in judgement of him.

Who Speaks For You?

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Fighting the power since 1998

posted by merope at 5:36 AM 0 comments   
Sunday, November 21, 2004
Like Watching a Train Wreck
Shop 'til you drop...its Your Daily Board Show!

Out With The Old, In With the New: The Board is wasting no time seating a new Board
Secretary [which they now call a "Recording Secretary", perhaps to avoid the unfortunate if
accurate connotations of "BS"]. On Nov 20, Shari Handley asked for a motion to appoint relative
unknown Mike St. Clair to the position, and Angie Rayfield, Bettie Wood, and Betsy "Promised
I'd Never Sit on the Board Again" Mills fell all over themselves to second it. Shari has asked for
discussion, and other than Darilee Bednar saying she thinks its just a fabulous idea, there has been
none thus far. We will go out on a limb here and beat the crowd to wish Mike congratulations and
welcome him to one of the Project's many thankless tasks. He will be seated January 1, 2005.
[And no, we don't know Mike from a bump on a log; he's apparently a known list-lurker, but
when he does speak up its usually sensible. Yes, we are aware that being annointed by the Board
usually indicates at least some willingness to serve one's masters quietly and without much in the
way of independent thought...but then a BS doesn't really need to be all that clever, do they?]

In Other News: Betsy Mills, of late newly appointed to sit in the Sekrit Sandbox, but also SC of
ARGenWeb (and the first SCs to acquire a state leadership position by coup), has recently
proposed an "emergency" amendment to the Project's bylaws. The amendment she has recently
proposed would call for eliminating all the Special Projects seats currently on the Board and
replacing them with one Special Projects seat. This theoretically at least will "solve" the Census
Project problem. Presumably all members of current USGenWeb Special Projects would be
eligible to run for this seat and to vote for candidates for it. In practice, however, the only Special
Project that will matter will be the USGenWeb Archives Project. Only a handful of members
belong to Special Projects that aren't part of the Archives and they will be absolutely swamped by
Linda's Legions come voting time. But that's probably the point of all this to begin with. Anyways,
ARGenWeb apparently hasn't expressed much interest in the idea, so Betsy is currently running a
little poll to see what kind of support she will get from her own state. She'd like to get the
proposal before her buddies on the Board ASAP so that it can go into effect on January 1, 2005.

Baffled With BS: We've managed to work our way through the middle of Day 18 of Tim's Trial.
Now this is sad...of course they convicted him of all but one subcharge in Charge #1 (the
relatively minor one of not permitting CCs to have the co-CC of their choice), but we already
knew that. What is pathetic is the utter flimsiness of the evidence against him. Georgia has 159
counties and they presented evidence of exactly two that maybe were not updated in the
timeframe required by the Georgia GAGW guidelines. They presented no evidence whatsoever of
"phantom CCs", no evidence that "phantom" CCs were RCs or ASCs using assumed names
(although the Board's star witness, one Carolyn Golowka, has been known to do just that), no
evidence that Tim or any of his ASCs were adopting counties in excess of the 3 allowed in the
GAGenWeb guidelines for other than temporary periods while they were available for adoption,
no evidence of vote-fixing or manipulating quorums, no evidence of CCs being refused
subscription to the mailing lists after repeated requests. All they really demonstrated was that Tim
was relatively poor at mailing list management and that Linda Blum-Barton has an agenda and
way too much time on her hands.

Anyways, on to the rest of it. The following contains Days 15 through part of 18. If I get to it
today I will post the beginning of the discussion on Charge #2. Read it and weep.

The Trial of the Century!

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs since 1998

posted by merope at 7:23 AM 0 comments   
Friday, November 19, 2004
Tasty Tidbits
Just a brief note...I've updated Tim's trial through Day 14. Day 15 will be a long slog so I'm
saving it for another day. Enjoy!

Go there now!

-Teresa

posted by merope at 9:50 AM 0 comments   
Careful With That Axe, Eugene
Straight from the horse's mouth...its Your Daily Board Show!

Risen From the Dead: The broken thingie at Root$web is at last fixed and there are a couple of
new mails available in the Board-L Archives. Both of these messages came in early during the
broken period; the Board has apparently been busy "with other things" in the interim. The first is
merely a notice that the minutes from the Black October meeting are available. This would be the
meeting wherein the results of Tim's Kangaroo Trial are posted. His suspension has another 13
days to go, btw. The second message is from Shari "I'm the Queen, dammit!" Handley, noting that
Board Secretary Greta Thompson is resigning "due to time constraints," effective in December.
That's too bad. We rather like Greta. She sort of has that deer-in-the-headlights,
oh-dear-God-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into look to her that most people who end up involved
with the Board have sooner or later. She's behaved professionally throughout her time as BS and
we hope the Board manages to find someone to replace her who can manage the same feat, given
the environment in which they'll have to work.

In Other News: The Board continues its secret trial of Richard Pettys. We note that given the time
it is taking them to go through the motions before they convict him, they will have to sentence
him to time served. His suspension started the same day as Tim Stowell's and Tim's suspension is
up December 1. Unless they find Richard "more guilty" than Tim and decide to sentence him to a
longer suspension, December 1 will be but a distant memory when they drop the hammer. That
leaves just the five year "probation" during which he "may not run for, serve, hold, or be
appointed to any position higher than the Local Coordinator level in any state or special project,
or the national project." Which of course a future Board can lift at its will.

Anyways, speaking of Tim, Days 8 and 9 are now summarized for your reading pleasure [or
whatever]:

A Fool for a Client

[Yes, we are exceedingly fond of the quote at the top. But, just this morning we found a better
one for the next set...so keep reading!]


-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
The cream in your coffee since 1998

posted by merope at 6:44 AM 0 comments   
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Gordon Freeman ROCKS!
Ahem, right, back to work...its Your Daily Board Show!

Broken: We are guessing that Root$web finally fixed the problem with Board-L for two reasons.
1) We got a funny letter in the mail yesterday that says in part:

"Due to the large volume of mail that RootsWeb is putting out right now, it is on the Spam Cop
"black list."...RootsWeb staff will attempt to get back on the "white list," but you may need to
contact your own ISP tech support and tell them that RootsWeb is not a spammer."

[RootsWeb not a spammer, heh.]

and 2) shortly after that I got this:

"You have added to the subscriber list of: BOARD-L@rootsweb.com"

Yay! Now I don't have to go check RW's cludgy list archives anymore. There is however still no
action on Board-L; our Fearless Leaders must be, um, busy. Maybe they all went out and bought
Half Life 2 yesterday too!

Keep On Keeping On: We have a short update of the trial today, taking us up through Day 7.
There is of course more from Linda/Jana [or is it Jana/Linda?], but very little else. On Day 8, Tim
himself will speak on his own behalf, but unfortunately very poorly.

Let's Get On With It!

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
All Rights Reserved Since 1998!

posted by merope at 6:03 AM 0 comments   
Monday, November 15, 2004
Time Flies When You Are Having Fun
And then there were none...its Your Daily Board Show!

Board Corner: Still quiet. But we've heard news from another interesting corner:

Competition Corner: It appears that Board member Darilee Bednar has been publishing a bit of an
AB report. Its admittedly a little thin in content, but today's version is thus:

"Time flies when you are having fun

AB REPORT

Not a whole lot to report... The AB is concerned with another hearing. Hopefully the last one
ever... Can't report on it... like usual... Seriously... we haven't talked about anything else. "


Its hard to be a Board member. I know.

Separated At Birth? So I'm sitting up here in my cold attic room, with the bats and the mice and
only one candle, bravely fording through the mounds of drivel that Linda Blum-Barton posted to
Tim's trial. I start to get this eerie feeling...like there's some cold malevolent figure hovering
nearby, something dreadful from the past, something that just wears me out. I shake the feeling
and go back to work. This stuff isn't going to write itself, you know. But it happens again. That
feeling, someone else is in the room, a nightmare vision from days past, something I thought I had
forgotten long ago. But what? Then I look at the page before me, and I see them. Oh sweet Jesus,
no, not...*asterisks* And I read the words, all the words, endless words that say nothing, that are
delivered as if from the top of the mount on stone tables, words that lecture and preach, houses of
cards constructed of words ...and...*asterisks*. And then the horror strikes my heart. It cannot be,
but it is. LINDA BLUM-BARTON IS REALLY JANA BLACK.

And with that I leave you with the latest installment of:

The Trial of Tim Stowell

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Sending that shiver up your spine since 1998

posted by merope at 8:54 PM 0 comments   
Sunday, November 14, 2004
I'm Not Sure How Much More of This I Can Take
Because you should have to suffer too...its a Daily Board Show Special Edition!

Being a good little trouper, I have beaten my way through the remainder of Day 3 and all of Day
4:

Read It And Weep

Day 5 will be good...Tim makes his first appearance.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Oh my aching back...

posted by merope at 5:17 PM 0 comments   
A Bunch of Directionless Clowns
Because once is never enough...its Your Daily Board Show!

Board News or Lack Thereof: As of this morning, there is still nothing on the public Board list.
So we've spent our morning beating our way through Day 3 of Tim's Trial, and while we
appreciate the opportunity to see the Board being all it can be, it gets a little tiring. So we bailed
in the middle of Linda Blum-Barton's very extensively detailed and documented assassination of
Tim's character [such as it is] to a newbie CC and will leave you with the summary thus far:

The Trial of the Century Drones On

Quote o' the Day: During our summarizing, we were able to glean a few pertinent quotations from
our elected leaders. One is today's title, and the other is here:

"...it does really bother me that so many think that just because "Tim is a real SOB" and "Guilty of
a great many sins." it gives the AB the right to behave foolishly and claim it is for some good of
the project. I don't know . . . . Maybe I'm silly, but even a serial killer deserves a fair trial."
--Denise Woodside, 20 Aug 2004, from the Trial of Tim Stowell

The AB behaving foolishly. Imagine.

Stay tuned...There will be more trial summaries coming up and we imagine that eventually even
Root$web will get its shit together and get the mailing lists working again. I can hardly wait.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Going the extra mile since 1998

posted by merope at 8:53 AM 0 comments   
Saturday, November 13, 2004
My oh my...its a wonderful day!
From the sunny side of the street...Its Your Daily Board Show!

First Things First Department: Nothing new over in Board land. Either the munchkins are
enjoying a bit of a vacation or they are busting tail on some alternate list. I'm sure they'll share
what they're cooking up when the public list is back up.

Reinventing The Wheel: This popped in over the transom a little bit ago; our fine feathered friends
tell us its a new non-profit storehouse of genealogical data. So far, just one state is up, but many
states have been adopted out and will be online shortly. This might be a useful alternative to those
who'd like to donate genealogical materials to some place other than the Archives Project. The
U.S. Data Repository is, as they say, part and parcel "of the United States Genealogy Network,
Inc. (USGenNet, Inc.), a nonprofit all volunteer Idaho Corporation with IRS 501 (c)(3) tax
exempt status." Meaning, when Linda Lewis doesn't have two stick to rub together, she can sell
your data for food money; these folks can't.

U.S. Data Repository

The Continuing Festivities: The Trial of Tim has been updated; we're up to Day 2 now, and its..
um... silly.

Read all about it!

And In This Corner: We've gotten wind of a new push to amend the bylaws to reduce the number
of Special Project seats on the Board to one: "it is our intent to request that the USGenWeb
Project declare these amendments to be an urgent matter and to further request that the matter be
placed before the membership as soon as possible. We would ask that all the Special Project
Representative positions currently on the Advisory Board be eliminated effective January 1, 2005,
with the one Special Project Representative to take their place on the USGenWeb Project
Advisory Board effective that same date." Yes, they are intending to use the "emergency
provision" of the bylaws to push this through without waiting for the regular election [bet the EC
will love that...they'd have a month to prepare a project wide election]. This is all well and good,
but it raises a few issues and at least one major question. First off, the USGenWeb Archives
Project is wholly and personally owned by Linda Lewis and as such is not a "Special Project of
the USGenWeb Project" and probably should not have a voting seat on the Board, period,
Second, the small number of special projects that are not part of the Archives (FGS, Lineage,
Kidz) could easily get by with one representative, but sort of this begs the question of why do
they need one in the first place. Third, if we really want to get down into it, why not just
recognize both Census Projects as "Special Projects of the USGenWeb Project" and let them vote
for NC, RAL, and whatever other seats are relevant? The problem with having one "Special
Projects" seat is that someone will have to act like an SC does and verify who is a member and
who is eligible to vote. In the case of a single Special Projects seat, who do you think that will be?
And how likely do you think she will be to consider anyone outside her Archives to be qualified to
vote for the seat?

Stay tuned...there's more coming soon in the Trial of the Century!

-Teresa Lindquist
Editory & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Selling seashells by the seashore since 1998



posted by merope at 2:00 PM 0 comments   
Friday, November 12, 2004
Well, there you have it
Faster than a greased Scotsman...Its Your Daily Board Show!

Department of Random Observations: Richard Harrison talks too much. And he doesn't really say
anything. The Root$web list thingie is still apparently broken, so the Board is still. Richard's Trial
is still on hiatus; they should reconvene on Monday Nov. 15, so no real news there. On Tuesday
the 16th Half Life 2 comes out and ya'll won't see me for a few days. Half Life was the best game
ever.

Oh yeah, the Tale of the Trial O' Tim has been updated. Its too bleedin' long to post here in its
entirety but you can go read it here:

http://www.radix.net/~merope/history/timtrialprelude.htm

Stayed tuned...tomorrow or possibly the next day we will actually begin the Questioning of the
Prisoner. That's when it gets good. At one point, they all acknowledge that one of the charges is
no big deal and Tim is not the only one who is guilty, but darn it, they better find him guilty
anyways because it would look bad to the Project if they didn't. Rich stuff, that.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
There when you need it since 1998!

posted by merope at 7:17 PM 0 comments   
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Blatant subtlety or subtle blatancy?
From the wrong side of the tracks...its Your Daily Board Show!

Called on the Carpet: Today we bring you the first installment of the Tale of Tim's Trial. It is,
shall we say, painfully obvious when you read all these materials in sequence exactly what was
going on here. And it didn't involve helping the poor beleagured citizens of GAGenWeb either.
For those of you may find reading the blog difficult, the following is webbed here. This site will be
updated as the Tale of the Trial unfolds in upcoming days. Without further ado then, we give you
A Comedy:

[Editor's note: The following synopsis of the trial of Tim Stowell was taken from materials
available at the onebatcave blog (which on a fast connection takes about 20 minutes to load).
Please note that the synopsis follows the order the documents were in the original materials and
since some messages are not dated this presentation may not follow the correct sequence of
events. Other materials are from the USGenWeb Advisory Board's public list (BOARD-L) and its
secret list (BOARD-EXEC) and from interviews with participants. As the Board is extremely
secretive about its actions there will be gaps in the record; thus any corrections are welcome and
the identity of correspondents will be kept confidential.]

As always, editorial comments are mine. Read at your own risk!

Sentence first---Verdict Afterward: The Trial of Tim Stowell

PRELUDE

In June of 2003, the USGenWeb Advisory Board attempted to declare Tim Stowell, the State
Coordinator of GAGenWeb a Member Not In Good Standing for "willfully and deliberately
deceiving and knowingly participating in this deception of the members of the GAGenWeb and
USGenWeb Projects by assuming the roles of "Phantom" County coordinators with the express
intention of affecting the vote concerning the recall of Tim Stowell as State Coordinator of the
GAGenWeb Project." Three other GAGW members, Brenda Pierce, Chuck Pierce, and Margie
Daniels, were also accused. This stemmed from an original grievance filed by Bettie Wood, which
the Board attempted to use to Tim kicked out of GaGenWeb and off the Board. The motion failed
but shortly after a new and more acquiescent Board was seated in September 2003, efforts began
anew to "get rid of Tim." In May of 2004, National Coordinator Richard Harrison declared Tim
to be Not In Good Standing because Tim retained control of two of the project's domains and
refused to relinquish them to Richard. Immediately upon receiving the domain from Richard
Howland, who had negotiated it away from Tim, Shari Handly moved:



    "- that all Georgia County Coordinators and Assistant County Coordinators who have been
dismissed in the past 6 months be immediately reinstated to their previous positions as CC, ACC
or RC in GAGenWeb without prejudice, and with no loss of seniority.


    - that Tim Stowell be immediately suspended (removed temporarily) from membership in The
USGenWeb Project for a period of 60 days or until the results of a removal hearing are known.


    - that immediate steps be taken to hold elections for State Coordinator in Georgia as soon as
such elections can be arranged with the EC.


    - that immediate steps be taken to hold elections for State Coordinator in North Dakota as
soon as such elections can be arranged with the EC.


    - that Richard Pettys be immediately suspended (removed temporarily) from membership in
The USGenWeb Project for a period of 60 days or until the results of a removal hearing are
known.


    - that Brenda Pierce be immediately suspended (removed temporarily) from membership in The
USGenWeb Project for a period of 60 days or until the results of a removal hearing are known.


    The removal hearing(s) shall be conducted by the Advisory Board."



[Ed. Note: Brenda Pierce was removed from the complaint after she resigned from USGenWeb.
Richard Harrison noted, "As she is no longer a member of The USGenWeb Project, the Project
has no interest (and the Advisory Board no authority) to pursue any charges against her." Richard
Pettys did not resign and was tried separately from Tim after Tim was convicted.]


Although Shari noted that Tim, Richard and Brenda had


    "allegedly committed offenses including, but not limited to, summarily dismissing a number of
Georgia County Coordinators without valid cause, thereby ensuring that any attempt the
remaining Georgia County Coordinators would make to seek relief under bylaws Article XII,
Section 9 could not possibly be successful,"


formal charges were not offered to either the defendants nor the project at large by the Board. In
fact, little in the way of explanation was offered to anyone and the assumption was that Tim had
either 1) done something so awful (worse than incorporating the project, worse than secretly
trademarking the USGenWeb name, worse than publishing BOARD-EXEC messages, worse than
making up fake voters, worse than backdating project membership dates, worse than throwing an
election) that the Board had to take immediate action; or 2) now that he had finally relinquished
the domains, they felt free to take their anger out on him, something at which the Board is quite
accomplished. [If you guessed Door #2, you'd be right. --Ed.] The motion was passed, Joy Fisher
and Joe Zsedeny (Archives bigwigs, what a coincidence. --Ed.] were quickly approved as interim
SCs in GAGenWeb and NDGenWeb, and elections were promptly called to replace Tim
permanently.


[Ed. Note: Board member Bettie Wood, who had actually filed an unsuccessful grievance against
Tim during a previous Board session, did not recuse herself from voting on this motion as a
person with a severe conflict of interest, but instead actually called in her vote to ensure that
Richard received it. I realize the Board is pathologically obtuse, but this is ridiculous.]


Tim was finally and formally presented with the charges against him on August 10th, well after
the "few days" Richard Harrison said (in May) would pass before he received them, and well after
the Board had replaced Tim in both GAGenWeb and NDGenWeb. [The Board delayed on the
charges for a couple of reasons: 1) it could not risk having a trial conclude before it could seat
permanent State Coordinators in Tim's states, as it would then be very difficult to explain why
they would not give the states back to an innocent man; and 2) the Board did not have the charges
prepared at the time Tim was suspended and it took longer to trump some up than they originally
thought it would. That the Board never intended to find Tim innocent of the charges is richly
evidenced by the fact that they permanently gave away his states prior to even beginning his trial.
When project members asked how the Board would rectify this if Tim were not convicted, they
were merely told that if that happened he'd be free to run for state office like any other project
member. They must have been quite sure it would not be an issue. --Ed.]

In any case, the charges were as follows:


    Complaint against Tim Stowell and Richard Pettys, Jr.

    SUMMARY:

    Tim Stowell, in his position as State Coordinator of GAGenWeb has violated the Bylaws of the
USGenWeb Project and the Guidelines of GAGenWeb, and has allowed the same Bylaws and
Guidelines to be violated by those he appointed to the positions of Assistant State Coordinator
and Regional Coordinators.

    Richard Pettys, Jr., in his position as 2nd Assistant State Coordinator and as a Regional
Coordinator in GAGenWeb has violated the Bylaws of The USGenWeb Project and the
Guidelines of GAGenWeb.

    The USGenWeb Project Bylaws Violated are Article I, II, XI - Sections
    1, 2, 3 and 4; Article XII - Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

    GAGenWeb Project Guidelines violated are Numbers 1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14 and 16.

    Mr. Stowell and Mr. Pettys have used unfair, discriminatory, and deceitful management
practices and have created an atmosphere of secrecy, oppression, distrust and fear among the CCs
of GAGenWeb. In doing so, they have ignored their responsibilities and duties in the positions of
State Coordinator and Assistant State Coordinator, respectively, and have violated the rights of
CC's.

    The above violates both the letter and the spirit of The USGenWeb Project and has done harm
to both the volunteers and the researchers of the GAGenWeb Project.

    CHARGES:

    (1) While Mr. Stowell and Mr. Pettys held the positions of State Coordinator, Assistant State
Coordinator, and Regional Coordinator within GAGenWeb, they used their positions not to
further the quality and purpose of GAGenWeb as stated in The USGenWeb Bylaws and the
GAGenWeb Guidelines, but to insure preferred outcomes. This was achieved largely by actions
that effectively manipulated the vote within the GAGenWeb Project.

    (a) County Coordinators were not subscribed to the mail lists and may or may not have ever
received information from the Election Committee.

    (b) Despite repeated requests County Coordinators were not subscribed to the GAGEN-L as
required by GAGenWeb Guidelines and USGenWeb Bylaws. At the same time, people were
permitted to remain as subscribers even though they were not members of GAGenWeb Project.

    (c) A number of county websites within GAGenWeb were allowed to go for years without
being updated or brought into compliance with GAGenWeb guidelines, thus permitting these
coordinators to continue to "hold" a place or vote. This helped prevent a quorum from being
reached when required.

    (d) State Coordinator Stowell continued to adopt counties beyond the limit of 3 stated in
GAGenWeb Guidelines and permitted the Regional Coordinators to dothe same, thus preventing
GAGenWeb from bringing in new CCs who would have held a vote.
    Other GAGenWeb CCs who met all the requirements and held fewer than 3 counties had
requests to adopt another county denied or ignored. Numerous people have stated that their
requests to adopt counties were ignored or denied when they tried to adopt counties that were
shown as "Up for Adoption," sometimes for extended periods.

    (e) GAGenWeb Guidelines provide for the use of Co-CC's and Asst CC's within the project.
Requests for the approval of Co-CCs and Assistant CCs from the Regional Coordinators and the
ASCs were generally approved, but similar requests from coordinators were generally denied or
ignored.

    (f) CCs were placed who were never announced as new CC's on GAGEN-L, did not post to
GAGEN-L, did not respond to researchers or other CCs, and/or did not update websites. There
are indications that at least some of these "phantom CCs" were actually existing RC's using an
assumed name and email address to hold a county so that it did not become available for
adoption. Permitting these "phantom CCs" to continue to hold a place or vote helped prevent
quorums on controversial votes/issues.

    (2) Mr. Stowell and Mr. Pettys ignored the results of a poll of the GAGenWeb CCs.
    In 2003,Mr. Pettys started a Guidelines Revision Committee (GRC). The GRC worked to
revise GAGenWeb guidelines to provide further protection for CC rights within the project, and
to establish a grievance procedure that did not involve the State Coordinator or the appointed
ASCs and RCs. The Committee asked for input from CC's throughout their work. Mr. Pettys
threatened to stop the work of the committee, and did disband the committee before their work
could be completed. Following this action, Mr. Stowell announced a vote to be taken on
GAGEN-L. The vote, which was counted by Mr. Stowell and Mari Byers of TNGenWeb,
indicated that the majority of CC's wanted the GRC to continue their work, but Mr. Stowell
announced that the committee would not be reinstated, and at that time characterized the vote as
a non-binding poll.



[Ed. Note: The discerning reader will note that NDGenWeb is nowhere mentioned anywhere in
this complaint, and we are told that there were in fact no complaints from NDGenWeb members
against him. While we will grant that we have observed Tim's antics in GAGW with alarm for
some time and pretty much think that what goes around comes around, apparently he was a model
citizen in NDGW. Apparently, however, his actions in GAGenWeb were so egregious that the
Board feared that the members of NDGenWeb were at grave risk if he were not immediately
removed.]


The Board gave Tim 15 days to respond to the charges before it would begin the first ever trial of
a volunteer in USGenWeb's History. Although both Tim and Richard asked to have their trials
held jointly, and although the list of charges is exactly the same for each (when the Board later
sent Richard his list of charges, they didn't even bother to take Tim's name off it), the Board
denied the request.

Coming Soon: The festivities begin as Richard Harrison calls the hearing to order and the
condemned, er, I mean the accused is brought forth. Stay tuned!

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Eating humble pie since 1998

posted by merope at 5:06 PM 0 comments   
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Off to the races!
When monkeys fly...its Your Daily Board Show!

Bound and Gagged: A little bird sent me this today from Andrew over at Root$web:

"The server LISTS5 is off-line with respect to sending and distributing mail, and it will be so **at
least** for another couple of days. All other list servers are operating normally...The basic story is
that the server had had a hard disk problem earlier in the week, and when the disk was recovered
by the system administrators, something else was broken and there followed a chain reaction that
I was unable to stop until I got online later in the day. It will take a bit of cleaning up, nothing
fatal just plain nuisance and time consuming."

As it turns out, both BOARD-L and the state coordinator list are on ListS5. Its both blessing and
curse, I imagine.

Updates: The Dramatis Personae list has been updated; go check it out. We are still happy to
accept your suggestions for additions.

A Little Light Reading: http://usgwp-v-pettys.blogspot.com. Thank the gods that someone else is
doing this so I don't have to! As for news on this trial, we hear from a little bird that the Board
has graciously decided to accept Mr. Pettys' new representative and have convened the trial until
November 15 to give him time to prepare his documents.

That's all for now folks!

-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
Publisher & Editor, Daily Board Show
Finding nits to pick since 1998


posted by merope at 5:55 AM 0 comments   
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Fee Fi Fo Fum
Jacking in from too early in the morning...its Your Daily Board Show!

Board Update: Nothing new in the public arena and my multiple attempts to subscribe to
BOARD-L have gone nowhere. So they are probably up to something.

Trial Update: No word yet on a final disposition on the trial of Richard Pettys. However, we've
talked with Richard a bit, and he has decided to provide them with an "acceptable" name to serve
as his representative before the Board, as they continue to insist that I not darken their door and
threatened him with a summary and by default negative trial outcome should he refuse to play by
their rules. We shall continue to serve as his advisor throughout the trial, however. Neither
Richard nor his advisor will be allowed to subscribe to the hearing list, but will accept written
questions from Board members and will submit written responses (which of course was exactly
what we originally proposed; funny how its only "impossible and obstructive" when its my idea).
We will keep you posted on developments.

Honor Roll: We've been working on a list of Dramatis Personae to help us keep straight all the
many players who have come and gone in USGenWeb over the years. Please check it out and feel
free to suggest additions. Please keep in mind this should be a list of more or less nationally
prominent people, but local people that have risen to national prominence for one reason or
another can be included. Anyone whose name I don't recognize is automatically excluded...if I've
never heard of them, they aren't prominent enough.

There'll be more, so stay tuned!

"However, since the bylaws do not give the Board the authority to interfere
in how state projects choose their personnel, I will change my vote from #2
to #3."
--Richard Harrison, Board member, BOARD-EXEC, 25 Feb 2002

-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
Publisher & Editor, The Daily Board Show
Running from the flying monkeys since 1998

posted by merope at 6:02 AM 0 comments   
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Fly My Prettys! Fly!
The days of wine and roses...its Your Daily Board Show!

Housecleaning Department: We think we have cleaned up the horrendous formatting issues that
you poor folks using IE encountered a couple of days ago. If not, let me know and I will tweak
the formatting a bit more.

Keeping Myself Busy: Since the Board still is apparently teasing out the subtle nuances of Richard
Pettys' "hearing" (will it be hanging or beheading, it is just SO hard to decide!), there has been no
traffic for several days on the public Board list. I just attempted to resubscribe to it, so I don't
have to wait for Root$web's notoriously slow archives; hopefully this will not cause Shari's head
to explode.

In the absence of anything else to do, I've been reconstructing the old DBS archives from Yahoo
(bless their hearts!). They are available at the Daily Board Show page of Radio Free USGenWeb.
We'll get the rest of them up as time permits. One thing that struck me, perhaps just because of
recent circumstances, is just how succesfully Richard Harrison was able to maneuver Shari
Handley into her present position as Grand Poobah. Among his first undertakings as National
Commander was to appoint (yes, appoint) her as the Board Secretary. She managed to succeed
me as Representative-At-Large at the next election, and the election after than, voila! Madame
National Commander. From a simple country girl to head of an elite secret hit squad in just barely
two years. Kudos to them both!

On that note...its such a nice day, I'm gonna go out and play with my dog!

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Putting the "US" back in USGenWeb since 1998

posted by merope at 11:00 AM 0 comments   
Saturday, November 06, 2004
Back to Basics Dept.
Like Rats on a Sinking Ship...Its Your Daily Board Show!

Just Like the Good Old Days: Since this is the Daily BOARD Show, we thought we'd check in
with the public face of the Board and see what they are up to. Turns out its pretty much nothing.
On November 2nd, Shari "Boss Lady" Handley called the meeting to order, and laid out the
Board's agenda (at least the public agenda):

1. Call to order
2. Project Business
~ New business
~ Reading, correction, approval, or disposition of minutes
- will tackle this when the October minutes are ready
~ Reports of standing committees
- Elections Committee
~ Reports of special committees
- Bylaws Revision Committee
3. Announcements, "good and welfare"
4. Adjournment

Except for that last little bit about "good and welfare" (whose, I wonder?) this is bland and
uninteresting fare and probably leads most to think they are pretty harmless. We of course know
that in their Sekrit Board HQ they are holding the trial of a member and getting ready for the next
one on the list. Will it be the OH SC, who has dared to link directly to the Daily Board Show on
his home page? Or perhaps the TNGenWeb, which apparently doesn't think Tim Stowell is quite
the pariah they do? Or will it be yours truly? Or perhaps they will have a surprise for us?

Shortly after this announcement, Betsy "We Do Not Have a Secret List" Mills left town, and
Roger Swafford sent in a message requesting that people who want to volunteer to be on Bylaws
Revision Committee send him a message. They are looking for just the right sort of people. If you
think you can stomach this, send Roger Swafford an email (sagitta56@mchsi.com).

So, thus far, the Board in November is pretty boring. What were they up to in October, I wonder?
Well, lets see:

October seems to have been mostly about logos. The first big Topic O' the Month involved
allowing project members to display logos for other genealogy projects on their USGenWeb
pages. This topic has been around forever; it comes and goes, waxes and wanes, and my guess is
this Board won't do anything about it either. Its harmless, can't be enforced unless SCs are willing
to enforce it (and some will and some won't), it would make USGenWeb look petty and
xenophobic, and it appears from reading the Board's comments that a majority of members that
bothered to comment are opposed to the Board telling them what they can do with their pages.
So then they switched to discussing the placement of the USGenWeb logo....

A motion to require USGenWeb volunteers to display an approved USGenWeb logo and to
dismiss them from the project if they fail to do so was defeated, even though Shari Handley
publicly accused non-voting Board members of trying to fail the vote by denying a quorum, and
then extended the voting period to give them more time to fail to vote. As part of this effort, she
introduced a somewhat unique method of determining a quorum. It won't be based anymore on
your active presence on Board-L, but on wherever else Shari claims to find you have been active.
This of course makes it impossible to fail a motion due to lack of a quorum; Shari just has to say
she saw you send an email to someone during the voting period and you present and accounted
for for her purposes.

After the Board failed to force the project members to display any logo at all, they succesfully
passed a motion to remove the "millenium" logo from the list of approved logos, after it's creator
withdrew permission for the project to use it. The deadline for removal of the loga was November
1, 2004. (On a side note, we have heard that Board members are now frantically searching
subdirectories on county pages for evidence that this pariah logo is still being held in storage,
regardless of whether it is being displayed on a USGenWeb-affiliated page.)

As part of their monthly business they appointed Betsy Mills to be the new Representative At
Large (I was wondering how she wiggled her way back on the Board). Poor girl, she has big
shoes to fill. Apparently they ran some kind of poll through the Election Committee. Funny thing
that. They also appointed a new slate of EC volunteers.

Shari posted the utterly unsurprising results of the Tim Stowell hearing, which you can read in full
here.

Shari posted a big message about members joining #usgenweb on Root$web's IRC channels. I
used to spend a bit of time there, and IIRC its pretty much a private club. Holly Fee Timm will
make virtual cookies for everyone and if everyone in chat is trusted, they will spend their time
bad-mouthing fellow project members. There will be numerous side-chats going on, and all sorts
of plotting. I should really go check it out again; its been so very long. Wonder if they've missed
me?

An Oversight on My Part: A few folks have reminded me that in my list of alternate genealogy
discussion sites I left out my most honored colleagues over at GenSuck. These guys run a
discussion board that covers the hidden downside of genealogy, from relatives who won't share
their source material, people who mass produce shoddy GEDCOMs and call it a day, data thieves,
the difficulty people have in escaping from Ancestry.con, all the way to the marvelous set of
contradictions that is our own USGenWeb. If its about genealogy and it ticks you off, GenSuck is
the place to vent!

GenSuck.com

That's all for today folks! Coming up next: The Anatomy of a A Trial.

-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Making Shari's head explode since 1998






posted by merope at 7:46 AM 1 comments   
Friday, November 05, 2004
Bold surrealism
Fact is stranger than truth...Its Your Daily Board Show!

First Things First: Yes, the style of the DBS has changed. A couple of people noted that the
white-on-black text was difficult to read.

And Put Tape Over Your Mouth While You're At It: Things over at the DISCUSS list just get
weirder. A little bird sent me a couple of recent missives from whip mistress Tina "I Don't Want
To Hear It" Vickery, one of which re-instates the person she unsubbed yesterday after the shock
of seeing the DBS mentioned on her list. Of course the person is moderated for one week. The
other message adds yet another rule to the Grand List of Rules that Tina's elves must be making
overtime to modify each time she gets overwrought. Here's the newest proscription:

"Discussion of personnel matters inclusive of mediation and hearings is prohibited. This is
inclusive of forwarding e-mail and/or urls [contained in subject lines, body of message and/or use
in tag lines] that acknowledge in any way USGenWeb Project personnel matters is prohibited on
the USGENWEB-DISCUSS list. The penalty for doing so will be immediate un-subscription."

Yes, you read that right. Mistress Tina is now telling her readers what they can and cannot put in
their signature blocks. Think about this for a minute while you read about worse news in the real
world. Now I don't have a problem with her or anyone for that matter designing list rules to keep
discussion civil. But Tina isn't just trying to keep discussion civil; she is actively trying to prevent
people (adult people) from even knowing there may be an alternate viewpoint. Telling people
what they can and can't have in their sig blocks is ridiculous, petty and childish, and the point is
not to keep discussion civilized, its to prevent the readers of her list from even knowing that the
DBS or any other alternative list exists. She's an idiot though; as soon as you try to hide
something, people go looking for it. Radio Free USGenWeb traffic is way up these past few days.

Its no accident Tina rarely unsubs or moderates Board members or their flunkies, even though its
not at all difficult to find instances in the DISCUSS archives where they gleefully are dishing out
the nastiness. Root$web considers that the "USGENWEB" lists belong to the Project and anyone
who runs them runs them at the pleasure of the NC and her minions. Tina is allowed to moderate
that list because she moderates it to their liking. They chose her because they knew they could
depend on her to stamp out any signs of dissension or free-thinking and keep the sheep happily
munching their grass.

Who You Gonna Call?: So, the inevitable has happened and you got on Tina's wrong side. But
you still want to talk about the USGenWeb and keep up to date with project news and business.
There is another list, although the Grand Poobahs would rather you not know about it. Its the list
where many of those kicked off the DISCUSS list wash up, although Board members and various
hangers-on also frequent the list. Discussion there is not censored, so it can get kind of rowdy at
times, but at least there's no one telling you what you can put in your tag line.

CC Discussion List

For those of you in the SouthEast MidAtlantic part of USGenWeb, there is a list for members that
is not on Root$web. Although RW claims it does not interfere in project business, they do in fact
control the ownership and moderation of any project lists on its server. So with a list hosted off of
RW, you are less likely to find the Board or RW interfering with your list moderator or the
discussion on the list.

SEMA -- Southeast/Middle Atlantic CC Discussions

What's that you say? You've ticked off your SC and they've unceremoniously booted you to the
curb? But you have an excellent genealogy site and want it to be recognized? Well, do not
despair. First off, if you have your site on Root$web, they will not take your space away from you
(YMMV: some SCs have "arrangements" with RW that xxcounty sites belong to the state
projects and those SCs may be able to get RW to yank your site). Plus, anything on your site
belongs to you and you can take it with you when you leave. You are not obligated to leave
anything with USGenWeb whatsoever. Materials donated to your site were donated to your site
and can remain with it if you so choose. If you continue to display the USGenWeb logos, you may
get a nastygram from the Board or RW or both, however, so don't forget to strip that ugly thing
off your pages.

Now you are looking for a new project. You are in luck; there are a couple of fine projects out
there. Both were founded by long term and active USGenWeb members and provide a similar
state/county organization. They are still growing and are very welcoming to newcomers, so you
should fit right in. Note that both these projects allow you to be a member of other projects and
to display multiple affiliations on your home pages, so you can be a member of USGenWeb and
either or both of these projects.

American History and Genealogy Project

American Local History Network

What if your SC was able to get RW to take your space away or you just feel that maybe your
days are numbered at RW and maybe you should look for an alternate? Or you are a new project
member (to USGenWeb or any of the projects listed above) and are looking for space. USGenNet
is a tax-exempt non-profit (something neither USGenWeb nor Root$web has ever managed to
accomplish)organization that provides free webspace to members of genealogy and history
organizations. It is also managed by long-time USGenWeb members. They recently expanded
their operations and welcome applications for site space.

USGenNet, Inc.

So there you have it. USGenWeb isn't the only game in town.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Representative At Large, USGenWeb Project (emeritus)
Member Not In Good Standing

posted by merope at 7:16 AM 0 comments   
Thursday, November 04, 2004
From the "He Said, She Said" Files
Flattery will get you nowhere...Its Your Daily Board Show!

Picture the following scenario: a standard sized wrestling ring. In the far left corner stands the
USGenWeb Advisory Board arrayed in all its might, armed to the teeth and bristling with haughtly
disdain for any who dare to challenge its rightful place in the winners' circle. There are fully
sixteen of them, cloaked in secrecy and armed with power. Their corner bustles with the coming
and goings of dozens of syncophants, lackeys, censors, and under-employed hitmen. The crowd
swoons with a mixture of fear and awe. Truly, they are a beautiful and terrible sight!

And in the right corner? Richard Pettys. With one advisor. Small of stature perhaps, but big of
heart.

Anyways down to business...

Yesterday, Challenger Richard Pettys sent the attached message (which is reprinted below in its
entirety with his permission) to Reigning Champion Shari Handley. Shari, who usually talks like a
Vice President, had put on her best "mom" voice and chastised Richard once again in a Sekrit
Letter That Must Not Be Shared With Anyone. We won't reprint it here, because her head might
explode, but suffice to say its more of the same:

1) First she accuses him of seeking to "undermine the hearing process and, by extension,
USGenWeb itself" by choosing a representative who is a Member Not In Good Standing,
moreover one who has "shown consistant [sic] disregard for damage done to the project
throughher actions, including posting confidential information publicly." She claims that any and
all corresponce from this horrid person will continue to be ignored by the Board.

2) The Board reminds Mr. Pettys that he has five days remaining to answer to the trumped-up
charges before they cut off his head (oops, I made that last bit up). Shari does however offer him
the opportunity to provide the name of a new representative, which the Board will be pleased to
consider and also reject.

3) For her big finish, Shari reminds Mr. Pettys that her decree is part of the hearing, is
confidential, and she "expressly" denies him permission to forward it, copy it, or share its contents
with anyone. She reminds him that "Failure to honor this requirement will be considered to be
damaging to The USGenWeb Project and may be grounds for immediate expulsion from The
USGenWeb Project." (oooo...scary)

Richard's response to this was the following:

---

From: "Richard Pettys, Jr."
To: "Shari Handley"
Sent: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 13:58:30 -0400
Subject: RE: Hearing of Charges Against Richard Pettys, Jr.

Ms. Handley:

First of all, please take note that I have twice asked that you not communicate with me. Your
message is being forwarded to your ISP along with my two previous emails requesting that you
not contact me on the basis of harassment. Please refrain from emailing me in the future.

Interestingly, the AB is accusing me of attempting to undermine the hearing process in insisting
on my representative of choice despite the fact that neither of us desires to be on the hearing list.
Rather, we desire to submit our evidence and answer any questions on the matter. It is my
position that the AB is attempting to undermine the process by concealing from the membership
what is truly going on. As such, the AB is undermining the process and is showing its total
inflexibility in this situation.

For the AB to wait until the hearing is convened to deny my choice of counsel is inappropriate,
particularly given that I advised the AB several months ago that she was my choice. That would
have been the appropriate time to make that pronouncement. It is not an appropriate time now
that we have spent three months preparing for trial, preparing motions, gathering evidence and
strategizing. This has placed me in a patently unfair situation. However, that has been the intent of
the AB all along.

I will note that your first email stated to me that Ms. Lindquist would not be allowed to be
subscribed to your hearing list, and that I would not, either. You did not say that she could not
represent me until the second email. At this point, I continue to identify her as my representative.
Even if I chose someone else, it would be with instruction not to agree to the gag order which the
AB desires. I will not participate in backroom, private list deals. It is a matter of principal.

If this AB were truly interested in a fair trial, it would be willing to meet me half-way. But it is
not. It wants to play these sand-box games. I grow weary of the kindergarten mentality of this
AB.

Meeting me halfway would entail allowing my chosen representative to submit the motions that I
wish to have submitted and responding to written questions submitted by the AB. But instead of
doing the right thing, this AB is more interested in hiding behind some shield of privacy. If the AB
is not willing to meet me on this and insists on some confidentiality agreement, then perhaps it is
best that the AB try me in absentia and sentence me.

Because I am not agreeing to your confidentiality order and am not participating in the trial, no
emails will be considered confidential. Your copyright will, however, be honored. However, I will
forward your emails to my chosen representative and/or any attorney that I choose to retain.

As a matter of record, I note that my answer to the charges was filed with the AB over three
months ago. Unless these charges are different from the original charges, then I submit that the
answer I filed is sufficient. It is the exact same answer that was served by Ms. Lindquist in her
continuing role as my representative. I incorporate the motions that were filed by Ms. Lindquist
by reference as if they were fully set forth herein and ask that they be accepted as if they were
filed by me.

There are two ways to do this. One is to play by an agreed-upon set of rules. The other is to let
the AB play by its undefined set of rules and conduct a hearing in absentia.

Richard Pettys, Jr.

---

More to follow...



posted by merope at 6:30 AM 0 comments   
Pearls before swine
Why is the Board So Mean to Richard?: Eh, that's an easy one. He is refusing to play their game
and its pissing them off. They need this hearing to grant their punishment of him legitimacy and
unlike Tim he's not going along with the playbook. Really, this hearing is just icing on a cow pie.
It might look nice, but under the sugar coating its still just, well, a cow pie. Sadly, the Board will
attempt to make Richard pay for his principles.

Someone Needs To Get Out More: What is up with the DISCUSS list anways? I haven't been
there since Dominatrix Tina unsubbed me for something she thought I might do over a year ago
(yep, banned for life again). I took a visit to its archives a while ago and sheesh...every third or
fourth post is her unsubbing or moderating someone. When you read these one after the other, a
definite pattern emerges, one perhaps best summed up by the exchange between Betsy "Walks on
Rose Petals" Mills, Karen Mitchell, and Don "donnie baby" Kelley in which Betsy not only says
(to Karen, who was having a polite discussion with Don), "My Mama taught me much better
manners than your did," but also "I believe your education or lack thereof shows through withour
our posting the information." Any guess who got moderated after this discussion? It sure wasn't
Princess Betsy. Of course, Karen did make the mistake of tellling Tina to butt out of their
conversation, and Tina did decree that discussing personal things like college degrees had no
place on her list. Some people get a free ride on Tina's list; others aren't so lucky.

It would be easier all around for everyone if Tina would just post a list of what can be discussed.
By now it must be only three or four things.

Coming up Next: A Thief in the Night: We hear the Mighty Morphin' Board has a bit of an
embarrassment in its midst. In an ironic twist from the usual, one of them was apparently caught
"borrowing" materials from the Archives (generally, its the other way around). The NC and the
Archives would very much like to sweep this under the rug, but since these people are happy to
sit in judgement of other volunteers, perhaps they should be held to a bit higher standard. More
news as this develops!

Stay tuned...


posted by merope at 6:02 AM 0 comments   
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Does this sound a little paranoid to you?
This would be Tina Vickery, DISCUSS hostest-with-the-mostest, explaining why she just had to
unsub someone for putting the URL for the new DBS in their sig block and then forgetting to
remove it before they posted to her sacred list:

"The USGenWeb Project is a awesome organization, with a huge responsibility to our volunteers
and researchers alike! My role as List-administrator is not one that I take lightly. Sandra's note
this evening promoted a URL that crossed the line of promoting the mission and goals of the
USGenWeb Project and its responsibility to its volunteers and visitors, apology notwithstanding."

Hey, with press like that, we can't go wrong. A big shout out to Tina for all the new readers!

For those of you new to the show, make some popcorn, pop the top off a cold one, settle in for a
bit of light reading, and visit Radio Free USGenWeb. Glad to have you onboard!

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Oh, did I mention the Member Not In Good Standing part?

posted by merope at 10:39 PM 1 comments   
What goes around comes around
Jacking in from beyond the grave...its Your Daily Board Show!

As some of you may have realized, the old DBS on Yahoo Groups is no more. Shari and Richard
filed complaints with Yahoo over the pain and embarassment of seeing their threats against
Project members displayed in their unvarnished glory for all to see (O the humanity!). Yahoo was
nice about it, but its clear that its time to move on. Its a pity the archives were lost, but that is the
way of things, and I think I can rectify that situation pretty easily.

We hear there was much rejoicing earlier over at the Board's Super Sekrit HQ, but we dare say
that news of our demise is a bit premature. We now have this brand spanking new DBS, and we
intend to use it. We would be remiss if we did not thank the Board for its contributions to the new
site; were it not for their patient goading we would never have gotten off our lazy heinies (we eat
a lot snacks here in the DBS bunker) and checked out this new "blog" thing all the kids are into.
In that spirit, we dedicate this, our first blog post, to Richard "King for a Day" Harrison and Shari
"A Woman Scorned" Handley, for all they do for us.

Stay tuned...coming up next: the latest in the USGenWeb Advisory Board vs. Richard Pettys, Jr.
smackdown, featuring Shari's latest nastygram.

-Teresa Lindquist
Editor & Publisher, Daily Board Show
Serving a big heaping helping of truth to USGenWeb since 1996



posted by merope at 5:29 PM 3 comments