The R-Files, Tales of Rootsweb, the Mother's Tale

-The Mother's Tale-

One day last year, Madeleine^* came across a heart-breaking site about a stolen and missing child. Being a mother herself, she was drawn to the parent's loss and suffering, and in an attempt to help in any way she could, she posted the URL to several mailing lists to which she was subscribed.
By the next morning, Madeleine received a three line post from Brian Leverich, systems administrator at Rootsweb. Except for a one word greeting and a short ending sentence the mail said only, "I've just locked you out of RootsWeb's lists". Shortly, Madeleine found herself not only being unsubscribed from all her Rootsweb lists but receiving abusive email from other listowners, who were apparently notified of her "crime" by Mr. Leverich. A listowner from one of her lists wrote to the RW Listowner's list on her behalf, citing her excellent record of assistance to genealogists on his list and indicating he would keep her as a subscriber. A number of other subscribers also posted messages of support for Madeleine and questioned Mr. Leverich's abrupt action against her.
Later that day, Mr. Leverich posted an explanation of why he blocked Madeleine from using Rootsweb's lists. It included a lengthy discussion of why crossposting is bad for Rootsweb's servers and included the accusation that Madeleine threatened to post any flames she received in response to her post.^** In a later post, he accused her of threatening to post "private e-mail with an intent to cause flame wars". [emphasis added] Still later, he posted yet again. In response to a list member's questions as to why some "spam" was OK and other "spam" resulted in banning, he said, "For the few intellectually challenged folks who have missed my meaning in my last two posts, here are the same thoughts in short sentences using only simple words," and proceeded to list his accusations against Madeleine again [indeed using short sentences and simple words]. He further said, to the same poster [who he called a"complete idiot"], "Since I observe you aren't a RootsWeb member, it seems that the very least you could do for the community is to take the time to understand what is going on around you," implying at the very least that persons who give money to Rootsweb don't need to keep themselves informed about issues affecting it. They won't be expected to understand what is going on around them and presumably won't be called "idiots" by Mr. Leverich.
Through all these messages, Mr. Leverich maintained that Madeleine's suspension was only temporary and posted the requisite conditions for her return to full participatory status. These conditions included promises not to post anymore "missing child" notices, not to post private email to lists, and not to do anything that would provoke a flame war on the lists. He also indicated that Rootsweb had [at the time] no formal policy regarding off-topic posts to its lists. Thus, Madeleine was not in violation of any stated policy when she tried to help bereft parents find their missing child. As one of Madeleine's supporters noted at the time, "now I know Not too break the rules, tho I may not know them all."
[In an interesting footnote to this incident, this author has recently been made aware of another incident in which a list member cross-posted off topic posts to a number of lists and published private email. However, this list member is a major donor to Rootsweb, giving over $500 a year. In his case, list members who complained of his actions were told by Rootsweb staff, "he's sorry". He most definitely was not banned.]

^* I have not been able to contact "Madeleine" directly and this account is derived entirely from publicly available archived sources. Requests to Madeleine's email address go unanswered and she is apparently no longer active on her mailing lists.
^** I can find no evidence that Madeleine threatened to post private email. No version of her original post that I have seen includes any mention of posting flames or any other sort of email.

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	-The Mother's Tale-

One day last year, Madeleine^* came across a heart-breaking site about a stolen and missing child. Being a mother herself, she was drawn to the parent's loss and suffering, and in an attempt to help in any way she could, she posted the URL to several mailing lists to which she was subscribed. By the next morning, Madeleine received a three line post from Brian Leverich, systems administrator at Rootsweb. Except for a one word greeting and a short ending sentence the mail said only, "I've just locked you out of RootsWeb's lists". Shortly, Madeleine found herself not only being unsubscribed from all her Rootsweb lists but receiving abusive email from other listowners, who were apparently notified of her "crime" by Mr. Leverich. A listowner from one of her lists wrote to the RW Listowner's list on her behalf, citing her excellent record of assistance to genealogists on his list and indicating he would keep her as a subscriber. A number of other subscribers also posted messages of support for Madeleine and questioned Mr. Leverich's abrupt action against her. Later that day, Mr. Leverich posted an explanation of why he blocked Madeleine from using Rootsweb's lists. It included a lengthy discussion of why crossposting is bad for Rootsweb's servers and included the accusation that Madeleine threatened to post any flames she received in response to her post.^** In a later post, he accused her of threatening to post "private e-mail with an intent to cause flame wars". [emphasis added] Still later, he posted yet again. In response to a list member's questions as to why some "spam" was OK and other "spam" resulted in banning, he said, "For the few intellectually challenged folks who have missed my meaning in my last two posts, here are the same thoughts in short sentences using only simple words," and proceeded to list his accusations against Madeleine again [indeed using short sentences and simple words]. He further said, to the same poster [who he called a"complete idiot"], "Since I observe you aren't a RootsWeb member, it seems that the very least you could do for the community is to take the time to understand what is going on around you," implying at the very least that persons who give money to Rootsweb don't need to keep themselves informed about issues affecting it. They won't be expected to understand what is going on around them and presumably won't be called "idiots" by Mr. Leverich. Through all these messages, Mr. Leverich maintained that Madeleine's suspension was only temporary and posted the requisite conditions for her return to full participatory status. These conditions included promises not to post anymore "missing child" notices, not to post private email to lists, and not to do anything that would provoke a flame war on the lists. He also indicated that Rootsweb had [at the time] no formal policy regarding off-topic posts to its lists. Thus, Madeleine was not in violation of any stated policy when she tried to help bereft parents find their missing child. As one of Madeleine's supporters noted at the time, "now I know Not too break the rules, tho I may not know them all." [In an interesting footnote to this incident, this author has recently been made aware of another incident in which a list member cross-posted off topic posts to a number of lists and published private email. However, this list member is a major donor to Rootsweb, giving over $500 a year. In his case, list members who complained of his actions were told by Rootsweb staff, "he's sorry". He most definitely was not banned.] ^* I have not been able to contact "Madeleine" directly and this account is derived entirely from publicly available archived sources. Requests to Madeleine's email address go unanswered and she is apparently no longer active on her mailing lists. ^** I can find no evidence that Madeleine threatened to post private email. No version of her original post that I have seen includes any mention of posting flames or any other sort of email.
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