From merope@Radix.Net Mon Sep 10 17:36:43 2001 Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 17:36:42 -0400 (EDT) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, 9/10/2001 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Shiver me timbers...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Sunday 9 Sept 2001: Jana Black gives Teresa Lindquist permission to quote her in full but withholds permission for her to "interpret" what she says. She graciously allows Teresa to "editorialize" her comments. She also says that Teresa can ask for clarification on Board-L if she doesn't understand something. Jana notes "I am quite capable of speaking for myself and have not asked nor do not wish for your interpretation services." Jana assures Teresa that she represents her but since Teresa has "not bothered" to send her opinions, she cannot respond to them. She notes "the job of any representative as I see it is to listen to everyone, look for what are the primary themes in what is said overall as well as the minority themes, then to make my "appointment vote" based upon all of the above. Please DO send me your input as a CC in my region. I welcome it and will respond to you." Holly Timm notes that her earlier reply to the issue of cut-off dates for the "not an election" was in haste. She elaborates "The matter of the 30 day rule is not directly a part of the present motion so you can vote on that and still have this eligibility issue to bring up...Eligibility must end at some point to permit verification and personally I don't object to the 30 days simply as a sort of *residency* requirement but neither do I see it as a hard line we must keep at all costs. Let's pass the present motion so volunteering and list preparation can begin and move to a discussion of the 30 day rule if you like." Jana forwards a message from John Schunk regarding how to use Board-Exec. He suggests "1 - Board passes a motion that Board-Exec is the Executive Session of the Board and is to be used only in a manner appropriate for executive sessions, with all rules and procedures traditional for Executive Session to apply. Because Board-Exec is always open, this motion would serve the same function as a motion in the real world to "go into" Executive Session...Then, if a member violates Executive Session secrecy, she is subject to disciplinary action by the entire Board -- presumably a 2/3 vote could remove her from the subscription list of Board-Exec." [You don't suppose he has someone specific in mind, do you?] John further suggests " 2 - Now...what if someone posts a message to Board-Exec which is not appropriate for Executive Session? The Chair or any Board member could suggest to the poster that this is an issue appropriate for public consideration and request that the item be introduced there. If sensitive details were included in the posting, those should be omitted from the public discussion. If it's not possible to discuss the item publicly without including sensitive details, then perhaps a statement should be made on BOARD-L that a confidential issue is being discussed on Board-Exec, giving as much non-sensitive description of the issue as possible to keep the membership informed, but without violating confidentiality." [If you think you've seen it before, you have. I suggested it once before. Lets see if the idea is more palatable coming from John.] Jana forwards a message from Roger Swafford asking what Board members own copies of the 9th or 10th edition of RRoO and telling her that she can use "point of information" to force Board members to respond to her. He also answers her question regarding the Board-L archives. Monday 10 Sept 2001: Tim Stowell notes that John's suggestion be amended to read "the member is subject to disciplinary action," instead of "she is subject to disciplinary action." Tim notes "To do otherwise it would appear to be speaking of one class of members only when in fact it should cover all members." Teresa moves "that all persons who are local coordinators in the South West/South Central region on or before 14 September be allowed to participate in the upcoming poll, which is to begin sometime after 14 September and run through 21 September, 2001." Holly asks for a second on this motion. Betsy Mills raises a point of order and protests "using a date in the future as this would invite abuse." [They do obsess about this issue, don't they? If I'm reading RRoO correctly, Holly gets to rule on this one personally, before any further action on the motion can take place.] Teresa provides Jana with the subscription address for the Daily Board Show. Jana says she has no interest in subscribing since "The DBS is unnecessary". She says however "since I cannot stop you from continuing to publish it, what I can do is to at least put the distortions out there publicly for all to read and judge for themselves. It is my hop that your "constituents" will catch on and convince you that what you are doing is not in the best interest of the Project." [Now, why do you suppose she put the word "constituents" in quotes?] Holly declares Motion 01-28 passed with 11 yes votes. A "no" vote and a "yes" vote are received after the results are declared. Mary Ann Hetrick asks if Teresa will consider amending her motion to read "I move that all persons who are local coordinators in the South West/South Central region on or before September 10, 2001." Teresa indicates that this amendment is acceptable and asks if she should restate her motion. Jana agrees with Betsy that moving up the cut-off date is open to abuse. She suggests amending the motion to read "I move that all persons who are or have been local coordinators in the South West/South Central region 30 days on or before 14 September be allowed to participate in the upcoming poll, which is to begin sometime after 14 September and run through 21 September, 2001." She also asks if it would "speed things up" if people would inform the chair that they are _not_ seconding motions, how long motions are open before they are declared dead for lack of a second and how long the discussion session is open before a vote is called. Teresa indicates that Jana's suggested amendment is not acceptable to her. Tim Stowell shares his RRoO expertise. He notes "Usually the order is that one makes a motion, someone seconds the motion, the chair opens the floor for discussion. Now Betsy's point of order is I suppose ok at any point in the above process. However, in this case as has been true with others in the past - someone makes a motion and immediately before anyone has had chance to say anything else...the item in question is immediately hashed on the lists when in fact until a motion gets a second its just one member's quest to get something done. So until Betsy's point of order is answered by the chair, no second can be made nor discussion rendered on the subject motion/desire by the Board members...At any time the proposing member can change or withdraw their motion." In Executive Session --no activity === "Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace." ---Victor Hugo This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Tue Sep 11 16:31:28 2001 Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 16:31:27 -0400 (EDT) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, 9/11/2001 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: And away they go...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Monday 10 September 2001: Holly asks each Board member to "take a moment and state how many days they feel is appropriate for someone to have been a CC in the SW/SC region before being eligible to take part in the poll? And would someone on the EC please let us know their minimum time frame for verification?" She suggests that the Board can then agree on "one that we can all manage to accept". Several Board members [Kathy Heidel, Jana Black, Betsy Mills, Nate Zipfel, Tina Vickery, Tim Stowell support a 30 day cutoff. Others [Vicki Shaffer, Pam Reid, Ron Eason, Kathy Heidel (she changed her mind), Mary Ann Hetrick, Teresa Lindquist] support allowing persons who joined the project more recently to participate. Those who indicated 30 days did not otherwise elaborate on their choice; following are the comments of those who indicated some lower number of days for a cut-off: Vicki Shaffer: "I don't see why a CC can't answer a poll after they become a CC in the region being polled the same day." Pam Reid: "Personally I don't have a problem with allowing all of the region's CCs, assistant CCs and whatever other volunteers are subbed to the region's mailing lists to participate in the poll." Ron Eason: "I would have to agree that since this is only a poll, anyone that has been a member as of todays date, (9/10/01), should be eligible to participate in this poll." Kathy Heidel: "I see your point and I don't really care who volunteers or chooses to participates in this poll. My original thought was to get an idea of who would like the seat and who would best represent the CC's this coming year...So if I may I will say lets do the poll, and get it going. Let who wants to volunteer go right ahead and the voters help select. I don't personally care about the time limit." Mary Ann Hetrick: "I could see the 30 day rule if it was a binding election...I think any CC who is a member of the region, as of today, should be allowed to take the poll. This is of course contingent on the ability of the EC to add the few CC's who may have joined since the election last month. Other than that I think we should listen to all the CC's from the SW region." Teresa Lindquist: "I agree with Mary Ann and have agreed to amend my motion to read that CCs who are members as of today will be eligible to participate. If the issue is potential abuse, that should resolve it. If the issue is concerning the EC having enough time to verify everyone, requiring a cutoff of today rather than 30 days ago does not change the number of CCs they need to verify or alter substantially the amount of time needed to do it." Holly notes that it is helpful if votes and seconds are placed at the top of messages, and clarifies the time frame for seconding and discussing motions. She notes "In a face-to-face meeting it is generally easy to judge whether any discussion remains,it is a bit more difficult to do so in an online environment and all I can say is I will try to apply some common sense." In a later message, Holly also notes that "what seems to work better both face-to-face and here is to have discussion before making motions, then the motions have a much greater chance of being acceptable to the majority and require far less amending." She states that the Board will continue with discussion prior to making motions. noting that "This manner of proceeding worked excellently regarding the issue of holding a poll and not doing so is already tangling us up rapidly on the matter of the number of days." Holly asks that persons involved in the "Permission to Quote" thread pursue it privately or "rephrase it and bring it up as an issue to be discussed by the board." Holly asks Betsy Mills to clarify what she means by "a date in the future" as mentioned in her point of order. Betsy notes that Teresa Lindquists's motion specifies a date in the future for a cut-off and that is not acceptable to her. Jana asks for some clarification on issues pertaining to discussion after a vote has been called. Holly forwards a message from Board Secretary Sundee Maynez citing her recent email problems. Tuesday 11 September 2001: Tim explains to Ron Eason how members "seeking a particular outcome" may stack the deck in a poll. He notes "Unless the EC can gaurantee that addresses would be verified and that each address could only answer the poll once - it would seem that a poll would be subject to abuse...I don't think you do and if that is correct it would follow that we should move towards rather than away from a method that while being as inclusive as possible, given the short time frame, but that it also be as free from potential abuse as is humanly possible." Holly asks Teresa to restate the amended motion. Teresa does so; the amended motion reads: "I move that all persons who are local coordinators in the South West/South Central region on or before 10 September be allowed to participate in the upcoming poll, which is to begin sometime after 14 September and run through 21 September, 2001." The amended motion is seconded by Robert Bremer. Holly notes that Motion 01-28 was passed with 12 yes votes and one no vote. Robert Bremer also supports a less than 30 days cutoff for participation in the poll. He notes that all CCs in the region should be able to participate with whatever cutoff date is required to verify the list. He notes "While 30 days has been traditionally required for a national election, it should be less for a poll of one region." In Executive Session: --no activity === Election, Er, I Mean Poll, News: The following announcement has been sent to relevant project lists regarding the upcoming not-an-election: "The USGenWeb Project is seeking volunteers to fill the vacant SouthWest/South Central CC Representative seat. Volunteers must have 1 year of service in the project and region which consists of the following states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah Any person who wishes to volunteer for the seat should fill out the form found at http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgwelections/ The Election Committee has a Voter Registration Form on the same site. Anyone who wishes to participate in the Poll should use this form to register. Volunteers of the SW Region should register as soon as possible so the EC may verify their information. Polling passwords will be e-mailed to the people who wish to participate in the poll at least one day before the polling begins." Please pass this information to anyone who may qualify and please do go register. I also notice from visiting this site that the EC is still soliciting for volunteers to fill three vacant seats on the committee. Please also consider volunteering for this important committee. === Today's quote is for those brave people who rushed into a burning building to save others and probably died for it: "I was with him in his last hour and he gave me this message to your Majesty: to remember that all worlds draw to an end and that noble death is a treasure which no one is too poor to buy." ---C.S. Lewis, the Last Battle This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Thu Sep 13 19:15:05 2001 Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 19:15:04 -0400 (EDT) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, 9/13/2001 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Courage...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Tuesday 11 Sep 2001: Kathy Heidel asks Teresa Lindquist whether there are states in the SW/SC region that have town coordinators, and why Teresa did not have concerns for nomination eligibility in the July election. [I asked my original question about the nomination form, which specified "county coordinators" were eligible to volunteer for the seat, on the -ALL list. Kathy cc'd her question to both -ALL and Board-L. My concern was addressed almost immediately by the Election Committee.] Teresa replies that she does not know if there are states in the region that have town coordinators but thinks its likely, and that there are definitely state special projects whose members should be included. She does not recall this being an issue in the July election. She states "I am merely asking that correct information be presented to the volunteers so that those who wish to run but who are not "county coordinators" do not go away disappointed." Wednesday 12 Sep 2001: Holly Timms sends a message of "Prayes and Condolences" to all project members and to the nation on behalf of herself, the Advisory Board, and the USGenWeb Project. Holly calls a vote on Amended Motion 01-29 Kathy asks if Motion 01-29 is invalid "since polling has already begun?" She asks if it will invalidate her motion [01-28]. She notes that some people who want to volunteer for the seat have been confused because the website specifically says "nominations." [This was also addressed by the EC.] Holly tells her that "Volunteering can and in fact has begun, so has registration. Teresa's motion affects only who is or is not eligible to participate in the poll..." She also notes that the form was made to be used in future elections and suggests "You could simply write a note explaining this and saying to volunteer to fill the seat they just *nominate* themselves." Kathy thanks Holly for her response. Thursday 13 Sep 2001: Holly declares Motion 01-29 passed with 11 yes votes and 1 no vote [I count 12 yes votes]. In Executive Session --no activity === Give Til It Hurts Corner: Joy Fisher reminds the State Coordinators that she is still conducting her pledge drive to raise funds to purchase the usgenweb.com domain from the Scheiders. The url for the pledges is here: http://www.us-genealogy.net/domain-pledges.html [does anyone else notice the interesting coincidence that Joy uses an URL called us-genealogy.net and the usgenweb.com is registered to something called US Genealogy Network?] You'll notice that Joy is no longer listing pledge amounts; she promises to share that information with the Board. She's also taken off the $15 pledge limit she originally posted. Pledges can be sent directly to Joy at jfisher@ucla.edu. === "A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now." ---Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Fri Sep 14 10:41:25 2001 Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 10:41:24 -0400 (EDT) From: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, 9/14/2001 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Hugging all my loved ones...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Thursday 13 Sept 2001: Jana Black shares some summarized input she's been receiving from CCs. It boils down to "buy the domain" and "don't buy the domain", with the usual arguments pro and con we've seen attached to these positions in previous discussions. She asks for the Board's input on the topic. Voting continues on Motion 01-29. Friday 14 Sept 2001: Holly Timm posts the final results on Amended Motion 01-29. It passes with 13 yes votes and one no vote. In Executive Session: --no activity === "I fear that all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant, and filled it with a desire for vengeance." ---Adm. Yamamoto, after the attack on Pearl Harbor This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Sat Sep 15 07:53:44 2001 Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 07:53:43 -0400 (EDT) From: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, 9/15/2001 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Waiting for news...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Friday 14 Sept 2001: Teresa Lindquist is not in favor of buying the domain name from the Schneiders and notes that most of the correspondence received on the topic is also not in favor of it. She suggests requesting site traffic information for the three domains from RW or adding a site meter to the site to track usage of the domains to help the Board make its decision. Holly Timm suspends all Board business until Monday morning, "In deference to the recent tragic events." She notes that there is nothing urgent that must be handled before then. === "With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the world we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds." ---Abraham Lincoln This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Sat Sep 15 16:16:29 2001 Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 16:16:28 -0400 (EDT) From: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: USGenWeb Election Committee - volunteers Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: FYI. -Teresa --- Please forward to any appropriate lists. Thank you. ******************** The USGenWeb Project Election Committee is recruiting volunteers to serve in currently open seats! The regions in which seats are open are: NE Region - One seat NW Region - One seat SE Region - One seat This Committee will operate year round and members serve a two-year term. Representative duties of the Committee include conducting all national level elections; maintaining current voter rolls; and keeping USGenWeb Members within their region informed on the various issues relating to the election process. Please be advised: EC members are expected to participate by answering email, performing their assigned duties and voting promptly. Further, EC members are encouraged to share their opinion(s) with the rest of the EC. The Advisory Board, along with the current members of the Election Committee, encourage all USGenWeb Project members to visit the Election Committee Guidelines for more details of this very important committee within the USGenWeb Project. If you are interested in participating on this committee, please contact Linda Haas-Davenport lhaasdav@mindspring.com, EC Chair.