ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR(S) WANTED FOR CaPaNe LIST..
With RootsWeb's new software for their mail lists, a new position has
been created - assistant administrator. Each RootsWeb mail list can
have one or more of these. Assistants can fill in while the admin is on
vacation or ill. They can't change a list's policies or settings, but
they can help people subscribe or unsubscribe; release or delete
messages sent by non-subscribers or regarded as suspicious by RootsWeb;
and moderate the list.
Fortunately, this list is well behaved so people don't need to by
privately chastised for violating RootsWeb's Acceptable Use Policy --
such as no commercial messages and no personal attacks. In the unlikely
event that something like that were to happen, whoever is moderating the
list can temporarily suspend the offender's ability to post messages.
Joyce Tice had to do that a number of times because some people on her
list were verbally abusing other subscribers -- but that list has many,
many more subscribers and is oriented to 3 counties. Most of our
subscribers are our cousins, or seriously interested in family history,
and thus well behaved.
So, please consider volunteering as an assistant administrator. There's
not much to do. We don't have the volume of messages and subscribe
messages that big lists do Usually we only have about 30 subscribers -
most of whom have never sent a message. Especially if I'm sick or on
vacation there will be few, if any, messages.
In the past, I've had an administrator of another list fill in while I
was on vacation. That was "invisible" to you. And, they never had to
do anything.
If we don't have an assistant it's not the end of the world. Someone
who needs help subscribing or unsubscribing might have to wait a week or
two. Or a message that RootsWeb has held (as happened this week for the
first time), might have to wait for a week or two before being released
to the list.
But it's good to have one or more assistant administrators to fill in
when I take a vacation or get sick. By the way, I will be taking a
vacation, and am looking forward to meeting Cousin Art Hazlett at last.
Furthermore, I'm not getting any younger, and someday, it will be time
to pass the torch. I hope to be around and active for many more years,
but you never know what's going to happen, e. g. Past President Leonard
Hamblin's health problem that no one would have expected at his age.
Having an "understudy" able to fill in or take over is a good idea.
Please contact me if you are interested in giving it a try.
NEW UPLOAD
The latest upload of our CaPaNe database (Campbell, Blackwell & Lugg
family tree) has 5569 individuals and 2569 marriages. But it's better
as well as bigger. More dates. More middle names. More maiden names
of wives and first names of husbands. Sources shown for more items.
Some corrections. Lots of 'DECEASED's replace with the actual first
names. Lot's of 'LIVING's replaced by 'Living's.
The latter change may not sound like an improvement, but 'LIVING'
represented a name present in my not-now-working laptop, but absent
from my desktop's database. 'Living' almost always represents a first
name that in in my desktop's database, but that RootsWeb's software
changed to protect the privacy of people it figured were still living.
So if someone has a question about someone who shows as 'Living', I can
usually answer that quickly. If they have a question about someone
shown as 'LIVING', the answer may have to wait until I replace the
laptop and have the files transfered. Of course 'quickly' is relative.
Ordinarilly I can keep up with my e-mail pretty well, but sometimes I
get deluged. And that's not counting spam. Recently I went away for a
4 day weekend and had a big backlog when I returned. Even more when my
desktop fried itself this summer. It would have been great to have had
an assistant list administrator then, while my desktop computer was in
the shop being rebuilt.
COMPUTER SECURITY NOTE 7 - Checking Virus Checker. (Ignore if not of
interest).
For a long time -- I'm ashamed to tell you how long -- my virus checker
merrily made a scheduled run each night while I slept. First it
downloaded any updates to the anti-virus program or files; then chugged
away looking for viruses. I naively assumed it would notify me if any
were found that it couldn't remove --- WRONG!
I don't remember now what caused me to suspect there might be a problem,
but something lead me to check the results of the nightly scans. And
sure enough, for the last 4 nights it had encountered a virus it
couldn't remove. Probably they would have come up with an update in a
few more days that would have removed it, but rather than wait, I used
one of the interactive checkers from a different vendor's web site.
Even using a DSL connection, it took hours, but did remove the virus.
So, I now routinely (maybe not every single day) check the anti-virus
program's results report.