At 09:24 AM 5/23/99 -0400, Ron & Kathy wrote:
Since this is to be a soul searching and cleansing then maybe there
needs to
be a little extra light placed here. Because your answers do not completely
tell the story either.
>
>He is not the 'acting' Representative. He is the Representative elected by
>the Archives Project members to fill the remaining term of the Archives
>Representative to the National Advisory Board, a position left open when
>the former Representative resigned.
Which makes his motion a conflict. Representative in congress rally for
perk for their districts but he doesn't get those perks at the destruction
of another district or state. This motion will dissolve the "Real" Census
Project.
Money building a sought after research facility in one state over another
surely hurts job creation in one state over the others but this is not
about pork.
Motion 99-12 will merely put the 'Real' Census Project as you call Census
II - back under the umbrella of the USGenWeb Project Archives which are
easily confused with the USGenWeb Archives Project due to poor wording in
the Bylaws. Linda Lewis is the head of the Project Archives while Joe is
the Representative to the Board of the Archives Project. Joe replaced Jan
Craven who resigned as that representative.
>The Archives Project is not swallowing up anything - Census is to
be moved
>back the to the Project Archives aka Digital Library a different animal of
>a nearly alike name, not the Archives Project. The Census Project was a
>part of the Project Archives until it was removed by the person who was
>hired to head that Project.
>The main focus of the motion is to bring back into the fold of the Project
>Archives the Census material that was removed by the Census director at
>her own whim.
It was not a whim that things ended up as they did. Linda Lewis wanted to
control the Census Project, that she was not the Coordinator of. It would
be no different than if I wanted to control the state of Georgia, being a
CC. Linda was a volunteer and nothing more. But because she was in charge
of the archives she wanted those things done her way. That was being done.
They were not just her way, as a committee had come up with the way things
should work back in 1996 or 1997. As Project Archives manager she has
every right to make sure that each of the Special Projects follow the
guidelines of the Project Archives which includes the Archives Project,
Tombstone Project and the Census Project.
And to make a correction of a statement on my part - the Census Project was
not removed from the Project Archives but rather copied into a directory
set up by Rootsweb for the exclusive purpose of and use by programmers
working with a census transcription program. The Census folk then stopped
putting transcriptions in the Project Archives and started loading them
into the wrong directory, the programmer's directory. The files were
copied because the Census manager didn't want to do things in the way
prescribed by the Project Archives from the beginning - protecting the
rights of submitters by having the blurb within each file about
non-commercial use.
The only request from Kay Mason was that, WITHIN THE ARCHIVES, she
wanted
to have a separate directory a part from the regular Archives Project, which
already existed. She had been using that directory for some time. Then
Linda started having her file managers remove the files and replace them to
where she wanted them. That is why Kay did what she did, to keep Linda from
accessing at her whim, the census files. She was changing them and moving
them. By the way, this situation would have probably been corrected by now,
through the meeting they were setting up, till you had the previous motion
scared off. Which was far more fair than this one. But what I don't
understand is the difference. You claimed that one to be illegal because it
gave power to the Board that the by-laws supposedly didn't give it. Siting
that it would constitute a major reorganization of the USGW. Yet you are
hailing this one as good. Which does far more changing and destruction than
the other one.
Putting things back to the way the Bylaws require is not a major
reorganization.
The Board has every right and it is it's duty to enforce the Bylaws.
Why?
>
>Any Board member may make a motion on any subject. Congressmen >make
motions all the time for goodies for their districts and is not looked at
>as being a conflict of interest.
>But Joe's motion makes sense. It is just plain dumb to have two Census
>projects within one the USGenWeb Project. It confuses the heck out of
>volunteers, visitors, and most people. It's nearly impossible for folks to
>volunteer to transcribe census records - and that should not be. It is
>very hard for visitors to find the actual census records - and that should
>not be. As the National Coordinator - I'll do what I can to fix the second
>one. The first one needs to be resolved by one census project not two.
You are right. It is just plain dumb to have two census projects. But up
until this last motion, there was only one. Linda Lewis started the other
pages, duplicating what we were already doing. She created the confusion by
setting up a totally new set of pages, taken from old pages we no longer
used. WE don't have a single problem with our volunteers. They know
exactly where their transcriptions are going and they are treated well. And
it is very easy for anyone to find census records. If they follow the links
from where they are, they will get to all of them. And what needs to be
resolved is the second set of pages that just recently sprang up, that was
addressed by the previous motion #99-5, which you didn't like because it
really did make sense. There is no reason that the Census Project cannot
have anonymity apart from the Archives Project. It was working just fine
until that second set of pages went up because Linda wanted to have control.
And you are giving it to her. But at what cost?
There have been two Census Projects since sometime last fall when Kay
decided she didn't want to follow the guidelines of the Project Archives
but do her own thing when she was refused a separate, non-searchable
directory. She took over a special account set up just for programmers of
the CART program to work in to which she then copied the Census Project files.
Linda did not start other pages but just reclaimed the pages taken by Kay
over the protests of the creator of those pages - Holly Timm. After much
wrangling - acknowledgement of the pages creation were acknowledged by
Kay's 'team'.
We have had many folks step forward to volunteer for census transcription
but have been turned away. We have several census records on line that
aren't linked, have begged to be link have been ignored by Census II.
Census II has records on line that know one knows about - no notice is
given when they go on line.
The Census Project does have autonomy from the Archives Project but
according to the Bylaws it cannot have autonomy apart from the Project
Archives.
I'm not giving anyone anything - I have no vote except in case of a tie
vote. The cost should have been counted by Kay when she just did her own
thing, taking all the Census folks with her without so much as letting them
know that she was the problem - her ego not Linda's that has caused this
mess to begin with.
>Yes Ron it does. In that light, you forgot to tell folks that you
are one
>of the right hand persons to Kay Mason for her Census project.
No Tim I didn't forget! I was speaking at the time on this list as a CC
from this state. But I have no problem with being Kay Mason's right hand
person. She is very good at what she does and she has created the Census
Project into what it has become today. This is not the work of Linda Lewis
or the Archives Project. It is the work of Kay Mason and the thousands of
Volunteers. She has given everything to this Project and you want to rip it
right away from her and hand it over to Linda Lewis. For what?
Excuse me but once again I'm not handing anyone anything - Kay made a
decision on her own without Board approval and that was wrong as it goes
against the Bylaws period.
You failed Tim to tell everyone why Linda Lewis is no longer serving
on the
Board. She was removed.
She was asked to step outside because she had not been properly voted into
office as the Tombstone Rep - not the Archives Rep. At some point along
the line of that discussion it was discovered that Pam Reid's resignation
had never been accepted so she rejoined the Board as the Tombstone Rep.
You also forgot to tell everyone that she has refused to abide by the
Boards request to remove the second set of web pages that she put up.
These are things that should have been done but at her own
whim has done as she chose to do.
The Board did not request her to remove the second set as you call them set
of web pages. The Board 'strongly suggested' which is different from
ordering. So are you saying that if Linda has 'whims' it is wrong but if
Kay has them it is right? Sorry but whims by either party don't wash.
The second set of Census pages were stolen/copied/created/adjusted whatever
by Kay and crew of which you are one. I can understand why you protest so
loudly.
And now you will reward her? She also
did not want to abide by others rules, but now she is to have what
she
wants. All she has ever wanted was control of the Census Project. You also
forgot to tell the people that all transcription files created by the Census
Project are given to the Archives Project to place in the "Digital Library".
So why is there a problem? Well, let's be honest. Because she put up those
pages and refuses to take them down, you want to just give it all to her and
maybe it will all go away. Well, it won't. You will never be able to come
up with an excuse as to why she has to have control over the Project and the
web pages when she is already getting the files. After all, the files are
the most important thing, wouldn't you say?
The Bylaws protection of the files from folks who would use them for their
own personal agenda are the important thing at this juncture. Without
protection, any wolf either inside or outside the Project can do as they
wish with them.
I am proud to be accosiated with Kay Mason. At least she has the
integrity
to not submit motions that directly affect her own Project and she does not
vote on them. Because to her it is a conflict of interest. Wish everyone
else had so little integrity. She may make mistakes, but she tries to
always do what is right, for everyone.
Tim