From: Tim Stowell <tstowell(a)chattanooga.net>
Subject: [BOARD-L] Census Project(s)
State Coordinators, please forward to your county coordinators
In early January I sent the following note to both Census Projects personnel:
First a bit of background.
On 8/31, I wrote to Ron, Connie, John Jacoby and Maggie asking them to be
members of a team effort to resolve the census division.
I asked each member "to give a brief overview of how you 'see' the Census
project being organized in the future."
Looking over those first answers, I came up with the following items (my
comments in parenthesis):
- Having a standardized process of qualifying transcribers (I took this to
mean that just because someone volunteered - they don't actually get to
transcribe without agreeing to certain items and/or having the knowledge of
how to do the transcription)
- Answering questions of transcribers (answering questions of volunteers
in a timely manner)
- Consistent Appearance (for each set of files for a given census - all
the files would have the same look)
- State Assignment pages - that these be updated in a timely manner - so
that would be volunteers would know the availability or not of a certain
census and for the public at large to see the progress made
- Census Files Location - have them so that they would be included by
Rootsweb's search engine AND where only the Census FM's would have access
to them (ie - the Archives FMs would not mess with census transcriptions -
nor 'correct' them. They could not touch them at all.)
The discussion went to about mid-September when it lapsed due to other
issues for all involved.
------------------
Now with all that said - I move back just a tad further - for those of you
not involved a year or so ago -
The whole issue that we have today was I believe over a clash between two
personalities who had differing ideas of how the Census transcriptions and
their storage and presentation be handled. One of the major issues was
that the Census folk have control of their own directories without the
Archives FM's for x county/state messing with the files.
-----------------
Now fast forwarding to the time frame of mid November - Around 11/15, I
asked Ron to remove Kay's name and address from the Census pages as her
email address had bounced off the lists I maintain - so that folks would
not write to an invalid address. I did not ask him to remove Holly Timm's
name as the copyright holder of the page(s). I did ask that he either add
Linda Lewis as founder of the Census project OR change the date of founding
to the time frame when Kay set up the files elsewhere.
At that time, speaking with Connie - he took over as head of that Census
project.
Then on 11/23, Sue Soden took it upon herself to try to get the ball
rolling again by calling Linda Lewis to see if some agreements could come
about. As published elsewhere they came up with a couple of agreed upon
items - but lacking a consensus from other members of the management team
that Sue was speaking for - these items were set aside. Since Ron had not
been consulted, as head of the Census group he is working with.
With minor talking back and forth - things cooled until around mid-December
when Maggie in answering a note from Ron regarding some of the issues
announced a new directory for the census transcriptions to go in:
ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/state/county/census/fedcens/year - a place
where only Census folk would have write access and Archivists for the
states would not have access (thus taking care of one of the major issues
above).
On or around 12/11, Connie posted to the group that Rootsweb was going
about the business of setting these directory structures up. She
reiterated this on 12/21 and spoke of moving files from both census
projects to these new directories.
Now, things speed up as somewhere in the time frame of 12/22 - 12/25,
Rootsweb personnel go ahead and make the directory redirect changes. I
believe it could have been better handled but since it was not - it should
not be the major stumbling block.
-------------------
Please let us step back to the time frame of 12/11 - 12/21 - and go from
there. The Bylaws state that there is to be one census project - let's
work together to make it so. Let's return to the enthusiasm shown in the
notes of that pre-holiday time.
The major issue of controlled separate directories has been solved. The
issues regarding who does what and other issues can be solved now or later.
The main thing is to get the directory pages updated and the files
combined in the new directories.
Please remember that to do otherwise slows down the process of
transcription, continues to confuse potential transcribers and the public
in general. We owe it to these folk to move forward not on some personal
agenda but to do this for our fellow researchers. This is a team effort.
There is much to do. Please join me in moving this project forward.
I stand ready to listen to your comments and your concerns so that we may
cement this project.
Thanks for your time,
Tim Stowell
National Coordinator USGenWeb Project