Tim,
speaking strictly in basics and generalities, the current state web site is designed to
help the researcher. I’m suggesting the purpose of the site become two-fold; 1) help
researchers, 2) help Minnesota coordinators..
Mike
From: Timothy Stowell via
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 7:14 PM
To: mngen(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: [MNGEN] USGenWeb Requirements
Mike,
Would you elaborate what you mean by 'separate from the PR to researchers'?
Thanks,
Tim
On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 9:37 PM, Mike Peterson via <mngen(a)rootsweb.com>
wrote:
Good note Karen !
I think the state web site should have a ‘coordinator’ section similar how
USGenWeb and some other states do it. Separate from the PR to researchers.
Also, I think our state site should have a guidelines page for us –
similar to USGenWeb -
http://usgenweb.org/volunteers/guidelines.shtml .
Sincerely,
Mike
Clay Co
From: Karen De Groote via
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 5:55 PM
To: List MNGenWeb
Subject: [MNGEN] USGenWeb Requirements
Greetings CCs,
Below is a very important email that we all need to read so that we
are on the same page. If you have any questions or comments, please
feel free to write one of the leadership team or post on the list for
general discussion.
We need to get our sites up to snuff and this email will serve as a
simple explanation of what we should do. Now that we have gotten
MNGenWeb up and running again, we need to take it to the next level.
Sometime in the next 10 days you need to take a look at your
county(ies) to make sure all is in order. As a valued member of the
USGenWeb project we need to get polished up now that we are once again
standing on firm ground.
At the end of the explanations is a short list of all the
requirements. You can use that as a check list in making sure your
sites comply with USGenWeb requirements and read the detailed
information for clarification.
Additionally, Tim, Shirley and I, as your leadership team, have
divided up the counties among the three of us, in order to make it
easier to visit all counties. The division is as follows using an
alphabetized list of couties and making sure we do not have a county
personally in our respective divisions:
Tim: counties A-H
Karen: counties I-O
Shirley: counties P-Y
What this also means is that you have a specific leadership person who
will bring to the team any questions and concerns that you may have,
whenever you need them.
The leadership team will begin reviewing their counties at the end of
this 10 day period for the basic requirements and you will be getting
an email of congratulations or whoops we have something yet to do.
USGenWeb CC requirements can be found at:
http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/guidelines.shtml
Point by point explanation of requirements:
1. The first requirement is a name and email on your index page. It
is very important that visitors know who they can contact about YOUR
county. It is perfectly acceptable to have first name only but there
must be a name. It is also perfectly fine to have a text or picture
link of the email rather than a hyperlink if you want to cut down on
spam. Another good idea is a hyperlink to a contact page. (See
Nicollet County for this example:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mnnicoll/) Many people will use
this method so they merely have to change one page, not page after
page on a site. It is up to you and how you want your email to appear
but we do
need a name and an email contact of some sort on the index page..
This name and email should be easily found, not hidden at the bottom
of page or hidden in a similar color. This is especially difficult
for our color blind visitors.
2. The next requirement is responding to emails from researchers in a
reasonable time period. If someone writes to you from your county
page, some response should go out within a reasonable time frame. In
this day and age it shouldn't take more than a few days to get back
with people. This response can simply state that you do not have the
information they seek or you need more time to dig up their answer, if
you are so inclined. If you go on vacation or away from your email
for quite some time, let your leadership team know you will be out of
communication for X amount of time. Visitors complain to the SC if
they don't get responses.
3. Item 3 will come under separate cover: Copyright
4. Solicitation of funds is inappropriate except as allowed in the
bylaws, Section IX. To paraphrase this requirement, no memberships,
contributions or materials for sale are allowed on the index page.
The USGenWeb project has a commitment to free genealogy for
researchers and it would not do to have monetary demands on the index
page of your county. It does not, however, prevent links to purchase
genealogical materials or hire a paid researcher on pages other than
the index page and dedicated to these services.
5. All index pages require the prominent display of the USGenWeb
logo. We have 4 acceptable logos we can use. These were voted in to
official use some dozen or so years ago. The logos page is at:
http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/logos.shtml Prominent display
means you don't have to go looking for them, they are showing when you
open the page. Your county site should immediately indicate that you
are a member of the USGenWeb project, with the proper and prominent
placement of one of these official logos. You must also link the logo
itself or provide a text link immediately under the logo to the
USGenWeb home page:
http://www.usgenweb.org
6. As a CC you are required to be subscribed to this mailing list.
Obviously if you receive this message you are good to go. Some have
complained of the great amount of email on this list in the past. In
order to cut down on the amount of emails during a discussion, you can
subscribe to this list in digest mode which will send one email a day
with the pertinent discussions.
7. All counties must offer some type of query system. The easiest
method is to provide a link to the Rootsweb/Ancestry query board for
your county but you can use your own county based query system. A
countyabased system provides a query system that is on your country
site where you post all queries you receive manually. If that is
what you like to do, you are welcome to do it in this manner.
8. All county sites must provide a link to the state site. We voted
on an official logo for this project and if you use a MNGenWeb logo,
it MUST be the official logo for this project. If you use a logo you
must either link the logo to the state project page at,
http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mngenweb/, or provide a text link
immediately under the logo. Here is the page with our official logo
and the acceptable banner that can be used on other pages that are NOT
the index page:
http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mngenweb/logo.htm.
This is an area that we have problems with in this project. Some are
using the old logo and some are using the the new BANNER on the index
page for a logo rather than the official logo. It only takes a few
minutes reformat your index page to utilize the official MNGenWeb
logo. You are welcome to ADD a banner somewhere on your index page
for decoration but it cannot take the place of the official logo.
9. The official name of our project is MNGenWeb, exactly like that.
Capital M, N, G, lowercase e, n, capital W, lowercase e,b. Any other
title is unacceptable. Minnesota spelled out is not acceptable.
Counties should be called Subject County, MNGenWeb or even Subject
County Genealogy, a MNGenWeb county. MNGenWeb has to be in your title
for identification purposes. Anoka County is one example of proper
branding:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mnanoka/intro.htm
It should take a person no more than 15-30 minutes to correct any
deficiencies in their index page. To recap the the list of required
items:
1. Name and email (or contact link) on index page
2. Respond to emails from researchers in timely manner.
3. Current copyright
4. Solicitation of funds handled properly
5. USGenWeb logo and link
6. Subscribed to email list
7. Query system offered
8. Link to state site, official logo if using logo
9. Official name in MNGenWeb
There are a number of recommended and strongly recommended items on
the National rules page that you may wish to add to your sites. They
are not a requirement at this time but if you choose to use these
elements, please make sure they are correct. For example Pico Search
is no longer in business so if you have them on your page, they need
to be replaced by a working search engine.
Thank you so much, one and all!
Karen De Groote
ASC
Tim Stowell
SC
Shirley Cullum
SC
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