For your consideration:
You are all aware, I believe, of the ongoing 'rift' in USGenWeb that has
been initiated by Fred Smoot of TNGenWeb. He has proposed a by-law on
which we'll all vote in the coming election - one which will eliminate our
National Advisory Board and all National leadership positions - which he
calls the "States Rights Ammendment". This amendment will essentially
dissolve USGenWeb as a "National" entity.
You are also aware of my negative comments regarding Mr. Smoot's creation
of the
USGenNet.org (com, net) domain and the inference on that site that
his USGenNet is some kind of "official" server for the USGenWeb Project.
His chief criticism is of Rootsweb which, as he points out, does run banner
ads, and generates income entirely separately from any of the USGenWeb
Project - now as a merged entity with
Ancestry.com. The irony in his
accusations is that any non-profit corporation is able to ask for
membership fees, and may pay their officers and board salaries as they
wish. If you go to their
USGenNet.org page and even his TNGenWeb site,
you'll see that their own by-laws state that they may institute
membership fees and pay their officers and board at their discretion. This
is standard for any non-profit corp, but Mr. Smoot fails to point this out.
There have been accusations by a number of Fred Smoot's CC's that would
normally be unbelievable - except that personal investigation will back
many of them up. The ones that concern me the most are that he has
'stacked' his voters by adding cc's 'left and right' to his state over
the
past few months, and that he has failed to give voting passwords to those
CC's who don't agree with him. A quick check of the site will demonstrate
to you that he has 3 CC's in some counties. In addition to that, they
claim, he has appointed a number of "special project" people in various
counties to add more voters.
I tell you this because it is imperitive that everyone who can vote does!
He is counting on the normal 20% turnout for the rest of USGenWeb, and his
appointed people to turn out at 100%, giving a vote for his amendment a
real edge.
I strongly believe we need to keep USGenWeb Project as it is is now....
under a loose form of National leadership. I do not believe that 50
separate sites without anything to provide consistency is the best way to
go with this project. Therefore, I strongly recommend a vote against the
States Right's amendment.
Thanks for listening.
Corky
Corky Knebel
MtGenWeb Project State Coordinator
http://www.imt.net/~corkykn/montana.html