We read the posts on this list, so were thus vaguely aware of some
masthead issue for the National level. But we hadn't mustered the
energy to go ferret out what is really up and if or how it could,
should, or would affect us at the State and County level, if at all.
Being thus uninformed, we felt rather like outsiders. We haven't
even seen the proposed masthead, nor seen any direct link to view it,
let alone a concise explanation of who proposes to what, under what
authority. Is it worth searching out?
But, with the few excellent comments solicited by Nathan Zipfel, our
Montana state coordinator, from:
Jim Petermann, Wibaux County MT
Joan Shurtliff, Stillwater and Sweet Grass
Karen in Iowa, Glacier Co MTGenWeb
we now feel greatly informed by comparison. Thanks to all of you.
So, it would appear that there is another sort of commercial take-
over afoot involving some sort of TGN and IBC (whatever they are)
such that GenWeb pages on RootsWeb (controlled by Ancestry.con) will
be forced/induced to include a masthead of their design with
commercial ads and links. Please correct or clarify any
misconceptions here. We don't want to start rumors, but don't have
time to beat around the bush nor delve into more discussion lists.
We were nearly worn to extinction and confusion over the discussion
years ago about the buying of RootsWeb. We were shocked that a non-
profit volunteer organization could be bought for money, and still
have a dim view of the whole thing. We have no use at all for
Ancestry.con and its methods ever since we were introduced to
MyFamily.con. Ancestry subscribers have long told of plenty
dissatisfaction with fees etc. and we understand of late that they
misrepresent completeness of data and sell others' data as their
own. While we don't wish to be ungrateful for the free web hosting
provided, server space truly is cheap these days, inasmuch as we
volunteers are doing the normally expensive part-- designing,
tending, and providing of the content. The host logos with links to
RootsWeb/Ancestry would seem to be sufficient advertising to make us
a net asset to them. If not, our gratitude is dried up-- or
translated to angst-- maybe we should part ways as friends. The
water is warming on the frog gradually, but warming nonetheless.
As others expressed, we too would resist having to change locations
with all the tedium involved, but it would be preferable to pandering
to commercial relationships and dictators. Perhaps it is just time
to sever the cords with the commercial folks and do what we have to,
which would likely be simpler than figuring out how to comply with
new rules. Our BeaverHeadGenWeb site is only 180 Kbytes, so could
fit on our personal account without great hardship, compared to the
other site we host for the BeaverHead Hunter Genealogy Society, which
is much larger and has searchable data. Most of the services could
actually be provided under either umbrella, but the Roots web server
space wouldn't support the search program.
We don't know anything about a page editor. We have our Mac running
Apache so we can serve the website content to ourself without any
internet connection. When we get it the way we want, and just FTP
the files to the internet servers.
So we think as nice as the RootsWeb folks may be, we desire to be
free-- free of monetary charge, and free of control.
Ben & Carla Andrus
| webmasters for BeaverheadGenWeb &
| BeaverHead Hunter Genealogy Society
|__________________________________________________
I remember well the dust-ups over Rootsweb's sale, and I will wager that Ben
and Carla have been around long enough to remember other battles even more
pitched and hard-fought :)
My personal experiences with
Ancestry.com have been all negative. On the
four occasions that I paid them for information, each time it turned out to
be completely useless.
The ONLY accurate information I have ever gotten from
Ancestry.com was
available at no cost from other venues.
For what it's worth ...
Jim Petermann
From: Andrus <RockHaven(a)3rivers.net>
We were nearly worn to extinction and confusion over the discussion
years ago about the buying of RootsWeb. We were shocked that a non-
profit volunteer organization could be bought for money, and still
have a dim view of the whole thing. We have no use at all for
Ancestry.con and its methods ever since we were introduced to
MyFamily.con. >
Ben & Carla Andrus
| webmasters for BeaverheadGenWeb &
| BeaverHead Hunter Genealogy Society
|__________________________________________________