The USGenWeb ALL list, v2.0
It never rains but it pours...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* editorial content within. Read at your own risk!
Friday 29 January 1999:
Pam Reid posts a notice that she is resigning from the USGenWeb Project
and giving up her VA county, the Tombstone Project, and her Board sea.
She cites personal reasons for her decision. The Tombstone Project has
been given to Linda Lewis to administer.
One other Board member posts expressing regret at Pam's decision and
wishing her well.
Smooth Move Corner: It seems that Linda "I'm the Boss Here" Lewis and the
Board have managed to lose quite a valuable resource for the project. A
recent poster to the -ALL list, one who has publicly spoken out against
the draconian measures taken against the Rootsweb Four, was unsubscribed
from the -ALL list by Linda on Thursday. She unsubscribed him because
he is not a member of the project [although under the bylaws he clearly
is]. He then wrote a message to all the Board members protesting the
rude treatment he received from Linda and asking to be resubbed to the
list. He received no reply from the Board, but did receive "belligerent
mails" from some project members. On Saturday, he submitted a formal
complaint to the Board against Linda Lewis [quoting chapter and verse of
the bylaws] pointing out exactly how he qualifies as a USGW project
members and asking the board to mediate in his grievance with Linda and
reinstate him to the mailing list. In response to this he received an
extraordinarly curt reply from CAINC Beth Wills:
"The USGenWeb-ALL list is not an official USGenWeb Project list.
Therefore, there are no clauses or sections or articles of the project
bylaws that "govern" this list. The list is privately owned by Linda
Lewis and she may do what ever she likes with it as well as sub and un-sub
whom ever she likes. No one has a "right" to be subscribed to a private
list."
As it turns out, the gentleman in question is a representative of one of
the largest genealogical societies in the United States and he had been
considering offering the considerable expertise and resources of this
project to the USGW Project. However, due to the rude treatment he has
received by the governing body of this project, he has decided to take his
resources elsewhere and will be coordinating Biographical and Historical
archives at another provider of free online genealogy. [I have seen the
resources this man had to offer, and this is a huge loss to the USGW
project.] As the gentleman says: "I'm afraid I just cannot recommend that
any society participate in anything remotely connected to Rootsweb or this
project. The actions taken by Rootsweb scare me, and I'm sure they scare
others as well."
[An interesting side note to this: last night I heard through the
grapevine that the reason Linda and the Board have treated this gentleman
so shabbily is that they think he's me posting under a false identity.
What a buncha maroons!]
Election Blues Redux Corner: This reporter has come into possession of
two vote confirmations received by a person who is not a member of the
project and who has not been a member of the project for some time, yet
who received ballots and was able to vote. Another example of sloppy
election management? Perhaps all confirmed votes should be double-checked
to make sure nonmembers are not voting? Wouldn't want to have accusations
of a tainted election following the new Board members into office, would
we?
Get Over It Corner: The Standards & Ethics discussion continues on the
State Coordinator's list. It is still remarkable mostly for its almost
total lack of concern for the views of the county coordinators. One of
the SCs has suggested that any policy written include a provision that RW
will ban people at the request of the Board. [no comment.]
"In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one
should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably,
contentedly, even happily wrong."
---John Kenneth Gailbraith, The Guardian (London), July 28, 1989.
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope(a)radix.net
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Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
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