Two very dear cyberfriends of mine were "temporarily" ousted from their
positions as co-hosts for a Tennessee county a couple of days ago. This
action was arbitrary, and there is no avenue for redress. They were told
either to "shape up or ship out" -- the "shaping up" is to standards
set by
the TNGenWeb state coordinators, not the volunteers on the project. If you
look at the by-laws that are being shoved on us by the current USGenWeb
vote, this will be more common in the future.
These proposed by-laws are heavily weighted in favor of arbitrary,
capricious, top-down MANAGEMENT of our project. Please, if you vote for
nothing else (and I hope you will vote for individuals -- even though I
disagree with the voting as being illegal <g>), vote NO on the by-laws
issue. If you don't, we're stuck with them for another whole year......and
everyone agrees they're faulty!
If you're interested in the details of what happened, read on. If not, you
can stop here....and go dig out that ballot and vote! <g>
1. Refusal to identify Johnson County as part of the TNGenWeb project as
is required and this despite numerous requests that you do so.
They have a logo and the required back-link -- what more do they need?
2. The forwarding of project mail to parties not participating in
TNGenWeb.
And the problem with that is? Sharing ideas from one state to another is
what makes this project grow! There is no stipulation or "rule" against
this anywhere in the USGenWeb structure. Therefore, it's not grounds for
dismissing someone who's been an advocate of the USGenWeb project for more
than 2 years and has pages in multiple states.......
3, Lack of team spirit, as evidenced by posting to the national list on
matters which affect only participants in the TNGenWeb project, with
the purpose of sowing dissention within the project as a whole.
As I recall, they posted questions and issues that they felt weren't being
fairly addressed in the state list. They were looking for help from the
national level. The USGenWeb-All list has had its nose in nearly every
state's business of late! I don't recall seeing people from those states
who brought up problems being reprimanded by their state coordinators.
4. Purposeful denigration of USGenWeb, TNGenWeb, and its volunteers in a
manner that goes beyond your right of free speech and becomes
destructive to both organizations.
These two ladies have never denigrated the project! They have been
exceptionally supportive! They even have page activity in multiple states!
All they have done is question arbitrary actions and "mushroom management"
tactics of the TNGenWeb state coordinator. They have repeatedly asked why
the current state coordinator is making all kinds of decisions without
first approaching the county volunteers for input. She promised to do that
after finagling the state coordinatorship. For example, she agreed to a
deal with a book selling company that generates income for the ISP hosting
the TNGenWeb domain. I think the ISP deserves income. But, that decision
should have been made by the project, not by an individual. She changed
the TNGenWeb domain without discussing it -- or even warning the
volunteers! Probably the worst is the most recent: when the ISP required
("this is not debatable") that EVERY TNGenWeb page on its server carry its
logo at the bottom, the state coordinator had code written that
automatically edited every single page and inserted the logo code. Would
you appreciate it if someone entered your pages and did that? I don't
think so.
I think they got the shaft, big time. The worst part is that they got it
on a mailing list -- they weren't even given the respect of being advised
of this action privately.......