Ms Bolick is firing broadsides so fast my trigger finger is tiring trying to keep up. So I will address her last missive first. She has a good point about the copyright statement. If we ain't gonna or can't sue em best we not threaten em. So I would agree with her that the page be simplified along the lines she suggests. Toward some of her other comments in previous missives I cannot be so kind although I believe she is more uninformed than malicious <G>. So I will try to inform on that count. The charges made about the Archives clearly SEEM part of a vendetta. I hope they are not but I would like to see a bundle of those messages from "folks" complaining about who is housing their files. I don't expect to nominate myself as the chief defender of RW. They are quite capable of defending themselves. What I do resent is someone criticizing the archives who has no clear idea of the amount of data housed in the USGenWeb Archives, how decisions are made to house it nor the amount of democracy employed in making those decisions. I can assure anyone that we would not long retain 51 (at last count) volunteer file managers if the Archives Coordinator were as dictatorial as some would have you believe. I would be the first to go. Decisions on Archival matters are discussed and reached collectively. They have to be now more than ever because of the size of the digital library. If something turns out to be cumbersome or awkward to manage any of the file managers can point out ideas for change. And, if there is a consensus among the file manager for change, changes emerge. Changes don't come about simply because someone from inside or outside the Archives doesn't like someone. If anyone can point to a server owner that is willing to house giga bytes of data, index it, furnish a search engine for it and willingly watch it grow geometrically, all for FREE, let us know. A mirror site would be a nice adjunct to the operation. The amount of data housed is projected to go into the tera bytes by the time the Census Project is completed with scans. BTW, giga is 10 to the ninth power and tera is 10 to the twelth power. Only a Washington policitian would not be impressed with those numbers. One tera is 1000 billion (one trillion) if my math is correct. More below on this. And I smile when I read about consulting with legal counsel. Many of us in the Project are retired and have to think twice (three...times?) about hiring a $100/hr attorney to make a will change let alone hire one to intimidate some genealogical data thief. I have submitted hundreds of files to the ND Archives and would only consider legal action against a commercial offender and then thru an attorney who would agree to a percentage of any favorable judgement as his fee. Or, maybe one who is so bored or addled he/she would do it pro bono <G>. So lets get real, folks, and keep this at the hobby level. Something we can all enjoy as we strive to get all those terra bytes of data online. If you want to get even with RW for some reason swamp them with marriage/birth/death, census records, histories and other gems of genealogical data all of which they have promised to house for us with FREE access to all. And, so far, they are doing it. As for going commercial we have pushed them into it with a mass of data files. I just checked and I can buy a 10.2 GB Seagate disk drive for $157. That is $15 per GB. Now figure what it would cost to save to disk one terra byte ($15,000) not to mention servers, routers and digital Telco lines to retrieve and deliver it. And then people to maintain it and then all this slowly wears out and must be replaced...Think this problem through before making comments that denigrate this effort, this gift, this expensive gift really to the genealogical community many of whom are your grandfolks who are going online and loving the data just as most of us love putting it there. The folks who conceived the idea of an archives for the Project and those who agreed to house it should be more praised than criticized. In fact, my visiters to the ND Archives have it in that order. I left the threaded files attached to maintain continuity. Joe FEATHER2s@aol.com wrote: > > --part1_ac.4c0fee.25b9e5ce_boundary > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Forwarded per request. There are some very valid points made here and IMO, a > discussion by the Advisory Board is long overdue on this topic. > > Virginia (Ginger) Cisewski > > "It takes two to speak the truth: one to talk, another to hear." > ----Henry David Thoreau > > > --part1_ac.4c0fee.25b9e5ce_boundary > Content-Type: message/rfc822 > Content-Disposition: inline > > Return-Path: <teylu@home.com> > Received: from rly-yc03.mx.aol.com (rly-yc03.mail.aol.com [172.18.149.35]) > by air-yc01.mail.aol.com (v67_b1.21) with ESMTP; Fri, 21 Jan 2000 > 11:12:19 -0500 > Received: from mail.rdc1.tn.home.com (ha1.rdc1.tn.home.com [24.2.7.66]) by > rly-yc03.mx.aol.com (v67_b1.21) with ESMTP; Fri, 21 Jan 2000 11:11:57 > -0500 > Received: from home.com ([24.2.25.34]) by mail.rdc1.tn.home.com > (InterMail v4.01.01.00 201-229-111) with ESMTP > id <20000121161156.YVCT9818.mail.rdc1.tn.home.com@home.com> > for <FEATHER2s@aol.com>; Fri, 21 Jan 2000 08:11:56 -0800 > Message-ID: <388883F0.53664E16@home.com> > Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 10:06:11 -0600 > From: Sandy <teylu@home.com> > Reply-To: teylu@home.com > Organization: CornwallGenWeb: http://www.rootsweb.com/~engcornw/ > X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 (Macintosh; U; PPC) > X-Accept-Language: en > MIME-Version: 1.0 > To: FEATHER2s@aol.com > Subject: The REAL issue/ [was Re: Copyright] > References: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000121080041.210C-100000@saltmine.radix.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Ginger, > > I'm sending you the following in your capacity as a member of the > USGenWeb Advisory Board, in hopes you will give consideration to this as > a topic of discussion for the entire board. It is a message I've posted > to the USGW-CC-L county coordinators list, in the context of YET ANOTHER > "debate" over copyright law. > > If you see see fit, please feel free to forward this to the advisory > board list. > > I would genuinely like to see our project address what I believe is are > some fundamental problems which merely serve to perpetuate ill-feelings > and bad situations. > > Thank you, > > Sandy Bolick > cc: Vance County, NC > > ========================= > I think the bigger question is WHY the issue even comes up (and keeps > coming up!). > > Instead of launching off into useless debates over something that > doesn't matter (like what everybody THINKS the law says or should say, > when after all what matters is what the courts have decided it says).... > the REAL issue, to me anyway, is WHY it keeps coming up! > > Seems to me in most instances, it's purely a matter of ill-feelings, > quite often because someone perceives they've been misled and/or used. > > If you're really concerned about the success of the USGenWeb Project, > seems to me THAT is the issue to address! > > Good grief, if a REAL issue of copyright infringement arises, then it's > not something to hash out on a list anyway. That's the time the involved > parties need to retreat to private discussions, hopefully with their > respective legal counsel. > > But from a PROJECT standpoint, I think we need to analyze WHY this issue > keeps coming up, and whether we can make some changes to lessen the > liklihood of people ever getting to the point of being upset in the > first place. > > When somebody wants their files removed, the reaction always seems to be > one of "What can we do? Is it really copyrighted? How can we keep it?" > > That strikes me as missing the point. The question is WHY do they want > to remove the files? WHAT has happened to cause this person to want to > pull out of the project? > > In other words...WHAT have WE done, as a project, to cause this person > to be upset to the point of wanting to withdraw their files? COULD we > have avoided ever having this happen? CAN we do something to help > prevent it happening again? > > There will always be the fluke situation you coudln't/can't do much > about. But the project seems to take the "attitude" that EVERY situation > is a "fluke," and is the result of some flaw in the person who wants to > pull out. > > But I don't think that's true. I think we've seen a number of people > withdraw files for essentially the same reasons, and yet we don't, as a > project, seem to be willing to address the situation(s) that LED to the > problem.....and consider that MAYBE, just MAYBE we could make changes to > better ensure the same problem doesn't happen for essentially the same > reasons a second (or third or forty-blue-millionth!) time. > > The structure of the archives of this project, from what I've seen, > seems to be THE biggest problem at the "root" of most of the complaints > that lead to withdrawal of files and these long [useless] debates over copyrights. > > We keep getting complaints because people feel they did NOT know the > Archives were really the project of one individual, that this individual > had negotiated an exclusive contract to house the archives on the > servers of one particular for-profit company, and more recently that the > "owner" of the archives project is even employed by the company with > whom she made the agreement. Folks who complain seem to sense a conflict > of interest here. Frankly, I don't see why they shouldn't! > > To make matters (possibly) worse, MANY pages of this project seem to > encourage people to make financial "donations" and "contributions" to > this for-profit company...and more than one person has mistakenly > assumed this meant the company was NONprofit. > > EVEN if the project never changes any of that structure, it most > certainly can make everyone who visits or participates in any way FULLY > aware of it - VERY clearly and prominently. > > The project does NOT do this, and hence should not be surprised when > people feel they've been misled and are upset. People are DOUBLY upset > in ANY circumstance where they feel they would have made a different > decision if they'd known the full situation and that NO effort was made > to clearly inform them of the situation from the onset. > > I submit the problem is OURS as a project, and that the PROJECT is at > fault in much of this. And probably the bulk of the problem IS an > ethical one, not a legal one of copyrights and such. > > And yes, David....I think there IS a question here of WHY people are > upset about the use of material THEY contributed to this project. The > very FACT someone donated their files in the first place ought to tell > us ALL they wanted to help and to SHARE. > So just WHAT happened to cause such a complete turn-around? > I think you can pretty safely assume they didn't suddenly decide they > don't want to help other researchers. > > So why doesn't the Project address the WHY instead of jumping off into > some posture of "how can we keep their files even though they don't want > us to?" > > -Sandy > > --part1_ac.4c0fee.25b9e5ce_boundary-- -- Zsedeny Genealogy - http://www.rootsweb.com/~jzed/home.htm NDGenWeb Archives - http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/nd/ndfiles.htm Pembina County, ND - http://www.rootsweb.com/~ndpembin/pembina.htm Ramsey County, ND - http://www.rootsweb.com/~ndramsey/ramsey.htm