Fellow Project members: There have been many requests and some demands for a further explanation regarding my action of delinking the Census Project from the National website. Below are the issues I considered in making my decision. First issue - Copyright violation - When Kay Mason moved the Project last year and when Ron Eason continued to use those pages without express permission of the creator of those pages it falls under the category of copyright violation which is not permissible. Back in the fall of 1999 when Kay's mail started bouncing I asked Ron to remove Kay's address from the census pages so that folks would not try to contact an invalid address. I also asked multiple times that he change the creation dates to the correct dates - if he was going to continue to use these pages - those being 1997 and that the project was founded by Linda Lewis. Ron did remove Kay's email address and name and then added himself as National Coordinator USGenWeb Census Project. It took several months of emails to get him to remove National Coordinator to replace it with Coordinator - even though he was actually only the Acting Coordinator. Second issue - failure to answer email in a timely manner - after several complaints of not getting answers from the CP - I just directed the folks to the ACP. Third issue - failure to negotiate in good faith for a merger of the ACP and CP. Back in late August 1999 - in another attempt to resolve the issue that all previous attempts had not settled - I put out feelers to both the ACP and CP - once the election was over - we started in early September with those talks. Both projects put up their thoughts on what the issues where and how to resolve them. Mr Eason at first demanded that the name remain the same and that the Census project be housed in directories that the Archives file managers would not be able to access. These items were agreed upon over the process of time. Having gained that concession he continued to insist on more and more - ie his way or no way. In November - the talks having fallen by the wayside for some time due to other commitments of most of us - Sue Soden made the initiative to see what she could do to get the talks resumed. By early to mid-December 1999 the issues seemed to be working out - the directories where set up for the census by Rootsweb and the merger was going thru. Connie Burkett, supposedly on behalf of the CP sent out a letter in late December that things were proceeding smoothly - so Rootsweb personnel started making the changes needed to get the files to the proper directory - then suddenly Ron comes back from his job and blows up the whole merger by saying that the ACP is taking over. Since that time he has continued to demand more and more, refused to concede anything, says he wants to talk but does not show ANY form of compromise other than to continually whine that the CP gives up everything the ACP nothing. The fact is Mr Eason's project is NOT the original project but is in fact the pirated project and pirated name. The ACP IS the Original project but obviously had to change it's name when it's files / name were stolen. Now he's asking the Board to confirm Kay's theft of the files and his continuance of those actions. It's kinda hard to have negotiations when one side refuses to give anything and complains when asked to do so and then says let's rewind and go through the same motions again, over and over and over. It was time to take the bull by the horns. Tim Stowell National Coordinator USGenWeb Project