"W. David Samuelsen" <dsam@sampubco.com> wrote: > Mob rule? - tell that to those who have their sites NOT at > Rootsweb/Ancestry but elsewhere. They were outraged, equally-wise > because even if it was free, the cached links still strong imply to > visitors it's a Ancestry-owned, when it is not. The links are still very > wrong-url linked. I do not have my site at RoorsWeb/Ancestry. I pay for it. I am not outraged at Ancestry. I am, in fact, more than upset at those - shall we say, "the mob" - who didn't think through what was being done and now have deprived the genealogy community of what could have been an extremely valuable tool. The changes that needed to be made were cosmetic, not fatal. Richard A. Pence 3211 Adams Ct, Fairfax, VA 22030-1900 Voice 703-591-4243 / Fax 703-352-3560 Pence Family History <www.pipeline.com/~richardpence/>

Well, Richard, I'm glad somebody had the guts to say what I was almost afraid to say but danced around for days about. I'd stated several times that the search engine was a great idea but poorly implemented....needed work....just at first. After it was also added to the free pages that should have been the end of it. Now, we're reading the crys of anguish of people who had sites on rootsweb, and have had them removed because of aup violations. I'm not saying they were or weren't violations....that isn't my call to make...I'm just stating the facts as I read them. I really don't understand why some people have such a bee in their bonnets over this. I'll admit to addressing ancestry to please remove the cached pages...but I did that hoping they would be removed and all the nay-sayers would be happy. Man was I ever wrong. I'll also admit to urging all those to allow the leaders of the non-profit networks handle the situation with TGN. I still feel like basic communication between the staff at TGN and the non-profits will help achieve a search engine that will be extremely beneficial to all researchers. Hardly a day goes by that I don't access data at ancestry...I just don't know how I'd research without it. A person REALLY has to watch what they say on some of these lists. I've had people climb my pole plenty of times....sometimes because they don't understand my use of the 'hillbilly' language. *G* Joyce Gaston Reece ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard A. Pence" <richardpence@pipeline.com>

"Joyce G. Reece" <bjreece@bellsouth.net> wrote: > I really don't understand why some people have such a bee in their bonnets > over this. I'll admit to addressing ancestry to please remove the cached > pages...but I did that hoping they would be removed and all the nay-sayers > would be happy. Man was I ever wrong. > > I'll also admit to urging all those to allow the leaders of the non-profit > networks handle the situation with TGN. I still feel like basic > communication between the staff at TGN and the non-profits will help > achieve Want to know what the root of the problem is? Genealogy has always been a "free" culture. It was build on sharing. The Internet started out pretty much the same way when it was pretty much an academic toy. The slightest hint of commercialism brought howls of protest from around the world. Then the shysters began to take over and EVERYTHING was commercialized. When Ancestry - a genealogy publishing company with a spotless reputation - decided to have an Internet presence it needed money to do that. Enter the big venture capitalists - I saw then on CNBC talking about how much they had invested in Ancestry and how very much more they were going to make. So not only did Ancestry outrage the folks who for years had been giving stuff away by charging for access to records, Ancestry also "proved" that it was another one of those Internet shysters by its hard-nosed subscription policies (put in place because of pressures from the big fast-buck investors). There you have it. Two virgins despoiled. Genealogy and the Internet. The howls will never go away. Richard