This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------C093ECAE55BE95870493B467 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit --------------C093ECAE55BE95870493B467 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Received: from bl-30.rootsweb.com (bl-30.rootsweb.com [207.113.245.30]) by franklin.lisco.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA25872 for <njennings@lisco.net>; Fri, 25 Dec 1998 20:47:07 -0600 (CST) Received: (from slist@localhost) by bl-30.rootsweb.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA14518; Fri, 25 Dec 1998 18:44:14 -0800 (PST) Resent-Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 18:44:14 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199812260247.SAA10697@bl-5.rootsweb.com> Old-To: Picavet <picavet@ping.be> Old-cc: TEAM-ROOTSWEB-L@rootsweb.com, "Dr. Brian Leverich" <leverich@rootsweb.com> Reply-to: "Dr. Brian Leverich" <leverich@rootsweb.com> Subject: Re: Income needed In-reply-to: Your message of Fri, 25 Dec 1998 19:03:58 +0100. <v04003a01b2a980de34cd@[193.74.1.54]> Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 18:47:20 -0800 From: Brian Leverich <leverich@rootsweb.com> Resent-Message-ID: <"HKB-fD.A.iiD.91Eh2"@bl-30.rootsweb.com> To: TEAM-ROOTSWEB-L@rootsweb.com Resent-From: TEAM-ROOTSWEB-L@rootsweb.com X-Mailing-List: <TEAM-ROOTSWEB-L@rootsweb.com> archive/latest/797 X-Loop: TEAM-ROOTSWEB-L@rootsweb.com Precedence: list Resent-Sender: TEAM-ROOTSWEB-L-request@rootsweb.com -- Your message was: (from "Picavet") > At 03:44 +0100 24-12-1998, Brian Leverich wrote: > [snip] > > How much do our users *want* us to grow? > [snip] > >So I don't know quite what to say. The users need to tell us what > >they want, and we'll build whatever they're willing to support. > > > I have been learning more about RootsWeb these last couple of days than in > the previous years. I am grateful for the little discussions we are having > here. One of the things I regret most about RootsWeb is that the staff team doesn't have more time just to *talk* with folks. There are twenty or so of us and more than a quarter of a million users of this facility. It's amazing we can keep the hardware and software running at all; finding time to talk with those quarter- million people, even through mass channels like the RWR, is almost impossible. > I have never really considered myself as a "user", but rather as a > supporter of the RootsWeb (read B+K?) ideals. I put my wallet where my > mouth is, which gives gives me th confidence to speak up for my convictions. Georges, you're many things. You are a user, a remarkable supporter, and a creator of resources for other genealogists. We greatly appreciate the contributions that folks like you are making to the genealogical community. > RootsWeb isn't any different from any other business (business > without the connotation of profit). > > The prime responsibility of any business is to survive. > > A business cannot survive without a strategy with clearly defined > goals. > > Enough of this strategy must be visible to the market, so that the > customers (users) can identify with it. > > Support will automatically flow from their identification with the > goals set forward. Our primary goal is to build a great online public genealogical library. We plan to build clusters of resources around surnames and localities, including mailing lists, Websites, GenConnect Boards, link registries, search engines, primary data, and more. I would be a satisfied man if a decade from now any genealogist, anywhere in the world, could access a library with resources similar to the Salt Lake City Family History Library using their PC from the comfort of their own home. A secondary goal, one that we're just starting to think about, is to create tools that will be able to read a user's personal genealogical database on their own PC (in UFT, FTM, TMG, Generations, PAF, or whatever format) and let the user "click on an ancestor" and access the appropriate online surname and locality resource clusters. With a good PC <--> Internet server interface, we think we can make even a great library accessible to newbies, and we think we can make it easy for even newbies to document their sources and perform rigorous research. None of that is going to happen overnight. But if all of our users were members of the Cooperative, I think we would get most of the way there in the next decade. That help with the vision thing? (: BTW, that may sound like an unattainable dream. But it's not. In the last three years, RootsWeb's users, members, volunteers, and staff have already created one of the Internet's 100 (and probably one of the Internet's 25) most heavily trafficked sites. If we can do that in three years starting from scratch, think about what we should be able to do in a decade. Cheers, B. ------------------ -- Dr. Brian Leverich Co-moderator, soc.genealogy.methods/GENMTD-L RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative http://www.rootsweb.com/ P.O. Box 6798, Frazier Park, CA 93222-6798 leverich@rootsweb.com --------------C093ECAE55BE95870493B467--