-----Original Message----- From: Dr. Brian Leverich <leverich@rootsweb.com> To: STATE-COORD-L@rootsweb.com <STATE-COORD-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Friday, June 11, 1999 1:34 PM Subject: [STATE-COORD-L] Re: A question for incumbent officers. > > >> From: Fred Smoot <dogtrot@well.com> >> >> Do the advertising features of the new RW cluster pages, >> GenConnect, etc, fly in the face of the principles of >> non-commercialism followed by our Project? > > >Hi Fred - > >This isn't at all aimed at you personally, though I am using your >post to make a point. > >There are a million wonderful things about USGenWeb, but there are >a couple of things that are terrifically less than wonderful. > >One of those things is the way USGW has always treated RootsWeb >less well than any other server. That kinda stings. > > ### > >USGW allows pages to be on GeoCities with *popups*. TNGenWeb says >"Support Our Sponsor U.S. Internet -- Visit USIT for special >offers" right next to the TNGenWeb logo on its homepage. >Coordinators have links that earn them money, like Ancestry's >Search Partners, right on their pages. > >And on and on. > >The Project is shot through with commercialism. Wake up and smell >the coffee. > >FWIW, I personally think it was a terrible mistake to let this >happen. But what is, is. > > ### > >We all had precisely one shot at being truly noncommercial. There >were a bunch of crazy hippie system administrators who were willing >to do RootsWeb for beans and weenies. (Crazy and hippie doesn't >mean stupid, though: we could wallpaper a room with the staff's >degrees from Harvard, Stanford, and MIT, and regardless of paper >every member of the staff here is best of breed.) > >RootsWeb would have stayed completely bannerless, completely >noncommercial, and completely supported just by voluntary >contributions if we could have made a go of it. > >But most of us didn't actively support that model (THANKS! to the >folks who did), and RootsWeb was going to die with only 2% of our >Websurfing users and only 7% of our list subscribers as >contributors. Beenies and weenies are OK, but no food at all isn't >sustainable even for crazy hippie system administrators. > >We collectively didn't support the voluntary contribution model and >it failed. Now we get to live with the consequences. > > ### > >RootsWeb is going to stay absolutely as noncommercial as we can. >But there will be advertising on some parts of the site and we will >be hosting some ecommerce activities. > >USGW already tolerates that elsewhere. [ I'm not going to add "so >park the hypocrisy at the door", but perhaps should have. ] > >RootsWeb has had *precisely* the same goals on our homepage for >three and a half years: > > 1.To make large volumes of data available to the online > genealogical community at minimal cost. > 2.To provide support services to online genealogical > activities such as USENET newsgroup moderation, mailing > list maintenance, surname list generation, etc. > >It's not written in those lines because USGenWeb is younger than >RootsWeb, but RW is totally committed to providing USGW with the >best possible tools for serving the online genealogical community. > >Those commitments haven't changed. We're just doing what we have >to do to deliver on those commitments. Please be kind enough to >treat us at least as well as any other host as we do our damnedest >to serve USGW. -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 >