Mike, I believe you covered nearly every base, if not all, that could be in a set of state guidelines - many which would not even impact a county coordinator's site or position but rather address the vacuum MNGenWeb was in after our former SC went missing. It would give the project protection of what we as a group do when management goes missing, what basic elements web sites need, how long between elections for SC, how the ASC is selected and so forth. Such a document would lay a foundation upon which to build. I had an interesting conversation with a coordinator in another state this evening which I can only generalize but which reminded me of a conversation from long ago when someone was complaining in the late 90s about why we needed national bylaws. I remember stating to said person that as a group matured, grew, things would change. Look at how technology has changed in the last 10 years as vehicles such as boards, social media have changed how we interact versus how the Project started in 1996, with rudimentary email, everything posted by hand, even coding pages by hand or at the most copy / pasting code - to software that does much of the work for oneself, the move away from Yahoo and Rootsweb mailing lists to Facebook, Google books and the like. That said, the conversation with this person, reminded me that life is about change, that what worked last year, may not be the best for the now or the future. I know this for a fact in other places in USGenWeb or just life in general. I do believe, that with consensus we can come to a much better MNGenWeb this year than we've had in the past decade, providing an agreed upon foundation, that holds true to the core beliefs of the founder while extending our own state project to meet the reality of now and the future. Tim On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 9:06 PM, Mike Peterson via <[email protected]> wrote: > Rules can be abusive and confining but lack of rules creates problems, > inefficiencies, frustrations, and more. If Rootsweb didn't have rules we > would not get free websites from them. If World Wide Consortium didn't have > rules we would not have standards for websites to work, like colors, fonts, > hyperlinks, etc. If our servers did not have rules our websites would more > easily be hacked and/or destroyed. If our households didn't have rules, > kids > would just grow up the way they want. If USGenWeb did not have rules we > wouldn't be here. USGenWeb has basic rules. One of their rules is that > outside the basic nationwide rules the states would have their own rules. > And, every state has them now except some have nothing written and are at > the whim of the State Coordinator. Sort of like my rule is what the > coordinators will go by. MNGen needs their own basic rules. Things happen > that are of no business to USGenWeb but when things go wrong USGenWeb has > to > step in or just let the state things flop around. We were lucky that we > have > the current National Coordinator who stepped in to start things going > right. > There are National Coordinators in the past who would not do it. Minnesota > was without leadership for over two years until Kermit finally said hey > what's going on. Some and probably most of the coordinators probably didn't > even know it. Some knew and could not have cared less. Some just didn't do > anything or walked away from their county. Rules of the USGenWeb do not > cover everything in the state. They don't have to be extensive. Nor > elaborate. Nor lengthy. But, I believe some basic rules need to be in > place. > We are electing a State Coordinator. How long will that person be the SC? > There is no rule so the SC can stay as long as she/he wishes or just > disappear and we know what that causes. What should an SC be doing? Without > rules exactly what they feel like doing. What if we don't want the SC > anymore? Sorry, without rules the decision lies with the SC. So what are > the > SC's roles, how long is a SC term, how is a new election done, how do we, > the CC's, remove an SC, or, what do we do when an SC or even a CC abandons > their function? Once a rule is established how do we change it? For > example, > right now there is no rule which says we need to display a MNGenWeb logo on > our websites. That's sorry. We don't need a book. But we certainly need a > page or two of bylaws, and maybe a page or two of general rules. At the > beginning of this election, I asked for candidates to explain their > feelings/positions on having state rules. I didn't expect anyone to come > right out and say we don't need them but I was very interested in how they > felt about them and how high on their list of priorities were they. All > four, I think, clearly stated their position and clearly indicated their > enthusiasm or lack of it. And many of you also made it clear your position. > Thanks for sharing. I don't know about the rest of you but it certainly was > good input for my vote. I got carried away and I'm sorry for that. > Sincerely, > Mike > Clay Co > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message >