Howdy all! NOTE: If you have recently contributed to RootsWeb and further solicitation might offend you, simply hit the delete key now. However, if you can find it in your heart, please stay tuned! We have a serious situation at RootsWeb. I've shared Brian and Karen of RootsWeb "stories" with you before. How amazed I have been that they can keep going without a break, etc. I thought maybe recent developments for which I am personally concerned should be shared with you. We could lose our ability to run our surname list if things don't ease up a little for Brian and Karen as a couple. Hopefully, you can help out. The recent storms in California have been very taxing on them. As I have shared with you, Brian has spent several 24 hour shifts keeping RootsWeb on-line; making a hair-raising trip through deep snowfall in a 4-wheel drive vehicle to LA to buy a generator. Now spammers are hitting at too fast a pace for him to get much else done. Remember Maiser? Spammers could take us down again! Instead of fighting fires, B/K had hoped to get the servers installed to provide further archives access for the lists. Needless to say, it's more frustrating than usual for them right now and our list has not experienced any down time through it all! Amazing! However, Brian and Karen ARE human [I was beginning to wonder!]. The rapid growth of RootsWeb has caused Brian to break his obvious silence and share a little of his frustration... Brian wrote Sat, 14 Feb 1998 19:21:33 -0800 to the Listowners: >I'm fighting off a wild urge to write: > > "I quit. Go find another sysadmin." > >I d... near gave Karen the keys to the NOCs and drove off last >Sunday, when we had a fight that was basically caused by the fact >that I have hopelessly too much to do and Karen is stressed out >because folks are beating on her trying to get me to worry about >their individual problems. > [snip] > >Until RootsWeb is adequately funded, I *have* to hand-build the >servers because we can't afford to buy real commercial servers. [snip] >I care as much as a human possibly can, but there's only so much I >can do. Please, please trust that I am trying to employ my time in >a way that does the most good for the most folks. I am sorry that >I am physically incapable of doing more than I currently am. -B > By Tue, 17 Feb 1998 16:12:10 Brian more calmly wrote: >So far as we can tell, more than 300,000 genealogists are using >RootsWeb. If 10% of the users became Members, we'd be immensely >better funded than we are now and could easily afford our core >hardware and bandwidth costs; if 20% became Members or 10% Sponsors, >we'd have the resources to do things like buy primary data from >government agencies and upload it for everyone, or to start >providing free Webspace for use by the family mailing lists, or ... Believe me, it would be **EXTREMELY** difficult to find replacements for Brian Leverich and Karen Isaccson! Their self-sacrifice is phenomenal! So..., if you have not donated to RootsWeb or even if you have, please reach into your pockets now to help the coop out. Last year it cost $60,000 to keep RootsWeb going; $20,000 of which B/K dipped from their own pockets. Now with the increased traffic, it will cost much more. Imagine, if every one of the 300,000 genealogists on the 2600 lists just sent one dollar, we'd have perhaps a couple years' operations costs covered plus needed equipment could be purchased! You need not fit the Member ($12) or Sponsor ($24) category slots. If you are interested, more information may be secured on these categories at http://www.rootsweb.com/ , but any amount will help! Your donation may be sent to: RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative Box 6798 Frazier Park, CA 93222 TIA...Nancy [Who plans to send $100 -- I'm THAT concerned!] Nancy Cluff Siders Roswell, NM <[email protected]> or [email protected]> or <[email protected]> A PROUD SPONSOR OF ROOTWEB! Listowner/Caretaker of : SACKETT-L <http://www.nmmi.cc.nm.us/~nancy/sackett> COUNTRYMAN-L <http://www.nmmi.cc.nm.us/~nancy/countryman> OHHIGHLA-L (Highland County, Ohio)