The NCGenWeb Project and its members are being severely harmed by the inaccessibility of pages hosted by USGenNet. I have sympathy for USGenNet and their members but Project patrons trying to access our pages through the USGenWeb Project county page (http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncgenweb/county.html) are not currently being served. I have received several complaints, as have our ASC's, and others. Most folks have expressed displeasure at not having a single county source, for some particular Eastern North Carolina county. They have reported that the ALHN pages (served by Fred Smoot's server), the AHGP page (also served by Mr. Smoot's server) and USGenNet (Mr. Smoot himself), were down and waiting for new hardware replacements. In addition Diane Mason Kelly, (President of Webroots.org, founder of ncroots.com and CC of several Eastern NCGWP counties) had all her NC GenWeb Project pages down. She fails to explain the entire down-time problem but does present a lovely Christmas page at www.ncroots.com. She sent a post to our Project indicating USGenNet hardware problems--nothing else. Nothing to indicate when her NCGWP sites would become re-actived. Her Burke County link (http://ncroots.com/Burke/) to the Burke Co. Data Base (http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncburke/burkedat.htm) seems to be a pretty honest appraisal of the entire situation. I do disagree with several points made but overall, it seems to be quite accurate. Nobody from the USGenNet has ever contacted me regarding the estimated down-time, let alone offered an apology for the inconvenience they have caused our Project so I have no idea how long our affiliated NCGenWeb Project pages will be out of service. It is the responsibility of each page owner to provide for server space from whatever individual or entity they choose. Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of that same page owner to provide for contingency plans when the unexpected occurs. I am forced by the current situation to issue a notice to page owners of any and all USGenNet-hosted sites within our NCGenWeb Project. Measures must be taken, and taken immediately. Effective midnight, December 31st, 2002, any pages not active in the NCGenWeb Project shall be declared to be abandoned and will be retained by the NCGenWeb Project to be available for adoption and/or re-assignment to an appropriate, knowledgeable and reliable page owner. I believe that two weeks is ample time for the situation to correct itself or for the CC page owners to find alternate server space. For that reason, I trust that the NCGenWeb Project will be on even track in 2003 and that each and every one of you will enjoy a blessed holiday season and reflect on God's blessings on us all. Derick S. Hartshorn NCGenWeb State Coordinator nc@usgenweb.org Visit the NC home page at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncgenweb/