At 03:13 PM 7/11/98 -0700, Fred Smoot wrote: >Tim Stowell wrote: > >> Will there be two USGenWeb pages >> for that particular TN county, one sanctioned by your incorporation and one >> not sanctioned? > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- > >*** Clarification: You say "your incorporation," in actuality, if >completed it would become the CC's corporation. "Your incorporation" was rhetorical - what I meant was the incorporation of the Tennessee pages by the current CCs/volunteers. >*** Answer: No. However Tim, you could withdraw your Hamilton/James >pages and create a new system, or join an already existing site like >"Tennessee Genealogy and History." Actually you didn't answer my question. What is your proposal for CCs that refuse to go along with an incorporated project that tried to supercede the USGenWeb/TNGenWeb project rules? They would have pages that followed the Project's guidelines, so how could you kick them out? It would seem that the pages that would be removing themselves from the USGenWeb Project would be the TN pages that decide to incorporate IF they try to tell CCs that don't go along with incorporation that they have to leave. So maybe instead of my pulling my sites you could pull your's? Then there'd be a split TN project. I can't believe that this is the goal of this issue but it may be the effect. >If you become the new USGenWeb NC, you could lead a fight to have us and >the KSGenWeb, Inc. thrown out of national. I'm not leading any fight, plan, conspiracy to have anyone thrown out of national. I think that the actions of those parties will define their own role themselves. If they decide by their actions either overtly or covertly to disassociate from the Project then that is their decision. >> >> I believe the National Project is moving in the direction of internal state >> controls as it has basically always been. It is trying to set up or lead >> in the direction of setting up some sort of grievance procedures for those >> who come into conflict with state guidelines. >> >> Why bring up this issue now? > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Why not bring up the issue now? What are you afraid of? Why, because their are enough issues on the table already with national elections and bylaws. I'm not afraid of your bringing up this issue, but I do think it could have been timed better. If the TN CCs decide to vote on incorporation for whatever benefits they think that may offer then that's fine. But to add this issue in now seems to be a timed effort to confuse the CCs into voting for it either with scare tactics or misinformation about either national's intent or some other supposed threat. >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Why not wait to see how the National Project >> gets thru the election process and see if the bylaws pass before going > on this route? >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >There are two reason why we should not wait: > >1. The proposed USGenWeb Bylaws may not pass. Yes, that is correct they may not pass. I've seen where Mr Smoot has asked that the bylaws be turned down. >The nonprofit aspects may be considerably weaken if this happens. What do you mean by this? We've been non profit for 2 years and plan to continue to be non profit - Free means non profit. The only way I can see this weakening is if some parties try to hijack the Project for either personal gain or try to change the nature of the Project but I believe that that would cause a general revolt and would fall in flames. >2. The proposed USGenWeb Bylaws may pass. To be charitable about those >bylaws, I will only say that they were created in a *undemocratic* >manner, they are full of flaws that would be hard to remedy, they do not >serve the CCs, and they are offered by self appoined leaders on a "take >it or leave it" basis. Yes, they might. Thank you for your 'insights' into democracy. The bylaws were proposed, published and asked for input from the members. After about a month of input (and I put this mildly) the committee took all the suggestions and rewrote the proposed bylaws. They are offered as an up or down vote. What pray tell is undemocratic about getting to vote on them? They could I suppose as Mr Smoot seems to think just have been imposed upon the CCs as could new leaders BUT the current leaders chose the correct path to move to a democratic process of election of leaders and voted upon bylaws. Yes, the bylaws may have things that some don't agree with BUT the bylaws themselves include methods to change them not just willy nilly but in a structured way. Would you have it any other way? >I could dissect those bylaws on a word for word, line for line basis, >but this is the wrong list to do that. The USGENWEB-ALL-L is the place, >however MANY folks did write to that list about the flaws in the >proposed bylaws but were ignored. Now that the vote is ongoing, the die >is cast. I beg to differ. Just because everyone didn't get their way doesn't mean that they were ignored. The die is cast only in that the bylaws are up to be voted upon either up or down. IF you don't agree with them then by all means vote against them. However, if they do not pass and some candidates that have not promised to hold elections a year from now get elected then there will be no protection for the CCs. I believe and would hope that the new elected Board would take the first few months to review the Bylaws, if passed, to see what could be added before next year to correct some of the obvious errors you and others seem to have problems with. >In any case, the issue here is the proposed incorporation of the >TNGenWeb as a state nonprofit corporation. Not the proposed USGenWeb >Project Bylaws. That may be true but what benefits will the proposed incorporation give the CCs that they don't have now with the USGenWeb/TNGenWeb Projects? However, the proposed bylaws do have an effect on TNGenWeb and so are just as important a subject as the one listed here. >As this seems to be the end of the questions, color me gone. I don't have a color for gone other than clear which you don't seem to be... :) Timothy S Stowell email - tstowell@mccallie.org Chattanooga, TN Candidate for National Coordinator USGenWeb Project - http://www.rootsweb.com/~ndgenweb/elec NorthDakotaGenWeb State Coordinator - http://www.rootsweb.com/~ndgenweb