In a message dated 7/1/99 10:26:51 AM EST, mzwahlen@wildcatblue.com writes: << Are they planning on charging for all postings or just the classified ones? >> At this time it is just the classifieds. And they don't exactly say that they will charge, just that they reserve the right to. Thanks for all of your kind comments about me and "our" pages. Let me go a bit further here. In the past few weeks Rootsweb has been making some waves and noise about what they might and might not do. They have created a page for every county in the United States. The page for Union County links to my page. That's OK and actually I'm glad they gave me a link. But their page is a bunch of message boards. A place for you to submit wills, queries, obits, bible records and so on. Once submitted the stuff you send is archived by Rootsweb. Rootsweb is FOR PROFIT. They can sell the stuff people post with them if they choose. Where as TnGenWeb is registered as NON PROFIT. We are not allowed to charge for anything. If you will notice on pages that you all have submitted and allowed me to put on the web, there is a notice that gives copyright to who sent it in. If at any time somebody gets mad at Chip all they have to do is say "Chip you're an idiot remove my page". Bam it's gone. I do not claim to own anything anyone sends me. I am very particular about this. I feel like Rootsweb is graying the border between Rootsweb and the USGenWeb Project. Rootsweb claims to be the biggest and they are selling product based on that claim. They house most of the USGenWeb, take us away from Rootsweb and what do they have left? Some stuff they have archived that people sent in? Did they explain to these people that they might one day sell their information? How many of these people sent things in knew the difference between Rootsweb and USGenWeb? What will eventually happen to the Union County TnGenWeb? Nothing that anyone will notice. One day I may get really cheesed off and move my site off of Rootsweb. Rootsweb may say "Hey Chip you have us all wrong" and convince me of it. The TnGenWeb may get it's own dedicated server space. Or most likely... I will move it one day to my own server at Maynardville.Com. I will always have a Union County page, or see to it that someone takes it over when I'm too old or nutty to continue. Bottom line, I want Rootsweb to better explain their position while marketing their product. Tell people up front when they submit things to these boards that they are For Profit. And maybe better explain the difference between Rootsweb and us. I'm not saying Rootsweb is doing anything wrong. I just want people to know that there is a difference between Rootsweb and USGenWeb. While I'm on the subject of being nutty, a local paper did an article on me this week. Picture and all! I look like a freak in the picture though. The article was about Maynardville.Com. If you haven't seen it in a while drop by. Check out my idiotic editorials. You may never think of me the same again. Chip Union County TnGenWeb http://www.tngenweb.org/union Maynardville.Com http://www.maynardville.com P.S. Lets see how many of you read this whole letter. If you want to see my picture (not the one in the paper) go to: http://www.maynardville.com/me