Forwarded as requested by USGenWeb Project National Coordinator, Tim Stowell. Tina _________ Subj: [STATE-COORD-L] Census Project(s) Date: 3/6/00 3:14:07 AM Eastern Standard Time From: tstowell@chattanooga.net (Tim Stowell) Reply-to: STATE-COORD-L@rootsweb.com To: STATE-COORD-L@rootsweb.com In early January I sent the following note to both Census Projects personnel: First a bit of background. On 8/31/99, I wrote to Ron Eason, Connie Burkett, John Jacoby and Maggie Zimmerman asking them to be members of a team effort to resolve the census division. I asked each member "to give a brief overview of how you 'see' the Census project being organized in the future." Looking over those first answers, I came up with the following items (my comments in parenthesis): - Having a standardized process of qualifying transcribers (I took this to mean that just because someone volunteered - they don't actually get to transcribe without agreeing to certain items and/or having the knowledge of how to do the transcription) - Answering questions of transcribers (answering questions of volunteers in a timely manner) - Consistent Appearance (for each set of files for a given census - all the files would have the same look) - State Assignment pages - that these be updated in a timely manner - so that would be volunteers would know the availability or not of a certain census and for the public at large to see the progress made - Census Files Location - have them so that they would be included by Rootsweb's search engine AND where only the Census FM's would have access to them (ie - the Archives FMs would not mess with census transcriptions - nor 'correct' them. They could not touch them at all.) The discussion went to about mid-September when it lapsed due to other issues for all involved. ------------------ Now with all that said - I move back just a tad further - for those of you not involved a year or so ago - The whole issue that we have today was I believe over a clash between two personalities who had differing ideas of how the Census transcriptions and their storage and presentation be handled. One of the major issues was that the Census folk have control of their own directories without the Archives FM's for x county/state messing with the files. ----------------- Now fast forwarding to the time frame of mid November, 1999 - Around 11/15, I asked Ron to remove Kay's name and address from the Census pages as her email address had bounced off the lists I maintain - so that folks would not write to an invalid address. I did not ask him to remove Holly Timm's name as the copyright holder of the page(s). I did ask that he either add Linda Lewis as founder of the Census project OR change the date of founding to the time frame when Kay set up the files elsewhere. At that time, speaking with Connie - he took over as head of that Census project. Then on 11/23/99, Sue Soden took it upon herself to try to get the ball rolling again by calling Linda Lewis to see if some agreements could come about. As published elsewhere they came up with a couple of agreed upon items - but lacking a consensus from other members of the management team that Sue was speaking for - these items were set aside. Since Ron had not been consulted, as head of the Census group he is working with. With minor talking back and forth - things cooled until around mid-December when Maggie in answering a note from Ron regarding some of the issues announced a new directory for the census transcriptions to go in: ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/state/county/census/fedcens/year - a place where only Census folk would have write access and Archivists for the states would not have access (thus taking care of one of the major issues above). On or around 12/11/99, Connie posted to the group that Rootsweb was going about the business of setting these directory structures up. She reiterated this on 12/21 and spoke of moving files from both census projects to these new directories. Now, things speed up as somewhere in the time frame of 12/22/99 - 12/25/99, Rootsweb personnel go ahead and make the directory redirect changes. I believe it could have been better handled but since it was not - it should not be the major stumbling block. ------------------- Please let us step back to the time frame of 12/11/99 - 12/21/99 - and go from there. The Bylaws state that there is to be one census project - let's work together to make it so. Let's return to the enthusiasm shown in the notes of that pre-holiday time. The major issue of controlled separate directories has been solved. The issues regarding who does what and other issues can be solved now or later. The main thing is to get the directory pages updated and the files combined in the new directories. Please remember that to do otherwise slows down the process of transcription, continues to confuse potential transcribers and the public in general. We owe it to these folk to move forward not on some personal agenda but to do this for our fellow researchers. This is a team effort. There is much to do. Please join me in moving this project forward. I stand ready to listen to your comments and your concerns so that we may cement this project. Thanks for your time, Tim Stowell National Coordinator USGenWeb Project