"IIGS™ is working for me? I sure can't see it!" "Unsubscribe me from this list."
There are many who are saying things like the above. And I must admit that many are right ... from their point of view. Most of those of that opinion cannot see all that is going on behind the IIGS™-INET-L list. Many are not even aware there are other lists where some IIGS™ discussions take place. And even those who know that something is going on, don't know the half of it! I certainly don't!! But I hear things. And I admit I 'weaseled' myself into the inner sanctums of IIGS™ so I could hear things. If you are truly interested, I recommend you do the same. But be careful. Someone will put you to work!!
There are also a vast number of quite interested individuals who would rather do genealogy itself than those things that support the doing of genealogy on-line. That's OK! There are times when I would rather input records or check out a census at the local library. I wish I had more time to browse the Web and see what is actually out there. If I were only interested in what IIGS™ could do for me, I might find the IIGS™-INET-L list a bit irrelevant as the list is about structuring IIGS™ and not about the doing of genealogy itself. There are many other lists out there for the doing of genealogy. Just take a look at John Fuller's Genealogy Resources on the Internet. However, for IIGS™ to accomplish its goals to bring International genealogical data on-line, building an organization piece by piece is what must happen. And that is what the IIGS™-INET-L list is really about. Messages to that list are basically about organizing IIGS™.
Things are going on in IIGS™. Just watch the IIGS™ Web site grow. And read the articles in this and the last issue of the Newsletter about some of the IIGS™ Teams' activities. As vast as IIGS™ is projected to become, these are only beginnings. It will take time for each team to realize its objectives, and many teams have not yet reached a point in their work for IIGS™ to have a presence on the Web.
I run into others all the time doing something important for this or that IIGS™ Team. Even the number of teams has blossomed. My last count was 22 individually recognized teams. It has simply gotten more and more difficult to keep track of all that is going on in all the teams since busy people with busy lives are DOING things instead of talking about them. They haven't time to subscribe to all the IIGS™ lists and chatter away about every little nuance rippling through this vast, diverse group of individuals. And, when you stop and think about it a little, it really is not all that unusual for things to develop this way.
There is so MUCH to be done that we all should be grateful that the do-ers are "just doing" it. We should only need to remind the do-ers that they need to report, once in a while, just WHAT they have been doing. That sounds simplistic. It isn't. When a do-er has a choice to finish something he has been working on or break stride to write a report on what he has been doing, the do-er will always finish what he started because there are so many other things waiting for his attention. And when he is done with a task, he generally loses interest in the details. His work is done. Life is like that for the do-ers.
It is my personal opinion that the IIGS™ Newsletter should help the do-ers of this organization in that reporting-to-the-membership process by being more actively involved in gathering the facts about what the various Teams are doing. Instead of sending polite announcements that the Newsletter will publish articles written by other Teams' staff members, the Newletter Staff should aggressively investigate what the various teams are doing, prepare written reports on what they find going on, and then submit those reports to the affected Teams' leaders for review (to be sure the facts are correctly reported).
The Newsletter needs to position itself to go after the stories and not passively wait for the stories to come in neatly packaged fashion for publication. That is not to say that a "press release" from an IIGS™ Team would not be used. It only means that a more diverse group of IIGS™ Teams would get coverage if the Newsletter Staff actively researched what the various IIGS™ Teams were doing.
That is my proposal. This proposal has nothing to do with what was done in the past. And it will be up to the new editor to follow through on this proposal or come up with another method that the Newsletter might assist IIGS™ to meet its goals. As outlined in the Editor's Note, I hope this section will always feature an editorial concerning IIGS™. Those may be written either by a Team Leader (as an interview?) or other party interested in helping the IIGS™ organization grow.
Of course, if wishes were dollars........
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