Thanks for responding, Bill.

wgr wrote:
>
> I will need some convincing (+ an email from your LocSec) before I consider
> this email a valid entry representing the true wishes of Minnesota Mensa.
> to wit ...

> 1. no email rec'd from LocSec DeDe Tredinnick

Not surprising. There's been a serious lack of leadership (and
leadership ethics) in the last half year or so.


> 2. URL listed below is NOT the one listed in the September 2002 Bulletin
> directory, the list of local group websites sent to me by the N.O. six weeks
> ago or the one listed on AML's local group pages, namely
> http://www.mnmensa.org/

Well, the lists are in error these days.


> 3. verbiage on below website, e.g., "the former and future authentic website
> of Minnesota Mensa," "the malfeasance of our board of directors"

My understanding is that the content and presentation of websites are
the province of the judges. And I've moved the "malfeasance" references
to a new (non-Mensa) area dedicated to documenting it.


> 4. "per signed agreement" statement below

You will find said statement at
http://www.millcityrecords.com/mndensa/agreement.htm. You'll note that
item 5 says "Jason will be appointed AG Webmaster, running parallel with
Al as Mnmensa webmaster." You'll also see that this was agreed to *and
signed* by both Acting LocSec Paul Jensen and me.


> 5. the fact that you waited until late at night on the day of the deadline
> to entry; as I write this, it is impractical to call DeDe to confirm your
> entry

Actually, I had forgotten it entirely, until my computer popped up a
reminder.


> 6. the mnmensa site contains timely information such as the March calendar
> of activities, i.e., it looks current; your site does not contain a March
> calendar or any detailed list of activities

http://www.millcityrecords.com/mnmensa/calendar.htm looked current and
up-to-date when I went to bed last night, and still looks OK now.
Perhaps you were looking at a cached copy.


> 7. the copyright notice on the official AG 2003 site homepage contains a
> hyperlink to the mnmensa site

It's interesting that Jason could come up with a working hyperlink at
all. <g>


> 8. the AG website lists Jason Schmitz as Minnesota's webmaster, someone you
> refer to as "utterly incompetent" on your homepage


(It's not "my" homepage, it's Minnesota Mensa's. I am the original
Webmaster, from 4/30/1998, when I first created and took the site live,
to the present. Feel free to contact anyone who has judged websites
during the last few years to look at
http://www.millcityrecords.com/mnmensa/ -- they'll tell you, yep, I
remember that site, it's definitely Minnesota Mensa's.)

Jason is merely listing himself as webmaster on pages he did.

Let's see if I can give you a real fast capsule history -- this Jason (a
recent transfer-in) was originally invited to develop web pages for the
AG, and then proceeded to name a Mensa-related site "ag2003.com" instead
of ".org", registered it to himself instead of our group, had no privacy
policy, browsers enabled to reject porn/violence wouldn't display it,
was unreadable in Netscape, and graphics that were supposed to match
didn't.

As a crowning glory, he misspelled "museum" three times on one page.
Who gets allowed into Mensa without knowing the proper spelling of such
a simple and relevant word? And he actually published that page -- too
dumb and/or arrogant to even use a spell-checker.

After I pointed out these things to the board, and refused to link to
these AG pages that were a total embarrassment to Mensa, the AG chair
(that had allowed this stuff in the first place) orchestrated a "kill
the messenger" vendetta that actually handed over mnmensa.org to this
incompetent. His first move was to put the site on a different server
and destroy every single page on our 4-1/2-year-old website.
Accompanied by a new page with a smirking "First of all, you'll find
that if you have bookmarks for pages in the Minnesota Mensa website they
will no longer work." And he lacks the skills to restore the hundreds
of pages he trashed. Things went downhill from there.

The written and signed agreement cited above was the result of Acting
LocSec Paul Jensen taking steps to correct this situation. Some members
of the board still want to play politics and games; I am in the process
of whipping up such publicity for this that they will likely decide it's
not worth it.

In the meantime, I simply moved our site, with those hundreds of pages,
to where Jason couldn't tamper with it, notified all the search engines,
have kept it up-to-date (and expanded some sections), am working on a
new design (that DeDe asked me to do), and there you have it.


> if you were to call DeDe in the next hour and five minutes and have her send
> me an email before midnight Pacific time stating that the URL below is
> Minnesota Mensa's official website (and otherwise meeting PRP guidelines),
> that would make for different circumstances. if she is unavailable, try
> your Vice LocSec. even if that occurs, in light of these circumstances, I
> will still want to confirm with the N.O. on Monday that the below URL is
> that of the official website of Minnesota Mensa and that you are their
> webmaster.

As I mentioned above, you can see the agreement I signed with the Acting
LocSec last August. That restored me as Webmaster and I've been
proceeding accordingly.

All I've done is to do "my part" to enter our website for judging. I
just think it'd be a shame if a hassle between a couple leaders and
their Webmaster meant that our website was not able to get in the
judging this year.

Al

--

Al Heigl, Webmaster

Mill City Records
P.O. Box 177
Northfield Minnesota 55057-0177
507-663-6090
(Professional Proofreading,
Web Site Work using FrontPage 2002)
http://www.millcityrecords.com/webwork/