IrelandGenWeb Project (IGW) TM was founded March 20, 1996.

AKA

The Ireland Genealogy Projects (IGP) TM
Policies and Procedures

These guidelines were patterned after the WorldGenWeb and the USGenWeb projects. The IGP team approach to managing this project is short on rules and long on common sense. As adults and as dedicated genealogists, the team will apply common sense to resolve issues not spelled out herein. If you have questions, please Contact Site Admin

Section I: Project Name, Trademarks and Copyrights:

A.   Official project name is The Ireland Genealogy Projects, IGP TM. 

B.   Protected older project names and acronyms are IRGenWeb, IGW TM used Mar 20 to Sept 28, 1996; IrelandGenWeb, IGW TM  used from Sept 28, 1996 to Dec 31, 2001. Those names/acronyms may be used with permission by project members only.

C.   County names follow the USGenWeb Project naming patterns for Federal, State and County projects. IrelandGenWeb and Ireland Genealogy Projects websites may use the XXGenWeb naming pattern, as in DublinGenWeb, or may use the county name as in County Dublin, County Tyrone, etc.

Section II: Purpose:

A.  We are a group of volunteers working together to maintain county websites for Ireland on the Internet that provide free access to records in the public domain for researchers in Ireland. We are a non-profit volunteer and democratic organization.

Section III: Project Structure and Administration:

A.  The basic project structure is: 1.  Thirty two County Coordinators; 2. Management Team composed of members; Four County Coordinators ( CCs ) plus the National Coordinator ( NC ). Management Team vacancies are filled by volunteers.

B.  County Coordinators communicate issues to the Management Team or National Coordinator (NC). Decisions on changes that need to be made are done by vote of the Management Team with NC voting only to break tie votes.

C.  Current Management Team are:

   Christina Hunt
   Elizabeth Haren
   Betsy Webber,  (Chaplain)
   Barb Lavin        (Welcome Hostess)
   Don Kelly         (National Coordinator)

Special business requiring a vote or amendment to rules, are passed by a simple majority vote by the Management Team. The NC will announce changes over the IGP-CC-L list.

Special Committees for special purposes can come and go as needed. A Chairperson
for a special committee will be a volunteer from within the membership, approved by the Management Team.

Section IV: Future elections are not mandated, but are herein provided for:

A. After Jan 1, 2002, by simple majority will of the membership, an election may be called to elect a new NC. This provision gives everyone an opportunity to participate at every level of the IGP project.   

Section V: Duties of Coordinators:

A. Each level in the project is coordinated by one individual, or in some cases, co-hosted by two individuals. The duties for each coordinator level are briefly outlined below by title, County Coordinator, Special Projects Coordinator, or Welcome Hostess, etc. Additional duties of each are defined by need.

B. 

    1. CC coordinates and manages a county website to project standards.

    2. SPC manages a special project, ( census, etc. ) recruits transcriber volunteers.

    3. CP as needed chairs a special committee as needed, like an election for example.

    4. Welcome Host/Hostess is a CC who mentors and trains new county coordinators.

Section VI: Project Standards for format of web pages:

 A. County Coordinators have great latitude in site design. There are a couple of rules dictated by common sense.

B. Websites must be family friendly, no gambling logos, etc. Each index page must be prominently identified with the project name and project logo.

C. Example: Title of page is County Leitrim, Ireland. Below that identify the project, "This website is proudly associated with Ireland Genealogy Projects"

D. In addition, display a second project logo somewhere on the page.

E. Each county webpage will support a query system, if only by link.

F. The following elements are highly encouraged on all IGP project websites. Mandatory elements are highlighted in blue text.

Section VII: Ownership and Copyright

A.  Materials donated to a county or special project website, i.e., transcription of databases, etc., remain the property of the submitter. No copyrighted materials shall be posted to a website  without prior written approval of the authors or copyright holders. If you are unsure of copyright status, best to err on the side of caution and not display the information online.

B. To protect the IGP project from  copyright infringement, each County Coordinator shall keep a permissive file in which to keep written permission from their submitters to display specified copyrighted materials on their website.

C. Copyrighted materials used on county webpage cannot be moved from one site to another website without written permission from the submitters.

D. The County Coordinator (CC) or Special Projects Coordinator (SPC) holds the copyright to the design of their website and material researched and posted by them to their websites. Should a coordinator leave the project, to maintain project continuity, we encourage former CCs to pass full project websites to the next coordinator. In that case, overall copyright goes to the new coordinator who will continue to protect their submitter copyrights.

E. Coordinators who leave for any reason have the legal right to take a copy of their personal copyrighted works with them. The new coordinator will then be responsible to protect prior copyrights year by year. This will insure that valuable work and time is not lost rebuilding looted websites.

F. The copyright law observed by this project shall be the  Berne Treaty of 1978.

Section VIII: Mailing Lists:

A. We encourage the keeping of County, Project and special mailing lists. Mailing lists are limited, but maintain one for your county if you can, or ask another CC to admin the list for you. Mailing lists are an important source of material for County web pages, and the first line of influence between CC one on one with list subscribers. Such contact is vitally important. 

Section IX: Removal of Coordinators: This rarely happens, but must be provided for:

A. If a County Coordinator is removed or resigns from the project, the project page will be put up for adoption. In the event the project website is not surrendered by the CC upon leaving, the website will be delinked and a new county web page will be put up.

B. The incoming CC will agree to protect and diligently maintain the copyrights of the outgoing coordinator and the submitters. This means among other duties that copyright notices will be updated on the website every year.

C. Grounds for removal include failing to keep websites updated at reasonable intervals, failure to maintain identity of web pages, failure to cooperate as a project team, disruption of the project. Other reasons can be considered on a case to case basis. 

D. No coordinator shall be removed without due cause. Order to remove will come from the majority vote of the management team after which the NC will be directed to de-link the site and put another webpage in it's place and advertise the new page for adoption.

Section X: Disputes among volunteers:

A. Disputes among volunteers will be resolved by the NC, but NC cannot set on the hearing team if he or she is a party to the dispute.

B. If the NC is involved in the dispute, a fifth member at large will be added to the board to make a majority vote possible and the NC will set out and not participate.

Section XI: General

These rules have been placed here to promote ideas and open discussion.  From time to time we will discuss on the CC list other issues, changes in the rules, etc. We would like to see changes if necessary proposed once a year and passed by 2/3rd majority vote of the management team, but as a new project, we may find it necessary during the first year to adjust these rules on the fly. 

Any member of the IGP project can propose a rule change. I therefore propose that after the year ending Dec 31, 2002, thereafter a 2/3ds majority vote by the members will pass or fail an amendment to these rules.

END

Copyright and Trademark protection are based on first use, first copyright and first trade mark, and continued maintenance of copyright on project web pages since March 20, 1996.

Project names and acronyms listed herein are protected by preemptive copyright or trade marks and may not be used by other projects or project members without prior written permission of the original owners of the copyrights and trademarks. Original owners mean those who founded the project who joined the team before 1997.

© 2000-2006. The Ireland Genealogy Projects Web Project et al TM

© The original IRGenWeb and IrelandGenWeb Projects, IGW TM founded 1996

World Rights are Reserved for the above named projects.