USGenWeb Project Archives File Managers
Hello Volunteers! It's great to have you aboard and I hope these pages will help you understand "the Archives" and
exactly what we do. If you ever have any questions, I'm available to help and I check my email daily unless I'm deathly
ill or out of range of Verizon's network. If you do not have the time to manage a county, please don't adopt one. If you
can no longer manage the county you have, please be considerate of the project and give it back to me.
The purpose of the Archives is to store TEXT TRANSCRIPTIONS of historical or genealogical documents. We DO
NOT store scans or PDFs. You may upload these items to the archive_html folder temporarily but they must be transcribed
in a timely manner (preferably within 30 days). This is where you can put your volunteers to
work. We DO STORE headstone photographs in the archive_html folder but they must have a text file containing a
description and the URL of the photograph in the archive_ftp folder. If you do not want to transcribe these items,
please consider sending them to the TXGenWeb county coordinator for your county to be stored there. [See exceptions on
the Guidelines page.]
Basic Requirements
In order to stay in good standing
- NEVER share the password for the Archives with ANYONE, not even each other,
- you must be subbed to the TEXAS Archives mailing list,
- on the first of each month, you must post a note to the TEXAS Archives mailing list,
- your email address must be correctly posted on the main index of each of your counties,
- if your index page[s] contain[s] a "last update", it must not be older than six months,
- if the State File Manager contacts you directly, you must answer within 10 days,
- your pages must contain the correct information and must not contain disallowed information,
- your index page must contain the correct link to the Texas USGenWeb Archives,
- your index page must contain the correct logos and links to USGenWeb, TXGenWeb and the USGenWeb Archives,
Correct Format for Index Pages
The index pages are simply a list of the files in the ftp folder, NOT a duplicate of the TXGenWeb county site. The
Archives is NOT part of TXGenWeb but is affiliated with it and we are not in competition with it.
- Your index pages should be correctly labeled with the name of the project and the county. The correct name for
USGenWeb is "The USGenWeb Project". The correct name for the Archives is "The USGenWeb Project Archives"; it isn't "the
Archives Project" although it is A project. Contrary to the logo displayed on the state pages and my county pages for a
very long time, you should use this format:
The USGenWeb Project Archives, Texas
- Your index pages should not include any other off-site links EXCEPT a link to the TXGenWeb County sister-site. This
includes government offices, societies, libraries and/or museums.
- The index should contain a link to EVERY file in your ftp folder with a date, file size and contributor's name. (An
email address for the contributor is desirable but not mandatory.) If you have copied something from a book or another
site, YOU are the contributor; the book or other site contains or is the AUTHOR or the REPOSITORY. Be sure there is no
copyright violation!
Correct Format for Text Files
- A short, concise title should be on the first line of each file (ie Death of John Smith, Rusk County, Texas).
- The heading should be formatted thusly:
***********************************************************
Submitted by: Submitter name <submitter email>
Date: Date of upload
Copyright. All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/tx/county/countytoc.htm
***********************************************************
- Remove all white space at the end of the file.
- Files should not be wider than modern desktop computer displays, wordwrap to 120 characters or so.
- Be sure your contributors understand that their contribution is PERMANENT. We do not remove information from the
Archives unless it's proven to be false, malicious, libelous, or copyrighted by a different entity.
