Colorado GenWeb - History & Genealogical Resources

	Welcome to The Colorado GenWeb Project In memory of Lee Zion CoGenWeb 1996-2008
	Coordinator Rules and Regulations

This page was created to help new comers to the COGenWeb project. Hopefully some of your questions will be answered here.

Where possible, there are links to other pages where you may find answers to your questions below. For the most part, we have tried to answer the questions to the best of our ability.

Please, note , volunteer means that you would not be paid or expect payment for what you do.
All information that has been put onto the COGenWeb pages has been done by volunteers. They are in no way compensated for the work they do, other than the "Thank you's" they receive from people they have been able to help.

CODE OF CONDUCT

We, the COGenWeb Project volunteers, adhere to a strict code of conduct in our dealings with the public and with each other.
We refrain from using any profanity on our web pages, in our emails, or on any list we may be on. We do not promote pornography.
We do not use derogatory statements at any time. If we have a problem with anyone, we try to be as polite as possible, whether dealing with the public or with another volunteer.
Whenever we have problems that cannot be resolved, we go to the SC or ASC for assistance.

This is who we are, and who we intend to keep being

Ways you can volunteer to help!

                                              There are many ways to volunteer to help on the COGenWeb Project:

                                                                                       Adopt a County
1. Check the County Table of Contents. This lists all Counties and their availability.

2. Once you have checked for a County of Interest, take a look at Coordinator Requirements.

3. Send along a note to either the State Coordinator or the Assistant Coordinator with your request.

                                                                                         Information Gathering
You can volunteer to gather information from your county, or counties close to you. If you do not have internet access, you can get copies and mail them to the county coordinator via snail mail. Just contact the county coordinator for that particular county.

                                                        Do lookups from local sources or from written material
Volunteer to do research in public records that are available in the area where you live, or from books, etc, that you have available.

To Volunteer for "Information Gathering", Transcribing, or to do Lookups, Please contact either the Individual County Coordinator or one of the Assistant Coordinators.

Special Projects

We have several Special Projects in the works that can use some help: Take a look at the items below, they may be of interest.

We have need of volunteers to obtain census records from different areas, old photographs of places and/or people of Colorado. And we have the need for people that can do translations.

Transcribers
The Census Project, Tombstone Project, and the Digital Archives Project can always use transcribers.

Typing
County Coordinators are constantly finding new material to post to their county pages, but find they could use some help in getting the material typed up and onto the computer for coding and posting to their pages. You could volunteer to type the material into the computer (at your home, and email the file to the coordinator, that way it is already on the computer, then the coordinator can code it and upload it to the web).

Walk a cemetery
County Coordinators are always interested in receiving information for their county. You could walk your local cemetery recording the names and dates from the headstones and noting the location of the headstone (plot/gravesite) and submit them to the coordinator for posting.
These can also be used in the Tombstone Project.
A suggestion: Some people use their local Girl Scout or Boy Scout troops to do this.

                                                                             Definitions & Requirements

The word Volunteer means many things to many people, and is used in different ways to mean something other than the standard definition found in the dictionary. In this case, within the USGenWeb and COGenWeb Projects, it means we "agree" to coordinate information for the County we have opted to host, with the only gratuity being the satisfaction of helping others.

Many of us are coordinating Counties where we have connections. This is fine, but do not let distance be a detriment to your willingness to Volunteer, many of us live far away from Colorado, but we have ties or a vested interest in the State.

When you volunteer to coordinate a County for any of the State Projects within the USGenWeb, you do so knowing it is for the USGenWeb Projects, and the many visitors to that County. The USGenWeb does have certain requirements that have to be on your County Pages. States can, and do, impose additional requirements and guidelines. To Volunteer to coordinate a County in the COGenWeb, it must be with the understanding that you adhere to these Requirements and guidelines.

                                                                            USGenWeb Requirements

Please pay very close attention to the Copyright Policy and the USGenWeb By-Laws.

Basic Requirements

State Mail List
(The official State Mail List) The List is a closed one, which means the SC (or Asst.. SC) will have to subscribe you to the list. We use gmail for our Coordinators Mail List.

The policy of the COGenWeb, for adopting counties is as follows.

New Coordinators - 1 county to begin with. Only after a reasonable length of time can there be any additional adoptions. The only exception to this would be if they have Counties in other States, and are familiar with html and the USGW.

Additional Adoptions - To be considered only if the Coordinator is established in the COGenWeb. No one coordinator will have more than 4 counties. 5 will be considered only on a case to case basis.

Graphics will have to be in the standard formats, .gif, .jpg (.jpeg), that all browsers can view them.

County Site Content
Many of us came to this State, or the USGenWeb, looking for our ancestors. Sometimes we are lucky enough to be able to adopt the very County we are/were searching in. It is understandable that we would want to further our search for our own ancestors while coordinating that very county. However, your primary function as a County Coordinator is to find local data and format it in such a way as to be available to visiting researchers.

We welcome members of Historical and / or Genealogical Societies that wish to host a County in the COGenWeb Project. Links to the Genealogical or Historical Society are permitted.

Main Page Requirements - Graphics and Required Links

COGenWeb Logo must be at the top of the main [or first ] page of your County.

We are seeking a new CoGenWeb Logo - If you have graphic skills, please consider designing one.

Optional Graphics

One of the USGenWeb Logos must be located on your main page. Other optional logos and variations in size and background for this are on the USGenWeb Offical Logos page.

Also, there is the optional Colorado outline map which you can get and color in your County.

County Coordinators Name and Email
It is very nice to visit a site and know right away who is the County Coordinator, it is suggested that you put a short paragraph of introduction at the top of the page.

If you are worried about spam and your inbox getting clogged, you can opt to use a web-based email address: There are quite a few that work very well. gmail, yahoo, and hotmail to name a few. Additionally, you can put an image of your email addy in place of a clickable link.

You should be courteous, quick to respond and assist your visitors to the best of your ability. You aren't required to do research for your visitors but you do need to point them in the direction of finding answers.

Method of contacting the SC or ASC (the email addy written out or a text image )(this is a strongly suggest from USGW, not just my personal preference)

There are to be no money requests posted (no unnecessary advertisements--if you are on GeoCities or some other server that requires an ad on it, I am NOT talking about them! they are considered necessary) (also, if you have someone that does research, and charges a fee for services, please make sure there is a notation that the person is an independent researcher and not affiliated with USGW or COGenWeb.)

                                                  Required Links

COGenWeb Index Page http://www.cogenweb.com/

USGenWeb State Index http://www.usgenweb.org/

                                            Strongly Suggested Links

USGenWeb Archives Index http://www.usgwarchives.org/

COGenWeb Archives Index http://www.usgwarchives.org/co/cofiles.htm

Colorado Grave Stone Project http://coloradogravestones.org/ NEW URL

                                                Optional Links

Colorado County Evolution http://www.stanwyck.com/cogenweb/cocounties.html

The Colorado Migration Project http://history.sloco.net/COMig/

Colorado Biography Project http://history.sloco.net/COBio/

Colorado Photo Project http://www.cogenweb.com/photos/

COKids Project http://www.rootsweb.com/~cokids/

Colorado Military Pages http://www.cogenweb.com/military/

Guidelines for Archive Submission http://www.usgwarchives.org/co/guidelns.htm

WorldGenWeb http://www.worldgenweb.org/

Query Page

There must be a query page, and linked as such. A clearly worded link to view a 'Query', and a clearly worded message [usually e-mail) to post a 'Query'. (If people don't know where to post a query, or where to view them, they can't get much benefit from the site] [See "How to write a Query]

All pages - Link all pages in your site to your index page.

Updates
Your County pages need to be updated at least monthly, and noted so at the bottom of your pages (this page last updated). Though it would be very acceptable if they were updated weekly. We would hope the queries would be that frequent anyway. Even a very slow county gets at least one per month. If there are more than one per month, I would hope they would be posted as soon as possible.

Page Evaluation-Sweeps
As new county pages are put up they will be checked by the State Coordinator or Assistant State Coordinator for the required elements and to be sure your links work.

We will let you know when they have visited your page. If there are any problems with links or if any of the required elements missing. We let you know so you can make any changes or corrections that are needed. Post a message to the Colorado County Coordinators mail list or to the State Coordinator when your pages are ready.

We will also periodically check the County pages for the same types of problems. When we do we will send you and email to let you know what needs to be fixed. If the problems are not corrected in a reasonable time frame, you will be contacted again.

Prohibitions

Non-Profit
The USGenWeb Projects, of which the COGenWeb Project is a part of, is a Non-Profit entity. In other words we put this information up for FREE access by all, 24 hrs. a day, and 7 days a week. No one will be charged for any of the efforts by the Coordinators, as hosts to a county in the COGenWeb Project. If you should come across one that is charging for access to page, I would like to know about it.
no money requests (this does not mean you cannot ask for reimbursement for your out of pocket expenses, like copying & mailing fees, etc.) This should be noted on the lookups page, not on the main page.

Copyright Infringement
Our goal is to provide free information but we must do it legally. No matter how tempting it is to upload useful data to our county pages, we must avoid copyright infringement. Copyright is ownership of the author, creator or publisher of a given work. Copyright gives the owner the right to benefit from his/her labor.
To avoid copyright infringement, follow these four basic rules:

Anything dated 1923 and after is protected by copyright. There are no exceptions.

Only facts can be shared

Any use of a work that diminishes its market value constitutes copyright infringement.

Obtain written authorization from the copyright holder to avoid committing copyright infringement.

Copyright Policy
http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/copyright.shtml

Profanity, pornography and political icons and statements on one of our pages.

Thank you for visiting the COGenWeb Project!

State Coordinator;

Gail Meyer Kilgore

Assistant State Coordinator:

Colleen Pustola

Colorado GenWeb Site

All Rights Reserved for COGenWeb

All Content Copyright © 1996-2009 COGENWEB

USGenWeb Project and rights are limited to use on an official USGenWeb Project

This Site Updated: 05 January 2009

Martha A Crosley Graham

Web-Mistress