TARWATER-L Archives

Archiver > TARWATER > 1999-11 > 0941942215


From: Mary Inglis <>
Subject: [TARWATER] Free web site space from RootsWeb
Date: Sat, 06 Nov 1999 18:36:55 -0800


The following is all about the free website offer made by RootsWeb. If you
have always wanted a webpage of your own, check this out. You can remove,
change, add to it it at any time.




RootsWeb Announces
Beta Test Of Unlimited Free Web Site Space




The Announcement
The Fine Print
Requesting A Freepages Account
Index of User's Webpages
Frequently Asked Questions



On October 7, 1999, RootsWeb started to provide
unlimited free Web site space to all
RootsWeb users. A user may maintain multiple Web sites
on RootsWeb at no charge,
each containing literally hundreds of megabytes of
material. The initial rollout of this
program is a beta test. We expect that problems will
arise and ask that you have patience
with us as we solve them.

To the best of our knowledge, this offer is
unprecedented in two ways. First, no major
Web space provider offers more than 25 megabytes of free
Web space. Second, each
RootsWeb webmaster may use such Web space to host
multiple Web sites, with each
such Web site located in a different section on
RootsWeb. For example, a user with
multiple interests may locate Web sites in different
RootsWeb communities, such as
genealogy, crafts, military history, etc., or locate
multiple Web sites in the same
community. Other sites may have one or both of these
features, but if they do, we have
not heard about it.

This offer is particularly aimed at encouraging our
users to post genealogical information
that, owing to its storage and bandwidth requirements,
has been prohibitively expensive
to bring on line. Examples include large collections of
photographs and scanned
documents. We are sure that you will come up with many
uses which we have not
considered. (We encourage you not to place GEDCOMs in
this Web space, as soon we
will announce a better GEDCOM posting and editing
solution.)

The Fine Print:

1.This is a beta test. We will change features of the
offering based upon your
feedback. You can expect that there will be
malfunctions, problems, delays, etc. in
this beta test. Please be understanding and please
provide your complaints and
suggestions for improvements to the RootsWeb
HelpDesk at
http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/help.cgi/

2.Commercial advertising banners will appear at the
top and, possibly, at the bottom
of each Web page. These banners will require no
programming by webmasters.
Simply upload your Web site to RootsWeb and the
banners will appear
automatically. Unlike free Web space provided by
other major Web space
providers, there will be no annoying interstitial
"popup" advertisements on your
Web site.

3.We will provide free Web space for any
non-commercial use that, in our sole
judgement, is not offensive to other RootsWeb users
(for example, pornography,
bomb formulas, excessively spicy recipes, any site
that makes fun of the
RootsWeb CEO, etc.). If you are interested in
locating a commercial Web site on
RootsWeb, please contact us at
and we will discuss other
arrangements.

4.Webmasters may locate their Web sites in whatever
RootsWeb communities they
feel are appropriate. We suggest that Webmasters
building Web sites that do not
obviously fit into any of the existing RootsWeb
interest area communities place
those Web sites in a miscellaneous area we will be
providing, and then move them
into appropriate interest area communities as such
communities form. RootsWeb
reserves the right, in its sole judgement, to
determine whether a Web site has been
located in an inappropriate community.

5.Webmasters may choose their own account names as
part of the registration
process. We will allocate account names on a first
come, first served basis.

6.At present, we cannot support non-rootsweb.com
domain names. For the
non-technical among us, this means that all account
names must end in
rootsweb.com.

7.Free Web space may be used only for publicly
accessible material and not for
online backup.

8.We ask that webmasters intending to use more than
100 megabytes of space
indicate the amount of space that they require so
that we can properly configure
their accounts. Please make a realistic estimate.
If you need more space later, we
will provide it.

Index of Users' Webpages

An index of the webpages our users have created, is
available at the address shown
below. Please check it often as new listings are
continually being added.

http://communities.rootsweb.com/free.html

Requesting A Freepages Account

To obtain your free Web space, please fill out the
request form at
http://cgi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/acctform.cgi (select
the "Freepages Account" option).
Please allow us up to two weeks to process your
request, as we expect an initial surge of
demand. We will process requests as quickly as possible
on a first come, first served
basis.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: What is the difference between homepages and
freepages?
Banners. The costs associated with hosting freepages is
offset by advertising revenues
we receive from the banners appearing on all freepages.
If you are a contributor at the
Sponsor Plus level or higher, one of your benefits is
having a homepage account.
Homepages are not bannered as a portion of your
contribution offsets the costs
associated with hosting your homepage (the balance goes
towards your other benefits, to
add new resources and tools for your use, to pay for
bandwidth and equipment, etc.).

Question: I filled out a request form, why didn't I get
a freepage account? Generally it is
because the wrong request form was selected -- you may
have been among those that
submitted a request using the option for a homepage
account (the first option on the
page) instead of a freepage account. If you requested a
homepage account, and you are
not a contributor at the Sponsor Plus level or higher,
your request would have been
turned down. You should resubmit your request, selecting
the "Freepages Account"
option. The request form is at
http://cgi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/acctform.cgi




Questions and comments about this page should be
directed to the RootsWeb Support
team. Please include the URL (address) of this page when
writing.


© RootsWeb.com, Inc.
Last updated on Monday, 11-Oct-1999 03:15:54
PDT

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