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Lawsuit claims Ancestry.com gets preferential access to New York public archives

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Re: Lawsuit claims Ancestry.com gets preferential access to New York public archives

#31

Post by Asparagirl »

privateSFacct wrote: post #28
Asparagirl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! That’s exactly what we’d like to know! Our lawsuit is asking the New York State Department of Health for copies of “all correspondence, e-mails, proposals, drafts, notes, agreements, contracts, meetings and calendar entries, phone logs, meeting minutes, budget items, receipts, vendorization forms or data, bids, evaluation materials, Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) records requests and their associated correspon…

Folks - this is what makes government nervous. You have irreplacable records, and then a group comes in and considers all the rules "stupid" and "silly" and calls the microfiche machine "magical". I don't think folks realize how risk averse government is. Literally, they probably use ONE brand of machine they KNOW works to deal with these records that go back over 100+ years. This is not some big conspiracy, this is…

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that we are a company or were bidding for a government contract. We are not and were not: governments are required to provide copies of public records like these, or else required to allow us access.

We’ve sued and won settlements in Freedom of Information Lawsuits like this one three times in the past four years (and won attorneys fees twice!), and currently have five more cases pending in various jurisdictions, both state and federal. Your apparent experiences as a paid or contracted vendor are not quite analogous to this situation.

Re: Lawsuit claims Ancestry.com gets preferential access to New York public archives

#32

Post by privateSFacct »

Asparagirl wrote: post #29
Spooky23 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a detailed cost estimate? New York government entities are required to use preferred source vendors (usually workshops for disabled people) for certain items when an item or service is available, including scanning. Preferred source vendors aren’t competitively bid and must be used by law. When I was in school, paper copies of fiche from the state archives cost like $1-1.50 per fiche. If you do some googl…

”Do you have a detailed cost estimate?” Indeed we do! Several pages, including methodology. Here you go: https://www.reclaimtherecords.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10... Just a quick sample: ”By way of background, our research would indicate the industry standard for fees for a job of this size – turning existing microfiche sheets into scanned digital images – would be approximately $3,000, not $152,000. This would in…

100% false, you literally cannot even write the RFP to bid a scanning job for $3,000.

This is classic from folks like this. They are always like, here - you do the work, it will only cost $3,000.

The state should seriously offer them this deal. You properly bid, contract, insure, fight the appeals, do all the specialized hiring, handle all the HR and disability and other claims and scan the 100 years of records for $3,000 while working weird hours with a unionized workforce.

Re: Lawsuit claims Ancestry.com gets preferential access to New York public archives

#33

Post by dogecoinbase »

privateSFacct wrote: post #24
dogecoinbase wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that circumstance, the state was able to grossly overcharge a private company for access to public records. I imagine that would also be worthwhile information to both that company's shareholders and voters in the state. How on earth are there so many people on HN defending this? It's clear that _something_ untoward happened, and somehow the bad actor is not-for-profit archivists?

"grossly overcharge"? Seriously - these tech companies have burn rates in the millions PER MONTH. I frankly wouldn't be surprised if ancestrery is doing over $1B per year. Please note - these are records that CAN NOT be lost by the state. Some shmucks who can't even afford $100K want to take possession of this stuff? Forget it. Seriously, the van crashed on the way to the cheap place that scans these, the van burned…

Seriously - these tech companies have burn rates in the millions PER MONTH. I frankly wouldn't be surprised if ancestrery is doing over $1B per year.

This is not about how much money "ancestrery" has to burn. I have also bid government jobs; almost none of the expenses you mention have anything to do with safely handling vital records. In fact, they are inefficiencies that the government is not legally permitted to pass along to records requestors.

I'm not sure what your dog in this fight is, but you clearly have one. I would certainly be curious to know what would make you think that records required to be legally accessible to the public should only be available to those with burn rates in the millions PER MONTH.

Re: Lawsuit claims Ancestry.com gets preferential access to New York public archives

#34

Post by Asparagirl »

privateSFacct wrote: post #32
Asparagirl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”Do you have a detailed cost estimate?” Indeed we do! Several pages, including methodology. Here you go: https://www.reclaimtherecords.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10... Just a quick sample: ”By way of background, our research would indicate the industry standard for fees for a job of this size – turning existing microfiche sheets into scanned digital images – would be approximately $3,000, not $152,000. This would in…

100% false, you literally cannot even write the RFP to bid a scanning job for $3,000. This is classic from folks like this. They are always like, here - you do the work, it will only cost $3,000. The state should seriously offer them this deal. You properly bid, contract, insure, fight the appeals, do all the specialized hiring, handle all the HR and disability and other claims and scan the 100 years of records for $…

Again, you seem to be under some misapprehension that we are a company or are “bidding” on a project. Please educate yourself about state Freedom of Information Laws or Sunshine Laws.

We appreciate hearing that our work is “impossible” from people like you, especially since we’ve been doing it very successfully for four years now, and have so far put over 25,000,000 records online for totally free public use. This includes acquiring and publishing millions of records in New York City alone: marriage license indices from two different agencies, voter lists, and so on...

And we did it at a very reasonable $35 or $37 per microfilm roll. Because that’s what the law requires.

And thanks to the generosity of the Internet Archive, we don’t even have any server storage bills.

Re: Lawsuit claims Ancestry.com gets preferential access to New York public archives

#35

Post by privateSFacct »

Asparagirl wrote: post #31
privateSFacct wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks - this is what makes government nervous. You have irreplacable records, and then a group comes in and considers all the rules "stupid" and "silly" and calls the microfiche machine "magical". I don't think folks realize how risk averse government is. Literally, they probably use ONE brand of machine they KNOW works to deal with these records that go back over 100+ years. This is not some big conspiracy, this is…

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that we are a company or were bidding for a government contract. We are not and were not: governments are required to provide copies of public records like these, or else required to allow us access. We’ve sued and won settlements in Freedom of Information Lawsuits like this one three times in the past four years (and won attorneys fees twice!), and currently have five mor…

You seem to be under the mistaken impression, that burdened under 100's (literally) of rules, the govt can do a one off special project like this for $3,000. Seriously, I've fought the goverment too, and won, on some stupid requirements that were explicitly revoked at higher levels of govt but hadn't filtered down.

That one issue (went through chain to their legal team, and back a few times) cost more than $3,000 of the governments time.

You are constantly making the claim that the government is charging 50x what it should cost. You are wrong. Period. I've paid a relative fortune to have the government run a select query on a database. And they still messed it up, I could probably have run it in 30 seconds.

If scanning records is something you do, then I would STRONGLY suggest rather than trying to get the government to figure out how to scan records, you, without calling the rules silly, develop some experience scanning the records yourself. If you offer to scan, with experience, insurance, good equipment etc and make the stuff available for free - you will be welcomed in many places.

Now you are suing because they gave you the records free that someone else either paid the govt to prepare (unlikely - that would have been a SLOW process) or prepared themselves and gave a copy to the government (which was probably not required)? I find that pathetic. NY did a good thing by having the first requestor make available a copy for others.

Re: Lawsuit claims Ancestry.com gets preferential access to New York public archives

#36

Post by privateSFacct »

Asparagirl wrote: post #34
privateSFacct wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% false, you literally cannot even write the RFP to bid a scanning job for $3,000. This is classic from folks like this. They are always like, here - you do the work, it will only cost $3,000. The state should seriously offer them this deal. You properly bid, contract, insure, fight the appeals, do all the specialized hiring, handle all the HR and disability and other claims and scan the 100 years of records for $…

Again, you seem to be under some misapprehension that we are a company or are “bidding” on a project. Please educate yourself about state Freedom of Information Laws or Sunshine Laws. We appreciate hearing that our work is “impossible” from people like you, especially since we’ve been doing it very successfully for four years now, and have so far put over 25,000,000 records online for totally free public use. This in…

If you are telling a government agency what it will cost them to do the work, you are "bidding" the project. Does that not make sense?

I don't understand why you want them to do the work. How is it more cost effective to have the government do the work then to just do it yourself?

I'll answer this question, it is not. I 100% guarantee that ancestry, if they brought in their own staff or standard partner to do this, paid a LOT less then whatever the goverment would have charged you.

And then you got things for free. And are suing over this.

Let me make a suggestion. Follow the ancestry model. Offer a free service to agencies, backed with some quality, and if you then give them even a hard drive with the images you will make them very very happy. Seriously.

On the other hand, if you tell them to do something they don't know how to do, and then sue them when they don't do it the way you want, you will be helping to make the world worse off.

I did look at the fiche count, I will say, that's a very small job. That's where you will most likely see the biggest cost difference between doing it yourself and having them do a one off.

Re: Lawsuit claims Ancestry.com gets preferential access to New York public archives

#37

Post by privateSFacct »

jhall1468 wrote: post #12
altitudinous wrote: post #10

"suspects". I did not read the article because of this. The internet slanders many based on only suspicion. I suspect that we are not alone in the universe. I suspect that Elvis might still be alive. But I have no proof. Get some proof. I'm not going to write some article stating Elvis is still alive and pass it off as fact.

The article explicitly states they are doing to get information as to how Ancestry was so promptly serviced, and for how much. They are trying to get some proof. That's the purpose of the lawsuit. You should try reading the articles from now on.

Dude, trying to get proof is not proof.

For all they know ancestry didn't even ask the state to do the work but did it for them for free, and then after doing the work themselves gave it to these guys (not required).

So no cost estimate needed, no fight about cost needed.

You've got one group demanding detailed costs estimates, demanding names of vendors (the government probably doesn't even have yet because they've not bid it yet).

You've got ancestry who shows up, willing to work for free, willing to give images back, with past experience.

Do we seriously want government to turn group #2 away and battle away with group #1?

Or do we want govt to let group #2 do the work, no battle on price needed, then give the items to group #1. After exercising some common sense, the government is now going to be sued by these guys.

Re: Lawsuit claims Ancestry.com gets preferential access to New York public archives

#38

Post by toomuchtodo »

privateSFacct wrote: post #36
Asparagirl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you seem to be under some misapprehension that we are a company or are “bidding” on a project. Please educate yourself about state Freedom of Information Laws or Sunshine Laws. We appreciate hearing that our work is “impossible” from people like you, especially since we’ve been doing it very successfully for four years now, and have so far put over 25,000,000 records online for totally free public use. This in…

If you are telling a government agency what it will cost them to do the work, you are "bidding" the project. Does that not make sense? I don't understand why you want them to do the work. How is it more cost effective to have the government do the work then to just do it yourself? I'll answer this question, it is not. I 100% guarantee that ancestry, if they brought in their own staff or standard partner to do this, p…

> Let me make a suggestion. Follow the ancestry model. Offer a free service to agencies, backed with some quality, and if you then give them even a hard drive with the images you will make them very very happy. Seriously.

This advice is terrible, and Asparagirl has every right to hold government to the standard the law demands, as well as ensuring certain requestors are not receiving preferential treatment.

Re: Lawsuit claims Ancestry.com gets preferential access to New York public archives

#39

Post by privateSFacct »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #38
privateSFacct wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are telling a government agency what it will cost them to do the work, you are "bidding" the project. Does that not make sense? I don't understand why you want them to do the work. How is it more cost effective to have the government do the work then to just do it yourself? I'll answer this question, it is not. I 100% guarantee that ancestry, if they brought in their own staff or standard partner to do this, p…

> Let me make a suggestion. Follow the ancestry model. Offer a free service to agencies, backed with some quality, and if you then give them even a hard drive with the images you will make them very very happy. Seriously. This advice is terrible, and Asparagirl has every right to hold government to the standard the law demands, as well as ensuring certain requestors are not receiving preferential treatment.

Have you done a lot of public records work?

The government will generally give you access (reasonable non disruptive access). If you think you can do something for free / cheap - you can then simply do it yourself. This tends to work out well.

In fact, entire businesses are based on this approach around govt public records - some very lucrative. This is because a lot of govt records are valuable and even just indexing them better (ie, by block and lot vs name) is valuable. Very few of these businesses even try to get the govt to do their work for them.

Even if you can talk the government into doing a bid for an outside professional (wasting lots of government time) and even if that outside professional comes in at the price you demand (less likely), you will still be paying that same amount, now with a much much longer process then if you paid for the professional directly yourself.

I realize if your goal is to be pissed at getting something for free, with public access, at no cost to the public, because you are offended that the group doing it for free got ahead of you while you argued how much it would cost to make the govt do your work for you - then yes, my advice is not relevant.

Re: Lawsuit claims Ancestry.com gets preferential access to New York public archives

#40

Post by [deleted] »

privateSFacct wrote: post #39
toomuchtodo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let me make a suggestion. Follow the ancestry model. Offer a free service to agencies, backed with some quality, and if you then give them even a hard drive with the images you will make them very very happy. Seriously. This advice is terrible, and Asparagirl has every right to hold government to the standard the law demands, as well as ensuring certain requestors are not receiving preferential treatment.

Have you done a lot of public records work? The government will generally give you access (reasonable non disruptive access). If you think you can do something for free / cheap - you can then simply do it yourself. This tends to work out well. In fact, entire businesses are based on this approach around govt public records - some very lucrative. This is because a lot of govt records are valuable and even just indexin…

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