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About The UBP: Frequently Asked Questions (December 1998 Edition)

1. How often is this page updated?

The UBP is severely understaffed and overworked! However, we commit to reviewing all the links in our directory at least once per month to insure that they are still active.

2. Who created The UBP?

The UBP was conceived and created by Alou Macalou and Larry Ward, two members of the Georgia Tech Black Graduate Student Association's (BGSA) Information Resources and Technology committee. Alou, Larry, and former BGSA president Derrick Brown launched The UBP as a commercial product of the company Black Graduate Student Infosystems, Inc., (BGSI) in January 1996.

Derrick Brown solely assumed the joint responsibilities of Webmaster and Editor-in-Chief in August 1998. He is actively seeking literary and technical talent to relieve himself of both roles so that he can concentrate on his responsibilities as the full-time director of KnowledgeBase, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to education and empowerment through computers and information technology.

3. Why does The UBP contain no information about (insert your favorite topic here)?

Well, as stated in our mission, our secondary purpose of is to encourage development of categories and topics which are not currently available. That makes you, our audience, instrumental in helping us learn about the numerous facets of our culture. The moniker "UBP" is a vision, not a description, and we by no means claim omniscience when it comes to covering The African diaspora's Web presence.

4. How will you enhance this page in 1999?

Early enhancement plans will be transparent to our audience, because they will focus on technical issues like the complete redesign of our database infrastructure. These improvements will make our directory easier to maintain, which means that we will locate and resolve "dead" links faster, and will also be able to review and include submitted links faster.

Phase II of this reconstruction will focus on transforming each UBP category into vibrant online "knowledge communities". The "knowledge community" concept will be effected by hiring expert editors for each category who will assume the responsibility for reviewing submissions, and will also be charged with the role of creating a voice for that particular category. These moves will give our audience someone with whom they can query and vibe.

If our plans sound good to you, and you know of resources, products, and services that can aid in this expansion, drop us a line!

5. My site was not accepted for listing in your directory. Why?

We will make every effort to respond personally to site maintainers who produce works that we deem "not acceptable" for inclusion. Sometimes pages are rejected because their mission is not clearly stated, and at other times they are rejected on the basis of poor design and readability. We certainly accept no pornographic sites, and those that take a long time to load are frowned upon as well.