|
Grex > Coop6 > #23: Tentative agenda for the 10/26/94 board of directors meeting | |
|
| Author |
Message |
srw
|
|
Tentative agenda for the 10/26/94 board of directors meeting
| 
Oct 20 13:23 UTC 1994 |
The October meeting of the Cyberspace Communications Board is scheduled to
take place on October 26th at 7:00 PM at Zingerman's Next Door (upstairs)
and, as always, the general public is invited.
Tentative agenda for the 10/26/94 board of directors meeting:
Initializing gavel - srw - less than 1 minute
1. Treasurer's report - danr - 5 minutes
2. 501c3 Committee report - rcurl 5 minutes
3. Computer Rehabilitation committee - rcurl - 5 minutes
4. Publicity committee report - mta - 5 minutes
5. JCC Sale committee - mta 5 minutes
6. Technical committee report - STeve and staff 30 minutes
7. Financial planning: how to spend our money,
budgeting and taxes, staff wishlist,
staff discretionary budget, rainy day fund 15 minutes
8. Dungeon Issues - poporn - 20 minutes
(Moving, Construction, Centrex, etc.)
9. Staff membership policy - srw 10 minutes
a. Grex Liabilities to Individuals 10 minutes
b. Ordering Mousepads - chelsea 5 minutes
c. Reimburse Danr for a rubber stamp 5 minutes
d. Verification for Usenet use (new policy) 10 minutes
e. New phone line deal from Ameritech 10 minutes
f. New business - 5 minutes
Terminating gavel - srw - less than 1 minute
I retired these two items:
* Reimbure Greg for ALM-II
* Hypertext Committee report
I added items c,d, and e.
Please post other things that you think should be included.
Please come to the meeting.
|
| 52 responses total. |
chelsea
|
|
response 1 of 52:
|
Oct 20 17:37 UTC 1994 |
Item "d. Verification for Usenet use" will be aimed at discussion, right?
If the intent is to have some policy voted on Wednesday evening then maybe
the specific policy should be entered as an item in Co-op so the users
could discuss the actual proposal.
The only discussion I can recall on this topic was far too vague
to serve the purpose of a proposed policy discussion.
|
remmers
|
|
response 2 of 52:
|
Oct 20 22:30 UTC 1994 |
I'll be out of town the day of the meeting, but feel free to
carry on without me.
|
popcorn
|
|
response 3 of 52:
|
Oct 21 03:30 UTC 1994 |
Oh poop! Me too.
|
srw
|
|
response 4 of 52:
|
Oct 21 06:30 UTC 1994 |
Item "d" is aimed at implementation. The policy that was discussed
at great length and then passed by the members can be implemented now
if we have someone to act as verifier. That is the nature of the discussion
I had planned. I see no need to discuss the policy itself.
double poop - Our official meeting date is the 4th Wednesday.
We'll carry on, though, somehow.
|
chelsea
|
|
response 5 of 52:
|
Oct 21 19:14 UTC 1994 |
What will be the wording of the proposed policy?
|
chelsea
|
|
response 6 of 52:
|
Oct 21 19:23 UTC 1994 |
Maybe I don't understand what is being proposed here. If this
will be where a decision is reached regarding what all will be
considered "verified" then I would like to see the proposed
language here. Will it be library cards? Birth certificates?
Simply a statement from someone saying who they are? Will
minors be treated the same as adults?
There was discussion on this issue which ended up not being
clear enough to form as anything useable as policy. If the
intent Wednesday evening is to decide what all will be needed
to prove identity then I'd sure like to see the proposal entered
here so the Board has a good idea how users feel about the
actual rules being proposed.
|
remmers
|
|
response 7 of 52:
|
Oct 21 21:17 UTC 1994 |
Right. The policy of opening up Usenet posting to all verified
users was passed by the members, but "verified" was never defined.
If we're going to implement the policy, we need not only a
volunteer verfier but agreement on the criteria to be used.
|
remmers
|
|
response 8 of 52:
|
Oct 21 21:44 UTC 1994 |
Something else for the agenda: I propose turning off newuser until
the system can be made reliable again.
I have been growing increasingly concerned that we are allowing
unrestricted creation of new accounts, and inviting people who come
on board to send in membership money, at a time that the system
is unreliable, loses system and user data on a regular basis,
crashes frequently, and the causes are not yet known and a definite
solution is not in sight. I don't think that this is entirely
responsible behavior on our part. It seems to me that shutting
down newuser temporarily would ease some of the burden on staff,
inhibit the activity of would-be crackers that seems to soak up
a lot of staff time, and serve as a gesture of good faith to the
users that are already here and the electronic community at large
that we are serious about fixing our problems and are not trying
to take anybody for a ride.
I don't think anybody here is trying to take anyone for a ride,
but I also think that our behavior may be giving the opposite
impression.
|
robh
|
|
response 9 of 52:
|
Oct 21 23:09 UTC 1994 |
Sad to say, I've been thinking much the same thing for the last
few weeks. I agree with John, until we can get the system back
to normal functional status (notice I didn't say perfect >8),
it would be better to close the doors to new folks.
|
mwarner
|
|
response 10 of 52:
|
Oct 21 23:11 UTC 1994 |
I cannot be at the meeting so I will enter this discussion here. I don't
see Grex as selling anything or promising anything when it requests money
from users. Grex *provides* an opportunity, which I *take* by tossing in
a few bucks. I became a member because I support open access to E-mail
and other net related resources provided by a well supported Grex. I
can't see how removing these things is an act of good faith towards
existing members. I don't see the technical efforts that are ongoing
which at times affect Grex's communication resources availability as a
reason not to support Grex; Quite the contrary if you support the goals of
Grex. I would not like to see a political choice made to shut down Grex.
|
steve
|
|
response 11 of 52:
|
Oct 22 00:08 UTC 1994 |
God no. Turning off newuser would be a complete disaster.
Yes, we should stick a message in at the beginning of the
newuser text stating the problems we're having at the moment,
but to shut it down? Never, in my opinion.
Look at the conferencing activity here; look at the number
of people using Grex for talks with people, mail, party. Some
Grex activities are reletively unaffected by the disk problems,
and as such are the least affected. Of course, everything is
affected by a crash, true. But as soon as Grex open its doors
to the Internet, people rush right back in. Less people, perhaps?
Certainly. I can't blame people for that. But for us to say
that our front door is closed until our problems are gone would
have a profound impact upon us, and would be a negative thing
for quite some time.
I have some free time to work on this now that I'm not at the
UM--the consulting project(s) I'm on give me a lot more flexability
in terms of meshing with CE's hours, and we'll be able to put
more time into getting this problem resolved. I'm sitting here at
the console as I write this; I'm going to be taking the system down
shortly, such that we can uncouple the SMD disks from Grex, to check
out some software conflict ideas. I'd rather not be doing this on
a Friday night, but we're to the point that we've got to resolve it
soon.
But shutting newuser down isn't an answer. I'd much rather let
new people make their own minds up about using Grex right now, rather
than scaring them away.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 12 of 52:
|
Oct 22 06:24 UTC 1994 |
I agree with STeve, and Mike: we should carry on doing the best we
can, and tell newusers up-front what the situation and prospects are.
The ship may be leaky, but it needs all hands to both row and bail,
during the storms.
|
kentn
|
|
response 13 of 52:
|
Oct 22 21:02 UTC 1994 |
Carry on as usual, but be *very* up front about the problems we are
having, how they may affect a newuser's trial of Grex. Like it or not
(and in spite of why most of us became members) some people do look
for services in return for their $$. Maybe we don't do a good enough
job of socializing new people into the Grex environment?
|
steve
|
|
response 14 of 52:
|
Oct 22 21:08 UTC 1994 |
With the number of folks stopping by, how can we? ;-) wE'D
need a full-time 'host' for that.
|
wh
|
|
response 15 of 52:
|
Oct 22 21:28 UTC 1994 |
I agree with being very open with new users that we are having
problems recently. I'm not sure we can even tell them what the
prospects are. People are working hard on the problem, but I
don't think we have it cornered well enough to tell them any
more than that.
|
cicero
|
|
response 16 of 52:
|
Oct 22 23:02 UTC 1994 |
I am also in agreement with the inform them but don't close the dooor
position.
|
popcorn
|
|
response 17 of 52:
|
Oct 22 23:23 UTC 1994 |
Ditto: inform new users, but don't close the door.
|
jshafer
|
|
response 18 of 52:
|
Oct 23 04:42 UTC 1994 |
Right. A message that says "We are experiencing technical difficulties,
but if you don't mind risking some delays or some lost data come on in."
will give a much better impression than "We are experiencing ... so go
away and come back when we have them fixed!"
|
tsty
|
|
response 19 of 52:
|
Oct 23 05:05 UTC 1994 |
re #16 could have been done a long time ago, but wasn't, and new folks
crashed on newuser. Actually #16 has the greatest value whether there
is total agreement or not.
|
remmers
|
|
response 20 of 52:
|
Oct 23 11:29 UTC 1994 |
Some people seem to have misunderstood what I proposed in #8.
I am not advocating shutting down any services for existing users
at all. Users who *already* have accounts could continue to dial
and telnet in, and use their accounts for mail, conferencing, news,
and anything else that they now do.
I am only proposing turning off the "newuser" program, so that new
accounts could not be created, until we're reliable again. Instead,
when a person runs "newuser", they'd get a message that the system is
having reliability problems and that they should try again in a few
days.
|
popcorn
|
|
response 21 of 52:
|
Oct 23 12:12 UTC 1994 |
I think folks do understand.
|
chelsea
|
|
response 22 of 52:
|
Oct 23 12:40 UTC 1994 |
I agree with John. About half the time I attempt to login the
system has crashed. Grex is far too unstable to be welcoming
NEW USERS aboard and we should put up a notice apologizing for
our temporary problems and encouraging anyone interested in
becoming a user to call back when we can offer them a more
stable, reliable system.
Grex will never be 100% stable, that is understood. But what
we are experiencing at the moment is a very unreliable system.
Too unreliable for it to be business as usual even with "use at
your own risk" messages.
|
pegasus
|
|
response 23 of 52:
|
Oct 23 13:59 UTC 1994 |
I have to second the motion. I agree with Mary, John and Rob; Grex is
in dire shape and to present that to new users does them and the system
a disservice.
Pattie
|
steve
|
|
response 24 of 52:
|
Oct 24 00:52 UTC 1994 |
I think people understand John, and thats why they're jumping up
and down by their terminals. ;-)
|