response 108 of 133:

Apr 18 17:42 UTC 2001

...and the good feeling of supporting a worthwhile charitable organization...

response 110 of 133:

Apr 18 19:47 UTC 2001

Rane mentioned earlier that we should accept the resident agent of a
corporation's name, address, etc.  as contact information for a institutional
membership.  This is certainly not unreasonable.  What we also need, however,
is confirmation *from that person* that he or she authorizes the account. 
To do so, we need some kind of confirmation that the person we're talking to
in order to get this confirmation is in fact the person we think it is. 
Hence, we get right back to our current ID policy:  requiring personal ID for
the contact person.  
  What usgov is asking us to do is to take his word for it that he's the
resident agent for PE&S, without providing any identification to prove this
claim.  It would clearly be irresponsible for us to do so.  

Usgov, you're right that Grex is not in the verification business, and we
probably wouldn't know if someone provided us fake id.  We do, however, have
to make a good faith attempt to verify the identity of our members.  A good
faith attempt does not require us to go to extraordinary lengths to verify
that the user is not trying to commit fraud or impersonate someone else, but
we do have to get some identification.  We're sorry, but in this day and age,
taking your word for it that you represent PE&S would be negligent of us. 

response 112 of 133:

Apr 19 03:56 UTC 2001

Usgov -- do you understand the difference between being a user and being a
member?  A lot of organizations use the term "member" to mean "anyone who
participates" - on Grex a member is someone who agrees to contribute money
in exchange for certain extra privileges.  Contributing money is
because they want to support Grex, and who receive certain (not huge)
extra privileges in return. Contributing money is absolutely *not*
required in order to use Grex.  Some of your comments lead me to think
maybe that distinction hadn't been made clear to you.

I'd also suggest you read our bylaws
(http://www.cyberspace.org/local/grex/bylaws.html) to familiarize yourself
with how Grex works and get an understanding of why we've reacted so
harshly to some of your suggestions, like that only corporate members
should vote on the membership -- read the bylaws and you'll understand
that members don't vote on new memberships at all, corporate members don't
vote, and no individual member can be excluded from voting on anything.

I agree with those who've said your choice of login is dubious at best.
But I also agree with Mary that there seems to be at least as much
miscommunication her as anything else.  Read up on how Grex works and
maybe you'll understand why we've responded as we have.

response 114 of 133:

Apr 19 04:46 UTC 2001

Re 113 - "Heathen" means "someone who lives in the heath",
aka a rural dweller, and originally had the same implications
of low intelligence and culture that we moderns associate
with the words "hick" or "redneck".  "Pagan" comes from the
Latin "paganus" meaning "man with a beard", and in the days
when the clean-shaven look was popular in the city, had the
same connotations as "heathen".

"Heretic" originally referred to someone whose interpretation
of Catholic doctrine was different from the "official" interpretation
of the Pope.

response 116 of 133:

Apr 19 17:09 UTC 2001

s/redundant/redudant

response 118 of 133:

Apr 19 17:38 UTC 2001

No, I don't believe anyone has claimed to be the registered agent for
Property Exchange & Sales, Inc.

response 120 of 133:

Apr 19 17:56 UTC 2001

Not that it's the least bit relevant here, but to what extent does a 
"registered agent" speak for a company.  I notice that the Delaware state 
government website features a list of companies that will be your 
corporation's resident agent, if you want to incorporate in Delaware (a 
state where incorporation seems to be the main industry).  If we're looking
for somebody to speak for a corporation it would be much better to look for
a corporate officer (and even then, in some companies, purchasing authority
gets delegated down farther).

But anyhow, I really don't think it's any of Grex's business to speculate on
the structure or motives of this company.  As far as we know, it's a company
trying to make a donation to Grex, and trying to get a membership in
recognition of that.  The notion that they must want something along with
their membership which we can't deliver, because otherwise they wouldn't want
a membership, seems unfounded at best.  Why are any of the rest of us members?
The current policies are pretty clear on what they allow and don't allow, so
the only real question is whether those policies are reasonable.

response 122 of 133:

Apr 19 18:44 UTC 2001

I have been complaining to abuse@*.* about spam from their account holders,
and two of them wrote back promising to stop this from happening again.  Does
grex have a policy of terminating the membership of any member who uses grex
to send spam?   Is there some way to tell that someone is sending spam, other
than from recipients' complaints?  I ran across one little e-mail add-on that
would put all mail with bcc: (blind carbon copy) into a special folder for
you so it could easily be deleted, and just display the subject line.

response 124 of 133:

Apr 20 02:42 UTC 2001

Grex *members* rarely if ever send spam.  Occasionally, grex *users* who
are non-members send spam.  If detected in time, staff will kill
whatever process or script is sending spam, and disable the account.
It's then up to the user to contact staff and demonstrate a convincing
amount of regret and wont-do-it-again-ness before the account gets
turned back on.  Often, people who do this create "junk" accounts
specifically for the purpose.  In some cases, staff can identify a
"real" account associated with the same person, in which case that
account gets disabled as well.  Generally, even grex users don't tend to
send UCE - usually in these cases it's a "mail bombing" denial of
service attack against one individual.

response 126 of 133:

Apr 20 13:41 UTC 2001

Happily, the new "Corporation Information Update" forms from the State of
Michigan also include a line for "mailing address", which can be a P.O. Box
number, as well as lines for the name and address of the resident agent. 
The State acknowledged the last forms we submitted by sending mail to the
P.O. Box instead of to my house, for which I am thankful.

response 128 of 133:

Apr 20 15:50 UTC 2001

re #123: What an excellent job of non-confrontational communication.  
That's how it ought to be done.

response 130 of 133:

Apr 20 16:46 UTC 2001

Thanks guys.  I had some help from people at the board meeting.