response 227 of 335:

Oct 27 22:50 UTC 2001

A serious philosophical query for Candidate Howard:
 
From the basic user perspective, M-net and Grex are about as alike
as two systems can be.  Both are owned and governed by member-users
who elect a board; both are Unix based systems, and the 
BBS and party software runs almost identically on each system.
Both are based in Michigan; historically, both were based in Ann Arbor.
Ten years ago, when Grex was started, the base of users was 
essentially the same -- most of us used both systems.

However:
  It's hard to figure out how to measure total users, but Grex has 
  about twice as many entries in its password file as M-net.
 
  Grex has roughly ten times the bank account that M-net has, despite
  the fact that Grex's operating expenses are much greater.
 
  Grex has roughly twice the number of voting members that M-net has.
  (Grex has roughly five times the number of voting members who 
  paid for their own memberships, rather than receiving them as gifts.)

  Grex still has a lively interactive chat culture in party; 
  M-net's party program isn't used very much any more.

The question for the candidate:  what do you think explains these 
different outcomes?

response 229 of 335:

Oct 27 23:34 UTC 2001

Back at Candidate Howard:  Overall, it's an entertaining response
which totally ducks the question:  why have Grex and M-net reached
the state they have in October 2001? 

1)  Yes, I was surprised to see M-net's /etc/passwd file up to 12,000.
    What I'd really like to see is trex's wtmp numbers, to get a feel
    for how many of those entries are active.  The classroom support
    is a nice coup for M-net, granted.
 
2)  Entertaining spin.  Of course M-net has reached its measure of 
    financial stability through a 40-50% budget cut around the end 
    of 1999 (colocation) and a similar cut around the end of 2000
    (discontinuing dialin lines).  
 
    Hey, that's another interesting question for Candidate Howard.
    Discuss your feelings about Grex's collection of dial-in lines
    and their cost.  :)
 
3)  Ooooh.  Spin won't help you on the question of voting members, 
    I've got the numbers cold on that one.  *Do* let me know how 
    you paint those numbers in a positive light.

4)  No doubt that M-net's General conference generates more text 
    than Grex's Agora conference.   And quality (*coff, coff*)
    is a purely subjective judgement.  Interesting objective 
    measures would be:
    a)  how many different people are participating in 
        M-net General and Agora?
    b)  how many new users are participating?
    c)  how much of the text is wholesale cut & paste 
        copyright infringement from news media sources?

response 231 of 335:

Oct 28 00:09 UTC 2001

Back at Candidate Howard in resp:230 ::
 
 3)  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your first sentence meant to be
     "The obvious answer is that Grex offers voting privileges much 
      cheaper than M-net."   Forgive me if I have put incorrect words
     in your mouth in attempting to correct a simple miswrite.
 
The problem that argument is that it's not true.
Forget about the $15/year citizenship:  for years, up until this month, 
M-net has offered a $50/year "membership" category, which is slightly
cheaper than a Grex membership, and which is well publicized in 
M-net's !support command.

If I am putting incorrect words in your mouth and then arguing against
them, PLEASE correct me.

----------

As for M-net's problem in publicizing the $15/year Citizenship option:
Geez, you know, you've been staff there, and you are currently a board 
member.  Why can't you do something about this?  Is there a bylaw 
which says that only the Treasurer can draft the changes to the !support
command?  This sure seems like a symptom of the M-net volunteer shortage,
a problem which you claim does not exist.

Jamie writes:
> Further, no
> information about our price cuts has been posted yet, either.  As has been
> established elsewhere, our Treasurer is rather lax...)

So if you don't like how the Treasurer is working out, you should get a 
new one!  M-net doesn't have a volunteer shortage.  Of course, it had 
little to no performance, of any kind,  in the treasurer's position 
from June 2000 until about February 2001.

The current treasurer bailed out M-net's tuckus by agreeing to take
the job; and in the M-net policy conference, Jamie has been harrassing 
and abusing him.  But, as Jamie wrote earlier:

 "* Feelings be damned.  This is business, not pleasure."

Heh.  tonster is the second most important volunteer on M-net right 
now, after trex the sysop.    

Let me go over this again.  It took M-net eight months to get someone
to operate the treasurer's office properly -- to collect and deposit 
checks, pay bills, and file financial reports.  And Jamie is 
complaining and sniping at the treasurer...        

response 235 of 335:

Oct 28 03:44 UTC 2001

Grex has benefited from being more stable than mnet the last few years
and having very little staff turnover.  Most of grex's staff has been
around from years, and at least four or five are founders.  M-net can't
say that-- does mnet have even one staff member current from even five
years ago?

But honestly sniping between the two boards just obscures the fact that
both places arent growing.  Both mnet and grex have become stagnant and
nobody seems to have ideas on how to reinvent these places for the
current era.  These unix boards are old fashioned and quaint, but both
mnet and grex must become fully web based in the years to come in order
to survive.  Otherwise the core users will get older and drift off and
these places will either die or whither into oblivion.  On both grex
and mnet are dozens of conferences that are ghost towns.  Some that
havent been touched in years.

It is not enough to survive.  Both m-net and grex should strive for 
relevance and meaning in the new age.  Give users reasons to come to
these sites.  

response 241 of 335:

Oct 28 04:16 UTC 2001

Oh, and demands will get you nowhere.  You'll have to ask nicely.

Yes, you should buy a bowler, and go bowling in it.

response 247 of 335:

Oct 29 13:57 UTC 2001

I also never bowl, & would have to demand that any proposed Bowl-a-thon be
put up to a member vote, so that I could vote against it.

response 249 of 335:

Oct 30 02:48 UTC 2001

I don't know.  I think we could raise a lot of money selling "heckling passes"
to a Bowl-a-thon featuring non-bowling bowlers.