response 26 of 50:

Apr 10 20:30 UTC 1998

The multiple IP address in a distributed environment wouldn't be a huge
problem, I think.  We could just give each login machine multiple IP
addresses.  We are still stuck with the other technical limitations.

Still, even if we could do this easily technically, I would think it is a bad
idea.

response 30 of 50:

Apr 11 22:43 UTC 1998

Grex is certainly likely to evolve toward using multiple servers for different
purposes.  However, it isn't likely to do so unless we can find ways to bring
in a bit more steady income.

response 34 of 50:

Apr 13 21:28 UTC 1998

The wait to get in is artifical; we added it.  Before that, people would just
get a failure when trying to connect at peak useage times.  Grex has a limited
number of telnet connections available; this is partially an operating system
limitation, but one we take advantage of by only allowing a certain number
of telnet sessions at once.  If we didn't limit the number of simultaneous
connections, the Grex CPU would run excessively slow trying to run everybody's
processes.  Therefore, we only allow a certain number of people at once.

response 36 of 50:

Apr 14 05:07 UTC 1998

I'd like to steer this item back in the direction of ideas for getting 
more members, if possible, and ask that if folks want to discuss 
technical ways to make Grex faster or more accessible, they take it to 
a separate item.

I feel kind of bad about this, because I know that when danr was 
treasurer, he took a much more active role in trying to recruit new 
members than I have.  I knew this when I became treasurer, too, and I 
told everyone that I was no salesman, and would like there to be a 
separate Membership Chair to be the point-person on getting new 
members.  The Board agreed that that would be a good idea, but so far 
that hasn't worked out, and the need for action has increased with our 
costs.

Let's put this on the agenda for the next board meeting, shall we?  
And someone should try to summarize the ideas in this item.  (If no 
one beats me to it, I will make a summary next time I'm on.)

response 42 of 50:

Apr 17 11:50 UTC 1998

Ok, where's the motd file?  I'll announce it there.

response 44 of 50:

Apr 17 19:44 UTC 1998

My prediction is that with the terrific new hardware/software we
should see a dramatic *increase* in members over the next few months
even without doing active recruiting.  I hope.

response 46 of 50:

Apr 25 00:43 UTC 1998

You're right, Misti.

response 48 of 50:

May 26 22:54 UTC 1998

We discussed quite a few ideas at the last board meeting (I read a 
summary of this item), and the consensus was that the one we want to try 
first is sending mail to users who are not members on their 3-month, 
6-month, 9-month, etc. anniversaries, explaining what Grex is about and 
asking them to consider supporting us.

Here's what needs to be done to get that going (as I understand it):

1. Someone needs to get MSQL to run on Grex.
2. Someone needs to teach Newuser (and Web Newuser) to put data about
   newusers in an MSQL database.
3. Someone needs to write a program to read the database and identify
   those users who passed one of the 3-month anniversaries since
   the last time the program was run, and send them mail if they are not
   members already.
4. We need to decide on the text of the message to send.

Valerie volunteered to do steps 1 and 2, and Jan volunteered to do step
3.  When I get back to town, I may be able to help with some of that 
too.  As for step 4, someone should write a draft for the message and 
post it here in coop, for people to critique.  If no one does that 
before I get back, I'll give it a shot.