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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 186 responses total. |
aruba
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response 25 of 186:
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Nov 21 16:23 UTC 2003 |
I don't think you read what I said, Jamie. There is a huge reason to keep
Grex's accounting as simple as possible: so that we can find someone willing
to do the treasurer's job. Over the last 8 years, only two people have
volunteered. Do you think volunteers will suddenly increase if it gets more
complicated?
Grex does not have two sets of books.
If you have real questions about Grex's finances, you should state them,
instead of trying to snow us with a lot of talk about how the accounts are
too simplified. This is a "death by a thousand questions" type of argument,
which in this case has no real content at all, because Grex's finances
really are simple and open to public inspection.
It makes me angry, because we *do* have a financial problem. It won't be
solved through different accounting. I'll tell you exactly how to solve
it: get 10-15 more of the thousands of people whose lives are enriched by
Grex to become members. Now, if you have an idea how to accomplish
*that*, we're all listening.
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mary
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response 26 of 186:
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Nov 21 17:30 UTC 2003 |
(Insert the sound of applause.)
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keesan
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response 27 of 186:
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Nov 21 17:35 UTC 2003 |
Ten memberships would be needed to pay this year's insurance costs, which keep
going up. Membership dues have not been going up - maybe they should have
something to do with increases in costs of running grex.
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aruba
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response 28 of 186:
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Nov 21 19:52 UTC 2003 |
Well, no sooner do I open my mouth, than CafePress makes a liar out of me.
We received a $30 check from them today, so I guess someone bought some
stuff after all. :)
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jp2
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response 29 of 186:
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Nov 21 20:19 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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cmcgee
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response 30 of 186:
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Nov 21 21:31 UTC 2003 |
Well, I hear the sound of one customer shouting.
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gelinas
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response 31 of 186:
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Nov 21 21:56 UTC 2003 |
(The question "Do the dial-in lines pay for themselves?" is not, believe it
or not a financial one: it cannot be answered with _just_ financial
information. No amount of bookkeeping will ever answer that question.)
(But that has little or nothing to do with Jamie's campaign.)
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jp2
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response 32 of 186:
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Nov 22 01:16 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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gelinas
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response 33 of 186:
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Nov 22 01:32 UTC 2003 |
This isn't the place to argue it. ;)
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jp2
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response 34 of 186:
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Nov 22 01:52 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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other
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response 35 of 186:
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Nov 22 03:26 UTC 2003 |
The potential benefits of implementation of a more complex accounting
system are far too small to justify the problems that doing so would
cause. No matter how many times you argue the point, it will not
change.
Statistical analysis of our accounts is the basis of the benefits you
claim an accrual based accounting would provide, but our numbers are
too small for statistical analysis to give results which are reliable
enough for prediction purposes to justify the change.
The degree to which you are insistent on this change and your
inability to understand why it is a bad idea are suggestive of exactly
why you are unlikely to be elected, even ignoring your past
denigrations of Grex, its values, and all who hold them.
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willcome
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response 36 of 186:
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Nov 22 07:59 UTC 2003 |
And how he won't answer my questions. That'll lose him votes.
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jp2
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response 37 of 186:
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Nov 22 14:18 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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carson
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response 38 of 186:
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Nov 22 16:19 UTC 2003 |
([I've only had a chance to browse through this item and probably won't
take the time to read it more closely for at least another week, but I
do want to say that I'm glad that Jamie has a vision and is willing
to discuss and defend it and, as a voter, I'll have a better idea of
why I vote for whom I vote when I do vote.])
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aruba
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response 39 of 186:
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Nov 22 19:58 UTC 2003 |
1) What were Grex's total outlays (expenditures and refunds) during the
12-month period ending last September 30th?
Here they are, broken down by type.
2159.86 Hardware upgrades to the system (minus refunds)
1891.87 Phone bills
1620.00 DSL line
938.11 Rent
551.64 Electricity
525.00 Insurance premiums
103.72 Taxes paid
83.66 Paypal discounts
55.71 Fees to maintain our domain names
45.00 Refund of credits
40.00 Advertising
40.00 Fees to maintain the corporate status of Cyberspace Comms
38.00 Rental of P.O. Box
19.38 Postage
16.13 Miscellaeous expenses
12.00 Bounced checks
5.00 Bank service charges
2.09 Backup tapes
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8147.17
This information is 100% accurate and 100% available in the treasurer's
reports.
2) Historically, do Grex memberships fall off in the summer months?
No, not to speak of. Here is the average number of members, broken
down by month, from January 1995 to present:
Month Average
----- -------
Jan 91.2
Feb 92.1
Mar 92.8
Apr 91.9
May 92.4
Jun 91.6
Jul 90.3
Aug 89.7
Sep 89.9
Oct 90.6
Nov 91.5
Dec 92.3
The current number of members appears in each treasurer's report, so
you could compile this table yourself from the information available.
I can do it more easily, using the database, so if you want
information like this, the best way to get it is probably to ask.
3) What are the total costs of the Pumpkin?
The total costs of the Pumpkin, per month are:
80.41 Rent
45.97 Electricity
43.75 Liability insurance
------
170.13
4) If the price of membership were raised 5% today, what is the projected
fall-off in membership? Is it worth it?
If they taught you anything there at Maryland, they should have taught
you that you can't estimate the slope of a curve when you only know
one point on it. Grex dues have only ever been one price, so no
amount or style of bookkeeping is going to answer this question. The
only ways I can think to answer it are 1) do a survey of members and
nonmembers, and see what they say, and 2) change the dues and see what
happens.
5) Do the dial-in lines pay for themselves?
No. We pay for them, every month. If you're asking "How much money
would we lose if we stopped having dialin lines?", the way to answer that
would be to look through the members list (type "members" at any UNIX
prompt) and then for each name, scan the wtmp file to see if they log
in via the terminal server. The ease of doing this wouldn't be affected
one way or the other by the method of accounting Grex uses.
You and I agree, Jamie, that we don't want Grex to get into the
financial trouble that M-Net has enjoyed. And we agree that Grex has
a problem that needs fixing. And I welcome attention being paid to
the financial situation.
But Grex's problems are not the result of no one paying attention to
the finances, or not enough information being disseminated to the
users. I think you can pin down the reasons very simply:
1) The economy caught up with us in 2002, and we lost about 20
members.
2) We had a lot of money for a while, and people started to feel that
they didn't need to support Grex, because Grex was rich. I did all
I could to counter that sentiment, but I am not much of a
salesman.
3) We're not attracting new users like we used to. There are several
reasons for that:
a) Grex is slow. We need the faster machine online to have a
chance of holding anyone who finds us.
b) Grex's culture is not as welcoming to new users as it used to
be. If I were new, and I saw the way people treat each other
in Agora, I wouldn't want to stick around.
c) Grex has a lot of competition on the net, and technology has
passed us by. People are attracted to flashier sites.
I'm not sticking my fingers in my ears. I read everything you said.
If you're really interested in more data on Grex's financial
situation, I'm happy to provide any you want. Nothing is being hidden
here.
You have yet to ask a single question that could be answered more
effectively if Grex used a different accounting system. All you've
done is suggest that there is a mysterious wealth of information that
is being kept from you.
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jp2
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response 40 of 186:
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Nov 22 20:14 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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aruba
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response 41 of 186:
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Nov 22 20:22 UTC 2003 |
It's an educated guess, because our membership was fairly constant for a
long time before that. I'm open to suggestions for how to test the
hypothesis.
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aruba
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response 42 of 186:
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Nov 22 21:07 UTC 2003 |
I should add that I have a lot of anecdotal evidence that the economy is to
blame, because a lot of members told me they weren't renewing because they
couldn't afford it.
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other
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response 43 of 186:
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Nov 22 23:02 UTC 2003 |
re #37:
> You say the numbers are too small to permit statistical analysis.
> This determination cannot be made until it has been attempted. I
> strongly suspect there is a wealth of data to be mined. But how
> would we ever know?
If you'd read my comment you'd know that I did not claim that
statistical analysis could not be done, but:
> our numbers are too small for statistical analysis to give results
> which are reliable enough for prediction purposes to justify the
> change.
The key difference is that you can do all the statistical analysis
you want on our numbers, but it won't change the fact that the
sample size is too small for the results to be reliably predictive.
That is about as BASIC as statistics gets. And you don't have to
run the analysis to make that determination.
The whole premise behind your argument is fatally flawed.
The notion that complexity is by itself the problem is a straw man
argument. The complexity of Grex's systems is utterly unrelated to
the fact that the treasurer's responsibilities are not often the
subject of desirous competition. If you had any knowledge of Grex's
operational history, you'd know that the argument against making the
treasurer's job more difficult or complex is hugely significant in
our little corporate microcosm.
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jep
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response 44 of 186:
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Nov 22 23:24 UTC 2003 |
Jamie, if you want to bring focus onto other areas of your campaign,
you'll have to introduce new material you want to discuss.
Your comments about finance have been construed as being critical of
the treasurer. Not only does aruba have some stake in disputing you
when you say he's doing a poor job, but those such as myself who think
he's a great guy doing a fine job have some stake in it as well.
Mark's record keeping is easily good enough for me. I regard myself
as knowing enough about running a non-profit conferencing system to
judge what's happening with the finances here on Grex, and what's
happening here is good. Grex has problems, but not with the
treasurer. I don't see your recommendations as making things better.
So... my advice is to focus your campaign on something else,
especially if you've said what you want to say about finance. Bring
up other points to discuss.
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willcome
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response 45 of 186:
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Nov 22 23:38 UTC 2003 |
(Has anyone noticed how occasional RAGE slips out when jp2 tries to be
personable?)
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other
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response 46 of 186:
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Nov 22 23:59 UTC 2003 |
#44: I disagree with the suggestion that jp's comments are
construed as being critical of Mark. They are critical of how Grex
chooses to expect the treasurer to perform. To try to focus the
critique on Mark is to distract from the weaknesses of the critique
itself.
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jp2
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response 47 of 186:
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Nov 23 00:27 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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cmcgee
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response 48 of 186:
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Nov 23 01:32 UTC 2003 |
Income tax is not the only reason to use cash accounting. Cash accounting
prevents the treasurer from having to book an expense or income item when it
becomes due, and then re-book it if the money doesn't come in or the bill
doesn't get paid. If we get refunds (like withour telephone haggles) the
treasurer has to make several more entries under a double-entry and accrual
system. It's not worth the effort for the few transactions that occur each
month on Grex.
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aruba
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response 49 of 186:
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Nov 23 14:18 UTC 2003 |
There are really neat things lurking inside the data if you know what
questions to ask and how to ask them.
I would love it if that were true. But, you have yet to ask any such
questions. The fact that the memberships in August account for about $9.80
less income than do the memberships in an average month isn't much of a help
in planning our finances, I'm afraid.
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