response 25 of 186:

Oct 25 17:50 UTC 1996

The point, richard, was that children who are old enough to vote on grex may
not yet have id that they can send.

response 27 of 186:

Oct 25 22:11 UTC 1996

Kerouac is quite right, there is nothing in our current practice to prevent
someone from buying memberships for her four children, and controlling all of
the votes.  But what the heck can we do about it?

Steve, I am always careful to get ID from every member, but no, I haven't
tried to keep two people from having the same validation information.
I have always felt that the point of the validation information was that
we could use it to track someone down if they did something bad with their
membership privileges, and that we should ask people to go through as few
hoops as possible in providing us with that information.  Therefore we accept
any personal check as validation, even though we have no way to check how the
person writing the check is related to the account.  Presumably, if you can
get someone to write a check for you, they know you at least a little.

We have more than one parent-child pair of members here on Grex, both
memberships being paid for with the same checking account.  Should we tell
such members that they can't do that?  *I* certainly don't think so.

response 29 of 186:

Oct 26 01:14 UTC 1996

Would a report card work?  The reason I ask is that not everyone has student
ID at their school.  (Steiner here in Ann Arbor for instance).  Not everyone
has a library card.  (It can get expensive to take books from the library if
you have a memory like a stainles steel seive!)) and not everyone has a
passport.  Parents are the most likely to have a child's report card...

response 31 of 186:

Oct 26 01:55 UTC 1996

Steve, you aren't taking voting into account.  State law requires that we
identify our voting members.

response 33 of 186:

Oct 31 11:16 UTC 1996

fascinating... a minor member here ought to be able to vote here.

response 35 of 186:

Oct 31 18:33 UTC 1996

Actually, we would have to take user x's word, and user x could then be held
accountable if something happened.

response 37 of 186:

Oct 31 22:14 UTC 1996

I think the membership here has done pretty well under
an honor system.  I trust those who care enough about
Grex to become a member will do what is right and only
vote once per person.  

response 39 of 186:

Nov 1 01:04 UTC 1996

Not true!  My three year old nephew does not have a social security 
card, and *trust me* his parents ARE going to claim him as a 
dependent on their income tax returns.

And again, it is not whether something is a problem, but whether 
something has the potential to be a problem.  Too many times these 
days people dont talk about how to prevent forest fires until there 
is a forest fire raging somewhere.  A problem doesnt have to exsist 
for there to be acknowledgement that it could exsist and for 
solutions to be considered therein.

response 41 of 186:

Nov 1 07:44 UTC 1996

More users are "defrauding" Grex by not supporting it, than are committing
vote fraud. Let's keep our problems in perspective. 

response 43 of 186:

Nov 1 19:13 UTC 1996

rcurl, doyou REALLY think that those who do not support grex yet
use it are "defrauding" it?  that is a horrible sentiment.  It is
hypocritical to say anyone is welcome to use grex but if they
dont support it they are "defrauding it".  I thought grex as 
a free service donated by ites members for anyone to use.  At
what point does a user who does not become a member become one who is
"defrauding"grex?

rcurl if you want a members only board with no guest access, why
dont you just say that.  Non-member access is allowed so it
cannot at any time be called fraudulent as long as it is done 
within the set rules.

response 45 of 186:

Nov 2 18:49 UTC 1996

But grex IS a freenet essentially. Its not technically but in function 
and effect, it plays the same role as the Cleveland Freenet and the 
Grand Rapids Freenet and the dozens of other such boards across the 
country.  It doesnt have to be called the "Grex Freenet" to be what it 
is, a community/user supported board that exsists to both provide free 
or low cost cyber services and foster user interaction with the hope 
that it will have a positive impact upon the community.

Supporting and maintaining Grex is something that the staff and 
members do because they support the idea and mission of such a board.  I 
dont think that it is healthy for either a type of user, or type of use 
of grex to be looked down upon.  If you give blood to the Red Cross, you 
do so because it is the right thing to do, because you WANT to do 
so...and you dont reserve the right to dictate where your blood goes or 
to pass judgement on who gets your blood.

Grex is not a corporation and the members arent stockholders.  It is a 
non-profit in which all services and money are donated.  Nobody owns it 
and the bylaws specifically state that if Grex closes, everything is 
given to charity.  It is a public service offered by members of the 
commuity because it is a good thing to offer

So it is improper for any members to act overly proprietary and claim 
they know what use of grex is proper and what is fraudulent.  I think 
the problem with M-net is that Arbornet wasnt thinking of it as a 
freenet, a public service, but rather an offering of their own PRIVATE 
club.  When you think that way, that is when you get proprietary and the 
members start thinking of themselves as a fraternity or something, and 
start to look down on users who havent *joined* the fraternity.

Actually, the only "members" should be those who are serving on the 
board.  Everyone else should be classified as "contributors" or 
"patrons"   

response 47 of 186:

Nov 2 20:36 UTC 1996

grex is not a "freenet" but it is a "free net".  And most freenets
(or many of them anyway) are user supported.  The one I use in D.C.
is for instance.  Not having the designation "freenet" just means that its
not officially associated with any government.   

response 49 of 186:

Nov 3 07:24 UTC 1996

The way I read Rane's statement: energy spent defending against
hypothetical vote fraud would be better applied towards the 
very real need to widen Grex's contributor base.
Worry less about the imaginary problems and more about the real ones.