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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 125 responses total. |
aruba
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response 50 of 125:
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Oct 17 03:15 UTC 1998 |
I called today and had Ameritech drop our 761-8228 number, which is the one
we have been using to connect to ICNET. As stated earlier, the board made
the unanimous decision to do that last month, and it seems clear from this
item that none of the board members have changed their minds. I concluded
that I would be derelict if I waited any longer to implement the decision.
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janc
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response 51 of 125:
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Oct 17 06:22 UTC 1998 |
I think Grex needs to look for better net connectivity. Not that what
we have is bad or insufficient for our current needs, but our needs are
going to grow. I expect demand for dial-ins will be very gradually
declining over the next few years, which will free up some money to do
better internet connectivity. We should be looking around for good
deals, and for people willing to donate connectivity.
I do not see the old 28.8K link as fitting into this. Yes, if someone
got off their butts and did some work, they might be able to put the
thing to some kind of use, but if someone is going to get off their
butts and do some work, then a much more sensible thing to be doing
would be to try to drum up a second ISDN connection or some such. It
just doesn't make sense for us invest our money and labor in doing
something with such obsolete technology. We aren't limited to that.
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scott
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response 52 of 125:
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Oct 17 11:27 UTC 1998 |
(Depending on the definition of "unanimous"... the vote had one absence and
one abstention. Still, everyone on Board has since said they were in favor)
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valerie
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response 53 of 125:
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Oct 17 13:05 UTC 1998 |
This response has been erased.
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other
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response 54 of 125:
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Oct 17 16:14 UTC 1998 |
in order to achieve a consensus, there would have had to be some sacrifice
in the extreme positions, but given the discrete nature of the options (keep
the icnet link or don't), there was no continuum on which to make sacrifice
in order to reach consensus. Thus, unless the parties representing one view
capitulate to the other view, we are forced into a majoritarian paradigm of
decision-making rather than consensus...
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steve
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response 55 of 125:
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Oct 17 19:23 UTC 1998 |
Valerie is right.
I am *really* digusted with the board for the way this has worked
out. I am also extremely unhappy with the idea of throwing the link
away, as we don't have anything else to replace it.
But even more than the fact the baord has made a bad move, the
process here was truly horrid. We did not come to any consensus
here, and statements that this had been adaquately talked about are
simply false.
They haven't been and there was never a staff meeting to talk
about this.
So. Bad decision coupled with an even worse decision making
process. This does not bode well for Grex if the board starts
making decisions like this in the future.
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scg
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response 56 of 125:
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Oct 17 19:31 UTC 1998 |
The board is supposed to represent the users, but the board also has to make
decisions. Not everybody will be happy with all those decisions, but if we
avoid doing something that will offend one person, even though most other
people seem to be in favor of it, that doesn't mean we're representing users
better. It is the board that is elected to make decisions, and giving
somebody else arbitrary veto power over a decision the board has made is not
a good idea. I'm not opposed to more discussion of this, if I thought it
would get us anywhere. However, the board pretty clearly did not authorize
paying for an extra month of service on the ICNet connection after it was
cancelled, which raises the question of where the money to pay for the
connection during this delay between the board vote to cut it and the
apparrent unauthorized veto of that decision is going to come from.
The question the usefulness of the modem link comes down to, as far as I can
tell, is whether, at the point when Grex has enough use to fill its ISDN
connection, mail will be less than 1/5 of Grex's bandwidth usage. (128K +
33.6K = 161.6K of bandwidth, of which 33.6 is roughly 1/5). I haven't seen
any evidence that that will be the case.
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steve
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response 57 of 125:
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Oct 17 22:22 UTC 1998 |
No argument there Steve, that the board is to make decisions.
But I have every argument over the way this was done. This was
one of those decisions that is financial, technical and strategic.
Staff never sat down and talked of this, specifically. There has
been reference to item #31 in old coop where some small amount of
discussion was made, but that is hardly justification for the
decision.
The reasons to keep the IC-Net link until something better
comes along (and it assuredly will, in time) are far beyond
simple numerics. Putting mail traffic on that line will be a
win for Grex, in that we've taken some traffic off our main
link. Coupling that with the mail machine makes an even better
win for Grex. Having an alternate point of entry for Grex staff
to be able to get in is an excellent thing, as well.
Please understand that I don't "like" paying $39/mo for a
33K link, but it's all we can afford currently, given the
market rates for such a link. Other faster methods of moving
data only cost more.
But I'm drifting away from my main gripe, which is that the
process used to determine dropping the link was highly flawed.
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scg
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response 58 of 125:
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Oct 17 23:13 UTC 1998 |
(it will only be useful for mail if grex's mail load is still small enough
to fit over it at the point when the ISDN link fills)
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steve
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response 59 of 125:
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Oct 18 00:00 UTC 1998 |
Certainly--and there will come a point when a serial link can't
do that. We're not there yet. Will we? At some point yes. Remember
I never said that the link was going to be useful to Grex forever.
Just that it's the back/alternate that we have now, and it's not wise
to throw that away.
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scg
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response 60 of 125:
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Oct 18 00:38 UTC 1998 |
Right, we're likely not there yet, but we're also not to the point where our
usage doesn't entirely fit over the ISDN link. The modem link won't be useful
to us until we are, and at that point I'm guessing we'll have too much mail
traffic for it to be useful to us.
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scott
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response 61 of 125:
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Oct 18 12:36 UTC 1998 |
Or perhaps we won't have enough CPU or staff time to handle enough users to
saturate the ISDN link.
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steve
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response 62 of 125:
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Oct 18 18:00 UTC 1998 |
Do not think that, Scott. Grex usage is growing every month. Unless
we take forceful actions to stop that growth, we're going to hit a point
where the ISDN link is going to saturate.
However, ISDN saturation is not the only reason why the IC-Net link
should stay. We need that link to carry mail on the mail machine: having
a seperate link for that will be a large win. Yes, putting mail machine
on the current ISDN link will win too, but having a seperate link lets
us process mail when the ISDN link is down.
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scg
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response 63 of 125:
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Oct 18 18:36 UTC 1998 |
Which so far has been a once every six months occurrance. Having a separate
link for the mail machine while the ISDN connection is working only helps us
if the ISDN link is full. Otherwise, it doesn't make a difference. So that
leaves us with the 33.6 link being marginally useful maybe for a few days
every six months, based on current experience with one of our ISDN lines.
The board was well aware of that when making the decision to cut the link,
and there was a pretty clear consensus that that kind of marginal usefulness
wasn't worth $480 per year, given Grex's budget constraints.
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scg
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response 64 of 125:
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Oct 18 18:40 UTC 1998 |
It's also worth pointing out that the 33.6 link was considerably less reliable
than the ISDN link, so having mail only going over the 33.6 link would reduce,
not enhance, the reliability of the mail system.
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steve
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response 65 of 125:
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Oct 19 00:22 UTC 1998 |
Look at the logs, Steve. There was a time when the PPP link was
crashing every day. Two things changed, however: Marcus made a new
kernel for it which got rid of the serial port bug, and moving to
the Pumpkin changed the line noise picture very much. But, look
at the logs.
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scg
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response 66 of 125:
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Oct 19 01:11 UTC 1998 |
And after that, the reliability still wasn't perfect. No, it certianly wasn't
developing problems every day, or every week, or maybe even every month. It
had problems more than once every six months, though. That's not a lot, but
it's certianly no better than the ISDN line.
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steve
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response 67 of 125:
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Oct 19 03:49 UTC 1998 |
True, but given that the mail machine is a Open BSD box I expect it
to work as good as the quality of the phone line. I've seen OB regularly
keep 10 day at a time ppp connections.
Again, it isn't that the PPP link is as good as an ISDN line, becuase
it isn't. But it's also cheaper.
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scg
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response 68 of 125:
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Oct 19 04:10 UTC 1998 |
Not if we already have the ISDN connection.
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valerie
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response 69 of 125:
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Oct 19 15:43 UTC 1998 |
This response has been erased.
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valerie
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response 70 of 125:
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Oct 19 15:47 UTC 1998 |
This response has been erased.
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aruba
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response 71 of 125:
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Oct 19 17:24 UTC 1998 |
Valerie, it's fine to say "aruba began pulling the plug" instead of "the board
began pulling the plug". I take responsibility for my own actions.
I am unrepentant. I'd already waited longer than I felt comfortable with,
and I am tired of being strung along.
I am a little sorry we didn't specifically designate a time and place for
STeve to state his opinions on the matter before we voted on it, for the
sake of everyone feeling better about the decision. But we knew his
opinion at the time we voted; we just disagreed with it. I will grant,
though, that we could have accomplished the same thing more smoothly than
we did.
The mood at the board meeting last month was one of frustration that it
had taken so long to do anything about cutting costs, and we really wanted
to do *something*. We probably should have just entered an item about
cutting the ICNET link, let everyone discuss it for a month, and then
voted the next month. So I guess I will concede STeve's point that the
process was, if not flawed, than at least not stellar.
But STeve did get his specific discussion, in this item, and it hasn't
changed the minds of any of the board members. I am nearly certain that a
staff meeting won't change any minds either, and I really doubt that it's
going to make STeve feel any better to wait until after it. (Correct me
if I'm wrong, STeve.)
If the board allows one staff member to blackball its decisions, then we are
not doing the job we were elected to do, and we have only ourselves to blame
for it.
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jep
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response 72 of 125:
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Oct 19 18:32 UTC 1998 |
Only a phone line was turned off, right? No one has cancelled the
connection on IC-Net's side as of yet. The Board is going to discuss
turning off some phone lines, and it seems likely they'll decide to turn
off at least one. That connection could easily be used to re-connect to
IC-Net, if that path were desired.
In short, though this was a decision, it wasn't irrevocable, or even
expensive to revoke (given the assumptions I made). I would hope, and
have every reason to expect, that no disrespect for STeve, nor for the
staff, was intended.
It's pretty likely this change saved some money, even if it's just the
advance turning off of a phone line that will be turned off anyway. The
only way it can cause any harm is if a rift develops between (some
of) the staff and (some of) the Board. That can only happen if you guys
let it happen.
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dpc
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response 73 of 125:
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Oct 19 19:57 UTC 1998 |
I sure hope the Board sticks to its unanimous decision. Things like
cutting IC-Net can be argued forever. It is plain that the Board
decided to cut the Gordian knot and *make* a decision.
This is good.
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scg
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response 74 of 125:
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Oct 19 22:02 UTC 1998 |
STeve hasn't raised any arguments here that the board wasn't already aware
of when deciding to cut the link, as far as I know. So perhaps we've got more
stuff on the record here, but I woudln't expect this discussion to change
anybody's vote. Also, like Mark, I'm not at all comfortable with a non-board
member being given veto power over the actions of the board, which seems, if
nothing else, procedurally bad.
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