response 59 of 90:

Dec 27 17:20 UTC 1999

It's hard to say what the non-member votes mean.  Probably a blend
of various things.  

As the person who does the vote counting, I can say this:  During
the counting process, I see the login id's of the people who voted
(although I don't see *how* they voted).  There are always a large
number of non-member voters, and most of their login id's are
completely unfamiliar to me.  So I think that a large portion of
the non-member voters don't participate in the conferences (let
alone coop) and are unfamiliar with the candidates and issues,
other than what they might glean from the candidates' statements
that the vote program displays.  I suspect that there's a lot of
randomness in the non-member voting.

response 61 of 90:

Dec 27 19:19 UTC 1999

If nothing else, the vote program tells you that.

response 63 of 90:

Dec 28 09:20 UTC 1999

Yes, exactly the point I was making.

response 65 of 90:

Dec 28 15:32 UTC 1999

it makes for an interesting look at things.  there is little the we can infer
directly from the datum, but given whatever context we can complement it with,
it could be valuable for something, if only perspective.

response 67 of 90:

Dec 28 18:33 UTC 1999

(I wouldn't be surprised if most of them are trying to prepare for
serving on their first board.) 

response 69 of 90:

Dec 29 00:10 UTC 1999

What's this now?

response 71 of 90:

Dec 29 02:39 UTC 1999

re resp:68
richard, i *really* hope you're just trying (and failing miserably) to be
funny.

response 73 of 90:

Dec 29 17:10 UTC 1999

Ten votes would cost $180.  Why would anyone want to PAY to be a volunteer
board member?

response 75 of 90:

Dec 29 22:41 UTC 1999

That sounds about right.  I don't remember the circumstances very well at this
point, but the board was making some kind of dang-fool new restrictions on
who could vote.  It may have involved separating M-Net membership from
Arbornet membership - one got you extra dial-in access, the other got you the
right to vote.  I thought this would result in very few voters.  There may
have been restrictions saying Texans couldn't vote.  Being pissed at them,
I protested by giving them a lot of money - buying voting memberships for
a bunch of people who expressed useful opinions in the policy conference.
The intent was to load up voting roles with intelligent voters, and
simultaneously demonstrate the stupidity of restricting out-of-state voters
(though I carefully bought only non-buyable people, I could have just
bought votes for more compliant Michigan residents, like my mom).  It was
a fun way to make a point, and it gained M-Net a couple hundred bucks.

response 77 of 90:

Dec 30 20:24 UTC 1999

I assure you, not one of those people would have voted the way I asked
just because I spent a couple bucks on their behalf.  I don't think you
would have either.

I don't remember what prompted the particular forms of insanity that ran
through the M-Net board in those days.  JEP might know, since I think he
was a board member at the time (by far the most sensible).  Maybe they
wanted more separation between M-Net and Arbornet.  Maybe they didn't
think people who were just paying for more dial-in access should get the
right to vote.  Maybe they thought they'd raise more money this way.  I
don't know anymore.  Not sure I knew then.

response 79 of 90:

Dec 30 22:48 UTC 1999

Think of what would happen if somebody bought multiple memberships for
himself and you'll see the analogy I'm making.

response 81 of 90:

Dec 31 05:51 UTC 1999

I almost agree with Marcus's evaluation, but not quite.  My perspective
on things is a bit different.  As I remember, things went kind of like
this:

 - OAFS buy M-Net from Dave, and almost immediately merge with Arbornet.
   Neither organization brings much of any money into the deal, though
   both bring loyal followings of users.  Arbornet has 501c3 status and
   a theoretical committment to doing good deads (if not necessarily
   much of a track record in actually doing them).  M-Net lacks that
   ideology.

 - First few post-merger boards are actually pretty decent.  M-Net is
   doing OK, board wins a substantial grant to pursue the development
   of a K-12 system.  This grant is where Arbornet's big pot of money
   comes from - not from M-Net but from the charitable do-gooders, who
   in fact, don't correspond particularly closely to the set of people
   who came from Arbornet, though part of the inspiration for seeking
   such goals certainly came from Arbornet's history.

 - The first of several big board purges hits.  Each purge leaves behind
   a weaker board and stronger cohorts of disillusioned non-board
   members.  There are two main factions among the non-board members -
   those who want to emphasis charitable missions like the (neglected)
   K-12 project, and those who just want to run a BBS.  The 501c3 status
   becomes the main club the factions use to beat each other with and
   especially to pummel the board members with.  Though the factions
   are associated with Arbornet vs M-Net in many people's minds, the
   people involved in the Arbornet faction aren't particularly people
   who came from Arbornet.

 - A board develops which consists of people who don't clearly fit
   either faction.  In fact, it's hard to tell what they stand for
   because they never venture to say anything in public, being too
   shell-shocked from all the abuse they get.  They get secretive and
   paranoid, doing things like publically pretending to cooperate with
   Grex and HVCN on a grant proposal, while secretly preparing a
   separate proposal.  They spasmotically make sudden and dramatic
   policy changes meant to appease one faction or the other, but always
   upset everyone, partly because they never discuss these changes in
   public in advance of making them.  Among all the silence from the
   board, the disappeance of financial reports seems only natural.

I'd moved to Grex by this stage in the proceedings, and stopped
following M-Net politics closely.  My impression is that the financial
crisis cleared the decks to some extent, and leadership has improved
markedly.