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.

response 83 of 90:

Dec 31 16:19 UTC 1999

The decision to restrict out of state people from being Arbornet members 
was due to an effort to make Arbornet serve the residents of Michigan, 
and be identified with them.  It was not a good idea, as has been noted, 
but few things going on for M-Net/Arbornet at the time were good ideas.

It came about because we were being told constantly we were not 
fulfilling our 501(c)(3) charter, and were being panicked into thinking 
we would become personally financially liable for -- something -- if we 
didn't do better.  It started with Aaron Larson and Dan Napolitano, but 
other people picked up the idea, too.  It was an enormously depressing 
time to be a Board member.  I never did really understand all that went 
on from the users at that time.  I don't understand it now.  The Board 
was willing to accept about anything that resembled direction and 
leadership.

The merger between Arbornet and M-Net was Iain O'Cain's suggestion, as 
the sole regular user of both systems.  Arbornet had a stash of cash 
(about $2000) and a working Altos computer.  They had no users; the 
user base was 4 people.  M-Net had no cash at all, the Board used to 
celebrate patronships received at Board meetings.  And M-Net's Altos was 
dying.  But we had all those users.  There wasn't much opposition from 
either side about merging.

The merger paid off for M-Net, as it got us in NEW Center.  This 
provided cheap rent and a stable residence, meeting space, access to 
other non-profits, office equipment such as a copier... it was a great 
thing.  Shortly thereafter we got the K-12 grant from the AA Area 
Community Foundation.  This was not a financial gain; every penny was 
spent on PCs to distribute to schools; but it gave Arbornet the standing 
of having received a grant.  

The K-12 project was an effort to get an Internet connection through 
Merit; we'd provide all of these services to K-12 teachers, including 
free computers, and M-Net would get to piggyback on the Internet 
connection.  Actually it wasn't really an Internet connection we were 
looking for; none of the Board members knew what the Internet was.  It 
was dial-in access through Merit, providing access from all over the 
state.  We had a 9600 baud connection allowing 3 dial-ins, but had 
visions of M-Net being a state-wide conferencing system.  The Merit part 
fell through as they weren't going to fund it; it would have cost 
Arbornet thousands of dollars per month to pay for what we had 
envisioned.

Time passed, we got an Internet connection from MSEN, K-12 died for lack 
of any interest whatsoever from anyone.  Dan Napolitano and Aaron Larson 
had been looking into compliance issues for 501(c)(3)'s over a few 
months.  I had paid little attention.  There was a Board election; Dan 
had expected to be elected president, but the incoming Board members had 
other ideas and elected someone else (Greg Russo).  Dan interpreted the 
election for president as being fixed, and led the exodus from the 
Board, which took away 5 Board members, out of 7.  That's when the 
501(c)(3) compliance issues came into the public's attention, because 
Dan and Aaron pushed it very hard.  Arbornet didn't recover from the 
aftermath of this mess until this year (if indeed it has done so even 
now).

During the following summer, Arbornet built it's funds to $12,000 in the 
bank by selling "Internet access accounts", along with the really good 
M-Net manual.  But at the same time, the Board was being harangued by 
Dan and Aaron, and support from the traditional users was falling as a 
result.

The HVCN/Arbornet/Grex effort to collaborate on a large grant project 
came during the following year, I think.  Probably few remember it, but 
clearly Marcus still views it as a sore spot.  HVCN, Arbornet and Grex 
worked together on a grant proposal which would have provided a lot of 
community information via computers.  It was envisioned as a $600,000 
grant.  Arbornet was the only 501(c)(3) organization at the start of 
this project, though HVCN got certified while working on it.  HVCN had a 
lot of community leaders and non-profit knowledgeable people, such as 
Arnold Barr and Linda Vengroff.  Grex brought the others together, and 
had a terrific base of technically knowledgeable people.

Arbornet never had a clear purpose for being part of this project, 
though.  I mean the Board never agreed on why they wanted to be in it.  
What purpose Arbornet had didn't jibe with what the HVCN people had in 
mind (kiosks in malls and shopping centers).  Arbornet pulled out at the 
last minute, causing enormous difficulties for the project, and hard 
feelings.  Arbornet also said it intended to submit it's own proposal, 
causing even more hard feelings.  It never really did so; having no 
vision for a grant proposal, it shouldn't have said it would.

Arbornet Boards have often been called secretive and conspiring and 
things like that.  Did it really seem that way to you, Jan?  In truth 
they were muddled and confused and clueless and directionless.  On the 
Boards I was on, we wanted M-Net to keep working, and to do what we 
thought we could and should in other areas.  Occasionally someone would 
come along with some idea of what we ought to and could do -- Jim Knight 
in particular.  The rest of us were trying to help with the work, and 
make the best decisions we could, and kind of going along for the ride. 
Occasionally someone got elected to the Board who really just wanted to 
be popular with M-Netters.  I never knew of anyone who wanted to 
participate in a conspiracy of any kind, or do any harm.  Darned few had 
any kind of agenda of any kind.

response 85 of 90:

Dec 31 16:40 UTC 1999

I never saw the application form for the K-12 project, so I don't know 
what it said, Richard.  I can say this, though: the $7500 grant was from 
the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, a non-government non-profit 
which receives it's funding from private donations and public grants.  
It's budget is a lot larger than $7500, but I don't know how big 
exactly.  (It makes a couple of hundred thousand dollars of grants per 
year.)  The Board didn't know what the interest level was from the 
users, or what participation level would be needed from them.

Arbornet's charter, as filed with the IRS in 1985, called for it being a 
source of community information as well as discussion.  The Arbornet 
that was created 14 years ago was supposed to be a lot different than 
the Arbornet which actually existed in 1993.

M-Net merged with Arbornet because it was severely short of money and in 
immediate danger of dying, and because those of us trying to keep it 
going expected wonderful things to come from being part of a 501(c)(3). 
We were naive without question.  Everyone is naive about a thing when 
they do it for the first time.

response 87 of 90:

Jan 1 20:58 UTC 2000

It was me, not Marcus, that mentioned the grant proposal.  At the time I
was involved only with M-Net, not Grex, but I was seriously pissed at
the Arbornet board of that.  I don't remember if Arbornet actually did
submit their own grant proposal, they did secretly submit their own
separate letter of intent (which had to be sent long before the proposal
could).  They then participated in joint planning meetings, and then
announced that they weren't going to continue in the joint proposal, but
where submitting their own separate competing proposal.  I had no
personal involvement with the other systems, but felt it was disgraceful
for "my" system to behave that way.

I also never believed there was a conspiracy of board members.  I
believed that the level of poison and acrimony directed at the board
members was so great that they didn't dare make themselves larger
targets by saying anything.  There were periods of years where most
board members never said anything subtantive in the conferences (jep
was, as I recall, the single exception).  Not that saying anything would
have accomplished much except having people beat on them personally
instead of on the board in general.  The atmosphere there was really
bad.  The board failed to save a bad situation, but I don't really blame
the board very much - I'm not sure I could have done much better (though
if I hadn't been in Texas at the time, I might have tried).

response 89 of 90:

Jan 3 15:56 UTC 2000

Apologies to Marcus.  I read back, and he's right.

Arbornet didn't plan in advance to submit it's own grant application as 
far as I know.  We heard of the grant because Valerie Mates invited the 
Arbornet Board members to get together with the HVCN folks, and I became 
Arbornet's representative.  We all discussed things for several months, 
over a number of meetings.

I made it pretty clear what I thought Arbornet would be willing to 
participate in.  I missed the final grant application meeting, during 
which the final decision on what to apply for was made (I was in Paris 
at the time), and the decision was to focus on things I had said many 
times Arbornet wouldn't support.  (Kiosks, specifically.)

Arbornet had a Board meeting the following weekend, and at that Board 
meeting, the various views of the Board members came out.  Everyone was 
opposed, but everyone was opposed for a different reason.  It was 
awfully chaotic.  It was also a big surprise to me.  I think even if the 
joint grant project had been something I would have supported, the rest 
of the Board wouldn't have wanted to participate.

I'd been posting about the discussions in the policy conference through 
the entire process, but there was no participation from *anyone* else.  
Not the Board, not any other users... the item looked like a log file 
from me, more or less.  So I didn't have a clue as to what anyone 
thought.

Anyway, I made the Arbornet Board's motion to withdraw from the grant 
project.  You can be mad at me for that, Jan, but as I said, the focus 
of the grant was made to be something I didn't think Arbornet should be 
doing, and I'd made that clear to the rest of the participants in the 
grant project.  The motion passed unanimously as I recall it, because of 
a lot of different reasons -- everyone had their own.  No one ever 
discussed their reasons with me, before or after.  I also told the grant 
project that Arbornet was withdrawing, at a meeting.  I'm sure some of 
those people are still mad at me about it, but I think withdrawing was 
justified by the circumstances.

The Board did say it was going to do it's own grant proposal, and that 
was stupid, because it was far too late in the proposal process.  It may 
have been unethical as well.  I guess I won't argue that if anyone says 
it was.