| Grex > Coop12 > #113: Cyberspace Communications finances for June 2002 |  |
| response 75 of 271: | 
Jul 4 16:11 UTC 2002 |
Psst - aruba - it's a waste of time trying to convince jmsaul to become a member. He's decided he really likes being an "outsider" on Grex, so he'll make up whatever reasons he needs to to justify staying that way.
| response 76 of 271: |
Jul 4 16:51 UTC 2002 |
Re #71: My Pentium-based system has an uptime of over six months, though of course it doesn't get pounded on anywhere near as bad as Grex does. Unfortunately I'm going to have to reboot it soon to fix that stupid DNS resolver security hole in FreeBSD, so I'll never manage to get it up to a year. Re #73: Probably the reason it's taking so long is I don't think any of the staff members are regular dialin users. That makes it a pretty low priority from their perspective. The problem is no one but staff has any idea how the dialins are configured.
| response 77 of 271: |
Jul 4 16:53 UTC 2002 |
Re 69: What I'm saying is that after a while, I start ignoring the opinions of people who don't bother to support Grex. Talk is cheap, and on the internet it's actually cheaper than free since I have to spend time reading it. New opinions are always welcome, but I don't recall hearing anything especially new from you lately.
| response 78 of 271: |
Jul 4 17:02 UTC 2002 |
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| response 79 of 271: |
Jul 4 17:09 UTC 2002 |
Gee, can I get you an Ayn Rand book for the ride home, Jamie? ;)
| response 80 of 271: |
Jul 4 17:41 UTC 2002 |
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| response 81 of 271: |
Jul 4 17:48 UTC 2002 |
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| response 82 of 271: |
Jul 4 17:48 UTC 2002 |
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| response 83 of 271: |
Jul 4 17:49 UTC 2002 |
And people wonder why I consider myself an outsider here? Sheesh.
Re #74: I'm not jealous about Grex having $5K. It isn't that much money
in the greater scheme of things. I'm not even jealous of Grex's
financial stability -- I could personally cover M-Net's monthly
expenses if I needed to, and so could a lot of other people. No
matter what Grexers thought, there was never any danger of M-Net
going down forever, and that's all that matters.
I *do* think that, if you've got $5K in the bank, you should stop
pretending you're in month-to-month survival mode and start
thinking about what that frees you up to do. It's okay if you
don't want to change anything, but don't expect that approach to
attract new donors, which is what you were talking about.
It isn't just M-Netters saying that, by the way. Look at Mary's
post, and Jan's.
And I'm not talking out of my ass. My wife works in fundraising
and development, and one of the basic principles is that you need
to show potential donors what their donation is accomplishing.
(You also need to make them feel wanted, but you've blown that
one.)
Re #75: You're either jumping to conclusions based on minimal knowledge
of me and my motivations, or making a very crude attempt at
reverse psychology. Either way, nice try.
Re #77: "Pay up or shut up." Original. If everyone else agrees with
you, maybe you could make that Grex's login banner.
| response 84 of 271: |
Jul 4 17:50 UTC 2002 |
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| response 85 of 271: |
Jul 4 17:52 UTC 2002 |
80-82 slipped.
| response 86 of 271: |
Jul 4 17:53 UTC 2002 |
Re #84: Shut up. You aren't a member.
| response 87 of 271: |
Jul 4 17:56 UTC 2002 |
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| response 88 of 271: |
Jul 4 17:58 UTC 2002 |
The only reason you guys feel like your outsiders is because you want to feel like your outsiders. People here don't agree with you, so you want to feel put upon and pout about it (or shout about it). That's a childish way to react, but I guess I shouldn't expect much more. Both as a member and as a board member, I've brought up a number of points about the way we should run things. I've often been on the losing end of the argument. Did I get all bent out of shape about it? No, because it usually doesn't do any good to do so. Maybe MNet's different, but it usually doesn't work to one's advantage here to yell and scream and pout. Having said that, let's move on. I think it's futile to waste any effort on convincing people like cross, jp2, and jmsaul to join us. They've formed their prejudices about how we are and how we run things and it's a waste of time to try to convince them otherwise. Let's work on what we can do to make members of the hundreds of other people who log in here.
| response 89 of 271: |
Jul 4 18:01 UTC 2002 |
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| response 90 of 271: |
Jul 4 18:05 UTC 2002 |
Re #88: Honest to whatever you believe in, I thought this was a polite
discussion up until the point where Scott came in and compared
me to Richard. My part of it, anyway. I thought it was reasonable
to ask what Grex would do with donated money, too.
I don't understand your reaction at all. Are you reading the
posts, or skimming them and reacting blindly?
| response 91 of 271: |
Jul 4 18:15 UTC 2002 |
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| response 92 of 271: |
Jul 4 18:19 UTC 2002 |
I'm sorry, Joe, I didn't mean to say that you were a pouter or a shouter. It actually is valid to ask how Grex would use the money. But I don't buy the line, "I'm not giving to Grex because I don't like the way they spend their money," especially when you continue to use the system. Don't you think that's a bit contradictory? I mean I don't give to a lot of non-profits, but then I don't make use of their services, either. We just ignore you, jp2, because you're an asshole.
| response 93 of 271: |
Jul 4 18:24 UTC 2002 |
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| response 94 of 271: |
Jul 4 18:34 UTC 2002 |
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| response 95 of 271: |
Jul 4 18:36 UTC 2002 |
I think it's more an issue of people who show and immediately start talking about how Grex is doing everything wrong, based on their experience somewhere else.
| response 96 of 271: |
Jul 4 18:37 UTC 2002 |
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| response 97 of 271: |
Jul 4 18:38 UTC 2002 |
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| response 98 of 271: |
Jul 4 18:43 UTC 2002 |
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| response 99 of 271: |
Jul 4 19:33 UTC 2002 |
After reviewing the responses in this item, I'd like to apologize to Dan Cross. All I'll say is that I'm hot and feeling cranky. In fact, we do agree on one salient point--that Grex needs to offer something besides bbs and party. Let's talk about that some more. One of us should enter an item either here in Agora or in coop. I think this might be a good starting point to work on th hardware issues, too. If we can form some kind of consensus about the kind of software we want to run, then that could drive the hardware discussion.