Welcome to the new Coop.  We're in version 14!

This time, I have editiorial rights to the Bylaws, which I'm sure need to be
brought up to date with votes that have occurred since it was last edited.
I think remmers may be able to help me with this, but if you notice anything,
let me hear about it.

I've brought over all of this year's Treasurer's Reports, Board Agendas, and
Board Meeting Minutes.  I linked any item that's had a response in the past
two weeks.  Again, if you want some other item here for reference, let me
know.

50 responses total.

Colleen, here is some background.

The bylaws live in /usr/local/grexdoc/archives/bylaws .  When there is a 
member vote that changes the bylaws I have done the editing to reflect the 
approved ammendment.  I pull up the last version of the document, make the 
exact approved changes, and save the document with a new version number 
appended to the file name. This system has worked pretty well by keeping 
archival copies of all versions as they were approved. Yet it's pretty 
clear which is the current (last) version.

The current bylaws (which you've posted here) are at:
/usr/local/grexdoc/archives/bylaws/bylaws.v6

What file are you intending to edit?  Or maybe you mean you'd simply
edit the text you've entered in this item to reflect any changes?

Would you rather I keep a copy of the latest version at something like:
/usr/local/grexdoc/archives/bylaws/bylaws.current 
and you could link to that knowing it would stay up to date?

The conference header of coop14 says "Welcome to the Co-op Conference [Ver
13]", the same as coop13.

No need to link the spam item, but I am still getting spam filter requests,
13 so far.

Thanks kingjon, I'll fix that.  Mary, I would like to have a current version
here as well, so I'll be updating that item.  But I have no problem using your
edits, so that everything stays in sync.

Sindi, is that 13 total since Feb 27? Or 13 new ones since your last report?

Regarding #1; How about using a tool to keep track of the revisions?  Like
RCS?

What's RCS?

13 total requests for spam filters, all but 3 from strangers.

Regarding #6; Revision control software; it allows you to maintain history
of files and coordinate changes among multiple people in a simple way.  In
a nutshell, old versions of a document are stored in a text file called
(originally) an RCS file; the RCS file contains enough information that any
previously `checked in' version of the file can be reconstructed by request.
Users `check out' a file to edit it; once they're done, they `check in' their
changes.  Only one user can have a file checked out at a time to change it,
though essentially anyone can read it at any time.

Check out the man pages for `rcs', `co' and `ci'.  A not-bad-looking tutorial
on how to use the tools is here:
http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~dbutler/tutorials/winter96/rcs/

 re #6:  RCS stands for "Revision Control System".  It's a system
 originally designed to aid teams of programmers who were working
 on a shared set of source code files by creating tools to manage
 a single version of the file and keep a log of revisions, allowing
 retrieval of previous versions, comparisons of different revisions,
 and other features.  Although originally designed for keeping
 program source code, RCS and similar revision-tracking systems
 can be used for a wide variety of documents.

 Basically what happens is this:  before you can edit a document
 that's controlled by RCS you have to "check it out".  Once you've
 got it checked out, you can make changes or whatever, but nobody
 else sees those changes until you check your copy back in. 
 If you're the only one who has been editing it, the version you
 checked in becomes the new version (but the old version is kept
 around, too, and people can look at the edit history and elect
 to get a different version to work from.)  If someone else made
 edits when you had your copy checked out then you're given a
 chance to reconcile your edits with theirs when you check your
 copy back in.  The idea is to create a mechanism where if two
 people are trying to edit the same document one's changes don't
 simply get over-written by whoever saves their copy last.

 re #8:  apparently it's been a while since I've used RCS.
 I thought multiple people could have a copy of the file checked
 out, but maybe not..

Not in the canonical configuration.  With RCS, there's one copy of the files
under edit; with CVS and so on, multiple copies can be checked out into
workspaces (or sandboxes, or whatever they call it; I forget the exact
nomenclature).  But by default, locks are strict in RCS.

I've used CVS, so I'm used to multiple simultaneous edits.  

However, I think in this case, it's like using excel to balance your
handwritten check register.  Far too complex for what we need.

I'm happy with Mary editing the canonical version, to be kept somewhere else,
and making sure I have the latest revisions here.  

Agree.  But thanks, Dan and Mike, for the explanation.

Sure.

Could we have an update on the number of users who have requested help
in setting up spam filters?

13.  One of them just wanted a whitelist.  One wrote back asking if the spam
filter was broken when the spam volume doubled recently.  Another wrote asking
why he was getting spams 'from' grexers (not the vandals, these were spams
purporting to be from grexers, including the recipient).  Someone else wrote
me for help with something unrelated, which I forwarded to staff.
Most of the people wrote within the first month.  One of them reported back
that 80% of spams were caught by spamassassin, after keeping track for a few
days.  

Is that the same 13 you reported in response 7 back in June?

I think I had one more request since June.  Maybe nobody else cares about
spam here.

I know I don't.

How about asking in motd for people to write to some address about whether
they do or do not want to continue using grex for email, and if so, do they
want their mail filtered?

Would you drop the system-wide mail filtering concept.  If a total of 13
people were unable to deal with it individually, out of our thousands of
users, I'd say we've already got our poll.  The fact than no one in the past
3 months has requested this service is even more telling.  

We *were* conducting a poll.  You were getting all the answers.  People don't
want this.  Active conference users have vehemently expressed this.  Let it
go.


As for a poll about offering email on grex, that will be a member vote, not
an unprofessional attempt at polling.  We won't argue about what the poll
means.  We'll just go with the results.  

If only a minority of members use a particular service at grex, is that a
reason to discontinue it?  I never use party.  Or play games.

(takes the bait).  

We are not talking about discontinuing a service because only a minority is
using it.  Please don't troll in here.  Agora is a better place.  

DO you propose to discontinue mail if a majority of paying members votes to
do so?  If not, what percentage of votes would you like to require?  Obviously
some of us still use grex mail.  What is the purposes of putting it to a vote?

Regarding #24; I don't think we need to *eliminate* email right now, but if
we make it *opt-in* for those few that are interested in it, and make it clear
that it comes with almost no staff support, then that's a lot better than the
current situation.

Thanks, Dan.  You can refer new users to me for help with spam filtering. 
I think they should be warned there is no system filter.  Were they going to
get a choice between local-only and local-plus-outside mail?

Sindi, I don't think you understand: When I say `next to no staff support'
I don't mean for spam filtering, I mean *for email totally*.  So if there's
an email problem, tough.  If you lose your mail, tough.  If you want some
enhancement to email, it ain't gonna happen.  New users would have to jump
through some hoops to even get access to email.

Thanks, cross, for helping with the mail problem as much as you have done.

Sindi, if this proposal passes, new users will not get any email at all.
They will not be given a choice.  

Socially validated users will have full access to email, with no staff
support.  This might be a limited-time solution, since socially
validated users might still abuse email. 

If Social validation does not stop users from abusing email, we have
some other choices.  

We can stop offering email altogether. Sentiment is building rapidly for
this measure.  

We might continue to offer email with the cyberspace.org domain name,
but do it through Gmail or something similar as Dan suggested.  This
would be an ongoing financial drain on Grex.  

We might make email available only to completely validated users. 

We might come up with some other idea.   None of them will involve staff
support for email or email problems.  

I spent some time yesterday talking to a sales rep from Google about
e-mail outsourcing for my ISP, but part of the conversation was relevant
to Grex's situation, too.

It looks like in Grex's case it can be done through Gmail for free. 
Web users can use a cyberspace.org-labelled web mail, command-line users
can use fetchmail and have it delivered to a local mail client.
Google prefers that most people use the web mail client because that's
how they earn the advertising revenue that supports the service, but it's
not a requirement.

If it can be worked out that easily and cheaply, why on earth don't we?

Please explain how this would work, in detail, maybe with a template that we
could edit (change 'user' to our own login, for instance).

Simple. The user would type "man fetchmail" on their local system and
would configure the fetchmail client to download the mail via the pop
protocol. The user could then do with it as they want. Since you are the
only one demanding this, why don't you do the leg-work and tell us? 

I am not going to use popmail under any name.  I do not want to download
large attachments.  Please stop suggesting this.

Then I guess you're out of luck.

You are SOL, then. If you want it so bad, do it yourself. I gave you
pointers to explanations of all the tools you would need. Quit whining,
quit demanding and either do for yourself or shut the fuck up. 

 OK, I know that there's a substantial provocation factor here,
 but does that kind of response ever go anywhere useful?

Resp:36 Probably not. 

Sindi, you need to stop being so hard-headed. First of all, running
fetchmail on Grex to download POPmail is going to download the
attachments to Grex and not your home computer. Thus it would be exactly
like having the e-mail delivered locally to grex. So please don't
automatically dismiss a solution at the first sound of "POP".

Here is an example .fetchmailrc file:

   set postmaster "terrence"
   set bouncemail
   set properties ""
   poll pop.gmail.com with proto POP3
   user 'nharmon@cyberspace.org' there with password 'ilovesgmail' is
    nharmon here 
   
Basically, I would recommend you have your login script run fetchmail
when you log in, and then you could write a script to run it before
running pine and then alias "pine" to that script.

Mike, did you happen to discuss with the person from Google about how
accounts are set up? Obviously Grex would want a way of doing so
automatically, or with minimal staff effort. I suppose it would be a
great way of implementing an e-mail opt-in system. What about resetting
passwords and other such things?

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