Cyberspace Communications / Grex Bylaws
 
     PREAMBLE
 
  It is the objective of this organization to provided an
  open-access computer conferencing system for the education,
  intellectual enrichment, and entertainment of its users through
  the peaceable interchange of information and ideas.  To this end,
  we establish these bylaws for the governance of the
  organization.
 
 
     ARTICLE 1:  NAME
 
  This organization shall be known as "Cyberspace Communications".
  The computer conferencing system provided by the organization is
  known as "Grex".
 
 
     ARTICLE 2:  MEMBERSHIP
 
  a.  Anyone supporting the goals and objectives of this organization
      as enumerated in the Preamble, and who agrees to abide by
      these bylaws and pay dues, is eligible for membership.
 
  b.  To be eligible to vote, a person must be a current member and
      have paid a minimum of three months dues.
 
 
      ARTICLE 3:  BOARD OF DIRECTORS
 
  a.  The Board of Directors (BOD) shall consist of seven members
      of Grex, and shall include a chairperson, a secretary, and a
      treasurer.
 
  b.  The BOD shall maintain an awareness of and discuss issues
      relevant to Grex's status and (excepting issues whose
      discussion might compromise system security) shall keep the
      users informed of these issues.
 
  c.  The BOD shall make decisions related to system maintenance,
      staff responsibilities and appointments, and issues related
      to daily business.
 
  d.  The BOD shall hold face-to-face meetings on a regular,
      bimonthly basis, and in addition may hold special meetings if
      necessary.  A quorum consists of five BOD members.
 
  e.  The time, place, and agenda of each BOD meeting shall be
      publicized one week in advance of the meeting, or as soon
      thereafter as feasible.  Meetings shall normally be open to
      all users of Grex, except that portions of meetings dealing
      with sensitive system security or personnel issues may be
      held in closed executive session.
 
  f.  The chairperson is reponsible for calling BOD meetings and
      organizing the agenda.  For the purposes of incorporation
      papers, the chairperson shall also be known as the
      president.
 
  g.  The secretary shall take minutes at all BOD meetings and
      make them available to the users of Grex in a timely fashion,
      shall maintain an up-to-date list of all officers, members,
      and staff, and shall handle routine correspondence.
 
  h.  The treasurer shall collect all dues and other monies and
      deposit them in the organization's checking account, shall
      pay all bills by check, shall keep records of all trans-
      actions, and shall publicly post a monthly financial report.
 
  i.  The BOD may establish committees as they deem necessary.
 
 
      ARTICLE 4:  ELECTIONS AND TERMS OF OFFICE
 
  a.  BOD members shall be elected to two-year terms, that begin
      on January 1 of each year.  Terms of office shall be
      staggered, with 4 board positions being filled beginning in
      even-numbered years and 3 in odd-numbered years.
 
  b.  Upon serving two consecutive terms on the BOD, a person must
      vacate the BOD for one year before being eligible to serve
      again.
 
  c.  If an office is vacated before expiration of its term, an
      election to fill the vacancy shall take place within three
      months.  A partial term so created of six months or less will
      not count toward the two-consecutive-term limitation.
 
  d.  Nominations will be submitted by November 15th and elections
      held between the 1st and 15th of December for terms to
      commence January 1st.  2/3 of the membership must vote for
      the election to be valid.  The nominees receiving the most
      votes will be appointed to the BOD.
 
  e.  A BOD member shall be removed from office if they resign,
      not be available for meetings or respond to BOD
      communications for a period of four months, or be voted out
      of office by a vote of the membership, with 2/3 of the
      membership voting and 3/4 of the ballots cast in favor of
      removal.
 
 
      ARTICLE 5:  VOTING PROCEDURES
 
  a.  Any member of Grex may make a motion by entering it as the
      text of a discussion item in a computer conference on Grex
      designated for this purpose.  The item is then used for
      discussion of the motion.  All Grex users may participate in
      the discussion.  No action on the motion is taken for two
      weeks.  At the end of two weeks, the author may then submit a
      final version for a vote by the membership.  The vote is
      conducted on-line over a period of ten days.
 
  b.  A motion will be considered to have passed if, and only if,
      at least 50% of the membership has cast a ballot, and more
      votes were cast in favor than against.
 
  c.  For voting purposes, a day will run midnight to midnight.  In
      the event of continuous system downtime of 24 hours or more,
      the voting period will be adjusted to compensate.
 
 
      ARTICLE 6:  DUES
 
  a.  Membership dues are $60 per year or $6 per month.
 
  b.  The fiscal year shall begin on January 1 of each year.  The
      incumbent treasurer shall close the books prior to this
      date.
 
  c.  The BOD shall be responsible for keeping the membership
      informed as to Grex's financial status.  Should circumstances
      warrant a change in membership dues, the membership will be
      notified and the issue discussed and put to a vote according
      to the procedures of Article 5.
 
  d.  Dues paid to cover a membership of two years or less will
      not be affected by an increase in dues.
 
 
      ARTICLE 7:  AMENDMENTS TO THE BYLAWS
 
  Amendments to these bylaws may be proposed and voted upon at any
  time according to the procedures of Article 5a.  In order for a
  proposed amendment to take effect, 2/3 of the membership must
  vote, with a 3/4 majority voting in favor of the change.
 
 
      ARTICLE 8:  DISSOLVEMENT
 
  In the event the membership is unable to support Cyberspace
  Communications, all property belonging to the club shall be
  sold.  The remaining cash assets, after paying final bills, shall
  be donated to a charitable organization, as determined by the
  BOD.  All elected officers shall then be released from their
  obligations and the corporation dissolved.
 
 
      ADDENDUM
 
  It is understood that it may not be feasible to hold the first
  election for the Board of Directors by the dates specified in
  Article 5.  An election for the initial Board of Directors shall
  be held within 90 days of the adoption of these bylaws.  All
  seven BOD positions will be filled in this election, with the
  four candidates receiving the most votes having two-year terms
  and the next three candidates one-year terms.
                      ===========

28 responses total.

This response has been erased.

I take it that if you've just paid for a two year membership and the org
dissolves the next month, you're out the money and that's it?
(Not meaning to imply that this is a likely occurence, or that it would happen
by the intent of anyone.)

The dues you just paid would then be tax deductible (even those to grex
are not). Think generously.

From the information conference:

      ARTICLE 3:  BOARD OF DIRECTORS
  
   a.  The Board of Directors (BOD) shall consist of seven members
       of Grex, and shall include a chairperson, a secretary, and a
       treasurer.
  
   b.  The BOD shall maintain an awareness of and discuss issues
       relevant to Grex's status and (excepting issues whose
       discussion might compromise system security) shall keep the
       users informed of these issues.
  
   c.  The BOD shall make decisions related to system maintenance,
       staff responsibilities and appointments, and issues related
       to daily business.
  
   d.  The BOD shall hold face-to-face meetings on a regular,
       bimonthly basis, and in addition may hold special meetings if
       necessary.  A quorum consists of five BOD members.

Note last line. 

There should not be multiple versions of the bylaws available easily. 

You do realize you're replying to an article in an out-of-the-way conference
that was last active in 1994, don't you?

The definitive version of the bylaws are what is on the web page, not what
is in the conferences (which very, very few Grex users actually use anymore).

I just wrote "join grex", and that is the conference I got. There was no
statement that it was outdated. 

I don't use the web page. It isn't as simple as bbs. In any case, there should
not be different versions available - just the current one - unless there is
a conference labeled "obsolete and replaced documents". 

Don't know what to tell you.  People get upset when things disappear
from the BBS.

Your unwillingness to use the web is your problem; you'll miss out on
the official documentation.  I have no control over what people post in
the conferences.

Or look at coop item 325. 

I'm willing to use the web. I just find it much less satisfactory for 
Grex.

The obsolete bylaws have disappeared from applicabiity. Why not 
disappear them from BBS? Or put them in an Ancient Grex History 
conference.

resp:9 Get in contact with the person who posted them and ask that person
to take them down.

You know, Rane, instead of complaining --- constantly --- about others not
doing their job (but only in the way you see fit) you could actually step
up and do something about it.  Such as, like I just said, getting in contact
with the people who posted these things and asking them to scribble or
asking the fairwitnesses to retire those items or whatever.

I haven't complained. I have only pointed out some problems. I can't correct
them myself, and I was under the impression that my duty is to point them out
when I find them, so those that can, will. I do assume the fairwitnesses do
read their conferences and try to improve them when problems are identified.
I also think having the problems hang around to confuse people is not to
Grex's benefit. 

Perhaps you don't think anything I think is a problem is actually a problem,
but I still think if I do, I should point it out. I don't think I have pointed
out any problems that are not problems. 

I think you have.  Far fewer than one percent of Grex users read the
conferences; do you think they care about how outdated an item in some
random conference is?

Who would you have us spend more time on: the handful of users who still
use the BBS, or the thousands of others who could care less about computer
conferencing?

More to the point, just who have you pointed these problems out to?  Why
not try to figure out who the fairwitness of the 'info' conference is and
ask him or her to retire the items you find offensive?

Or, if you want staff to do it, send email to help@grex.org; don't post
in some random conference.

Are you supporting the retention of error because the majority don't care?

When I wrote j grex it did not tell me who the fairwitness is. It only 
informed me that it was the Grex "information conference". That sounds 
pretty official and dependable. So I quoted from it. Hence I cited some 
of the info in agora. Eventually someone pointed out that it was wrong. 
Seems to me that someone in authority would have noted that and 
scrambled to correct the error, instead of taking me to task for not 
doing anything about it (at the time I didn't know it was wrong).

resp:13 I'm suggesting going to authoritative data.  You continue to
argue that data that you have been told is not authoritative is authoritative.
That's not my problem.

I have NOT claimed that. I have only suggested that false information 
should not be readily at hand with "j grex" in the conferences. I went 
to the current version when this was pointed out. But the misinformation 
is still in the information conference, and not noted as incorrect. How 
is a new user to know what is "authoritative" or not?

New users rarely try the BBS; they turn to the web first for information.
Stop living in the 1980s.

They don't know the advantages they are missing.

Perhaps it is you who do not know the advantages you are missing, because
you spend most of your time on Grex in the conferences.

Wat are you talking about? The Grex website says:

"Free Grex Services
    
       Discussion Areas
       Real-Time Chat
       Internet Email
       Web Browsing
       Web Hosting
       Unix Shell Accounts
       Available Software
       Mindterm Java Terminal (ssh)

I use at least six of these. What am I missing besides Real-Time Chat 
(and I don't need the "Available Software").

The available software.

Hey, keep yourself firmly rooted in the 1980s; no sweat off my back.

Where do I find a list of Available Software?

http://grex.org/software.xhtml

Bit it's more for programmers.  You might find something there you
want to try, maybe.

I'm no longer a programmer. I was once (Fortran, for engineering calculations)
but found Excel could do almost all I had need of with Fortran, and much more
simply. 

That still doesn't really explain what the "advantages" of Grex's conferences
are.

Grex's conferences allow us to spectate a much more civilized argument
(flame ware?) between two users than the conferences on another
not-to-be-named conferencing system from the Ann Arbor area ;)

Really?  Even since Kerry came back?

Grex's conferences tend to be, frankly, provincial.

I didn't know that you expected me to "really explain what the 
"advantages" of Grex's conferences are" but rather that you were going 
to tell me some advantages of grex that I am not using, but only came up 
with "other software", which I do not have a use for. I think I am 
hardly living in the '80s, as asserted, for that.

Mostly because I find you not worth my time.  You are obstinate,
pedantic, egg-headed, and behave like a smug ass.  But hey, keep
trying to argue the issue of this item in this conference.  Your
condescention is actually kind of funny.

You said, about users who do not wish to use the conferences that,
"they don't know the advantages they are missing."  I merely replied
that you don't know what advantages you are missing by choosing not
to use other software; you don't really know whether you have a use
for it or not.  If you so narrowly define your criteria for usefulness
so that only the conferences are useful for you, then so be it: the
conferences aren't going anywhere.  But don't presume to believe
that they will be useful for other people, or that other people who
*don't* use them are somehow "missing" their "advantages", which
you don't articulate.

This whole thread of discussion is, frankly, a waste of time.  You
have been here long enought o know how to figure out who the fair
witness of a conference is; you could email that person about the
bylaws if you wanted.  Or email the conference administrator.  Or
post in some more active conference.  I don't think you'll do that,
though, because I believe you'd rather just argue it than actually
do something constructive.

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