At last night's BOD meeting the subject of Grex's mission was raised.
Our mission statement, titled Declaration of Principles, was written in
May of 1991, and it hasn't really been formally reviewed since. At
least not that I'm aware of. Maybe that's because it's so broadly
written that it's still a good fit. Or maybe not.
I'll post it below. Does it still capture what we are doing? What we
want to be doing? Are changes needed?
*******************************************
Grex's Declaration of Principles
This system is intended to foster community education and the
spiritual and intellectual enrichment of its users through
the peaceable interchange of ideas.
The members of this system hope to attract a large, diverse, and
mature group of thinking individuals and thereby to contribute
to a better-informed citizenry.
Governance of the system is based on cooperative principles,
including open membership, democratic control, and non-
profit economics.
This is an open-access system; the public is welcome. However,
regular users are encouraged to become members and help
support the system financially. Voting on system policy
matters is restricted to members.
It should go without saying that the system is specifically NOT
intended for any illegal purpose.
Users are asked to be considerate of others, and are especially
asked to make a point of setting a good example for those
few who may from time to time fail to return the favor.
******************************************************
Online this document is found at:
https://grex.cyberspace.org/cyberspace/principles.xhtml
28 responses total.
I should add that it's my recollection that this is a founding document. Even the bylaws came later. But if someone else knows more about its history, please correct me.
i thnk we are still upholding this declatration.
We aren't attracting a large mature group...in fact, we're attracting less people, less members. It's hard to say we are open-access if we drop people into a restricted shell right away and then force them to apply (in several steps) for further access. That doesn't seem very welcoming to me. We aren't encouraging regular users to become members, either, and haven't for some time (over a year). Thus, our ability to govern is falling apart (how many members do we really have if you ignore that the Board extended memberships to people who had not paid?). So, it doesn't seem to me we are upholding this declaration very well at all. Adherence to a mission statement without regard for changing conditions will not lead to any improvement in our current situation, which many feel is untenable already. If the declaration itself is good, then we need to start improving our adherence to it by actually doing the things it advocates. If we can't do that, then we should change our declaration to reflect how we intend to operate and change what we do to adhere to that new declaration.
I'd like Tony's advice on how we could open up access without being so very vulnerable to twits. M-Net doesn't see to have that problem. Why is that? I agree with Kent's #3.
I'm not as familiar with OpenBSD as I am with FreeBSD, but I, like Dan, wonder how it is that OpenBSD seems to have more issues than M-Net, and further wonder if we wouldn't find the stability increase if we switched. It's among the reasons we've lobbied for switching away from OpenBSD. We know that we've got the same users who have abused both systems, but only Grex has really suffered real downtime. m-net has had it's share of annoyance, but only once did we ever even reboot due to the abuse, and I'm not sure the reboot was necessary so much as easier.
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." (Will Rogers)
I agree with switching. By the way, greetings from Helmand, Afghanistan.
Nice to see you, cross. Stay safe!
Yeah, thanks for dropping in. I hope everything is going well for you. Do please stay safe!
I have the impressions that: 1. M-Net has more aggressively managed individual troublemakers. 2. Grex has been more aggressively targeted by troublemakers. In regards to 1, I think M-Net staff has felt less bound by principles in dealing with the problem than has Grex staff. As for maintaining an "open" system, it has to be said that the viability of any open society depends on the willingness of its constituents to band together to isolate and/or exclude those individuals who would otherwise effectively destroy the system through sociopathic behavior. Grex has shown a willingness to take limited steps toward that end, but most constituents have simply felt it was easier to walk away. The obvious conclusion is that in the current environment, Grex is either not viable, or will have to demonstrate a willingness to adapt (possibly compromising some principles) in order to prove it is viable. In the latter case, the follow-up question is, "What does Grex have to do (and become) to remain viable?"
re #5 yes some of the same trolls who sabatoge grex also use mnet and cause no problems there. I think Grex comes across as more bureacratic than Mnet, for whatever reason and has more older regular users. When you have more high minded people to piss off, it sseemingly makes it more fun for them.
Grexers hold themselves very superior to most people; I think that has a lot to do with it. resp:12 is a perfect example. "When you have more high minded people to piss off, it seemingly makes it more fun for them." High-minded people? Come on; how arrogant.
"more bureacratic"??? It is almost impossible to find any bureau around here at all.
I should have said, 'more people who SEEM or might come across to outsiders as high minded'
re #14 I think a better word for Grex's arrogant few would be cohors praetoria. M-Net is plain anarchy with a disregard for the Ann Arbor superiority complex. Grex ails from the latter.
re #16 plain anarchy isn't conducive to running a solid organization. Arbornet is a shell of what it once was and has even less of a mission/purpose than Grex.
r e#17 plain anarchy isn't conducive to running a solid organization WHat's to run?
resp:17 That's looking at the situation with an extreme bias. At this point, M-Net has a much more vibrant system than Grex.
OK, so are there any other opinions of our mission? It has been in place for almost 20 years and while it was well-written and for at least some of that time was what Grex did, do we need to change it now? Or change how we're running Grex to be more in line with the original idea of what Grex should be and do? Or both? It doesn't hurt to review the purpose of an organization periodically, especially if times change and the organization seems to be drifting from its original purpose.
Would changes to our mission mean we'd need to update our 501(c)3 filing? If so, I say we let it ride for now.
As long as we adhere to the general principles of our filing in our operations, I don't see any issue. To expect nothing to change in 20 years is a bit much. If we modified our mission to do something totally different, then I'd expect we'd need to make sure our filing was still okay. We're not doing anything totally different. In fact we're doing essentially the same thing we have been doing all along (for example, computer conferencing, discussion). I don't think we are proposing to do something totally different, either. At least, I have not heard such a proposal. In terms of our ideals, I don't think we're too far off from what we want to be (though that is something it's good to revisit from time to time), so in that sense we can leave the principles as-is. The next step, though, whether we change principles or not, is making sure we're operating in agreement with those principles.
As long as we don't violate the terms of 501(c)3 we can do *anything*. However there are a few hoops tojump through. See http://is.gd/c990F
Thanks Rane. That would be a good reason not to change our principles. But, as for operations, we're still doing essentially the same thing yet, we probably need to review a few things to make sure we're still in line with our status. As I've pointed out, it's a good idea to review this sort of thing every once in a while to make sure we're still on track.
Of course, I don't think we're planning on changing from doing medical education conferences to assisting children like the organization in the link information. That is definitely a change in purpose for an organization and would require re-review.
Grex (or more properly, Cyberspace Communication, Inc.) is a
Michigan not-for-profit corporation and as such is legally bound
by its Articles of Incorporation:
http://grex.org/cyberspace/articles.xhtml
Here's what the Articles say about our mission:
The Corporation is organized for such charitable and
educational purposes as may qualify it for exemption from the
federal income tax under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (or the corresponding
provisions of any future United States internal revenue law.)
More specifically, such purposes include, but are not limited
to, the advancement of public education and scientific
endeavor through interaction with computers, and humans via
computers, using computer conferencing. Further purposes
include the exchange of scientific and technical information
about the various aspects of computer science, such as
operating systems, computer networks, and computer
programming.
Is anybody thinking of taking Grex in a direction that's wholly at
variance with this? I'm inclined to doubt it and in any case, the
mission statement is open-ended enough to give us a lot of
flexibility to tweak things, I'd think. Note the "not limited to"
escape hatch, in particular.
Whatever else it is that we might want to do, I do think that Grex
could benefit from a major facelift to the conferencing software,
which is solid and stable but *SO* 1980s. My feeling is that the
rigid and venerable conferencing model on which Grex (and M-Net,
and a few other systems) is based needs a serious re-do in the
direction of more flexibility, probably by recasting it as a web
service with an open API. Something that would facilitate the
development of third-party clients, in much the way that can
currently be done with Twitter, Netflix, and any number of other
web services.
Of course I realize I'm not being very specific at this point, and
that I'm talking about a fairly major project.
As long as it doesn't get fancier (and therefore harder to use) than at present....
Just do it and see what happens. No one said we'd have to shut off backtalk or fronttalk if there was another conference option available on Grex. Could this be the second system that Mary proposed, or at least a prototype of some such thing?
You have several choices: