At the last board meeting, I put on my HVCN hat, and expressed to the board what we have been thinking over at HVCN about access. For several years, as you probably know, HVCN has been planning on adding access and free email. We do believe that these are an important part of the standard suite of services offered by a community network. So far, we haven't gotten very far, and the reason is very simple. It is hard and expensive to provide these services. When folks write me as webmaster of HVCN, asking about dial-up and e-mail services, I invariably provide them with all the information they need to be able to find Grex and get started over here. HVCN has been running on its own server for almost 6 months now, and this has given us a chance to reassess our thinking on this issue. Anything we would spend time and effort on in this direction would be a direct duplication of the services grex provides. We find it hard to justify spending the kind of effort it takes to provide these services, especially when it would be reinventing the wheel. It is perfectly clear that these services are needed, but it is not clear that they need to be provided by so many organizations. At the most recent HVCN board meeting (Sunday 10/5) the sense of the HVCN board was that I could replace the explanation on HVCN's web site of HVCN's future plans to provide dial-up and e-mail. I was given permission to replace them with pages explaining that local users who want these services should get them from Grex, complete with pointers to Grex's web site, telephone numbers and modem settings, the works. I am posting this item here to discuss this change. I certainly do not plan on executing it against the wishes of the Grex staff, the Grex board, or the grex membership. I have a general sense that there would be no serious objection. I am a grexer, too, so let me put on ny grex hat and see if I can outline the advantages and disadvantages for grex. advantages: (1) This is yet another way to advertise grex to local users. There is currently an item in agora/coop to discuss ways to publicize ourelves. This is merely another way to do it. It focuses on people who are more likely to come in locally via dialup than over the net connection. (2) Grex gains recognition and automatic respectability with the other local organizations HVCN partners with (county government, district libraries throughout the county, many more). Not that Grex isn't already respectable, but it is at least a feather in its cap. disadvantages: (1) The most obvious one is that this could increase the load on the dialups. At 13 phone lines, we are running near capacity right now, but there is still some room for growth. The cost of maintaining these lines is borne by grex members and others who donate to grex in one way or another. (2) Hmm, I can't think of any other disadvantages. Well, there may be more of either, and I hope discussion brings them out. At this point, HVCN is not really asking Grex to do anything it isn't already trying to do on its own, and HVCN is offering free advertising, for what it's worth. I think this may be a possible win-win situation.36 responses total.
Funny, I thought we were *trying* to increase the usage of the local dial-up lines. >8)
Since HVCN doesn't have a dial-up I have not checked it out. I guess another question should be "Is HVCN where it wants to be?" and "How does this hurt HVCN?"
I think this proposal is a good one, srw! I expect that the added
load on our dialins will not be very significant. And anyway,
what with Grex so s-l-o-w already, the expression "you can't wet
a river" comes to mind! 8-)
Oh--HVCN might also want to point people to M-Net.
This response has been erased.
This response has been erased.
this should wait until email is offloaded to a second machine and there wouldntbe any reason to fear increases emailloads.
Amen to that, Valerie. I've run across far too many people here who seem to think that we're in competition with M-net just because we're similarly located. I see no reason why both couldn't stand to benefit by helping each other.
Grex *is* trying to increase the usage of the dialups. That's really what I meant about asking Grex to do something it was trying to do anyway. My fear is that HVCN might add more than a small increment. That fear is probably overblown, at least in the near future. HVCN needs to be able to show the people of this community that they can get free e-mail and free dialup access to the net via lynx. The folks at HVCN think that Grex is doing this part of the Community Network's job already. It clearly would be counterproductive for us to compete. We would rather *include* Grex as part of the community network. This is what I am now trying to make happen. Once I have changed HVCN's dialup access instructions, we will probably want to issue a joint news release. This could be picked up by local newsppapers, and might generate a surge of interest. I would prefer to wait until the Grex infrastructure is a little more robust -- ISDN, at least. M-Net is a good service for e-mail only. I like M-Net, but I have not been considering M-Net because they do not provide free access to the web via lynx. This is important to HVCN, because we can (hopefully) get users started on grex with a simple way to invoke: lynx http://www.hvcn.org/ which permits them direct access to HVCN's community infocenter pages, should they want to go there.
I suppose maybe Cyberspace Inc. could get a co-sponsorship of HVCN out of this...this might help if a 401(3)(c) is evera pplied for. HVCN wouldnt object to adding Cyberspace Inc. as a title co-sponsor would it?
This response has been erased.
re #8: I ran "newuser" on M-Net today, creating a guest account, and then ran "lynx" and "g" and "www.hvcn.org". I got right through to HVCN. M-Net has the same lynx access that Grex does, as far as I could tell.
Steve, M-Net *does* provide free access to the Web via lynx!
We are always careful to install the newest available version
of lynx. I use it constantly so as to avoid the *&(*&% ads
on the Web.
So please do consider M-Net.
I think this is a great idea, Steve, and I hope you go for it.
(The WIN grant fiasco probably left Grex and HVCN feeling friendlier to each other than either feels to M-Net. Since the leadership at M-Net has largely changed, probably we should work on putting that behind us.)
If Grex ever wanted to apply for a 401(3)(c)/tax exempt status, wouldnt it help satsify any public service criteria if it is co-sponsoring a place like HVCN? I'm assuming it would be akin to M-net when it started the K-12 program so it could say it was doing public service or educational work. But then again, rcurl's the 401(3)(c) person here, I dont even know what the actual requirements are.
Actually, richard, Arbornet (which runs M-Net) got a grant to run K-12, and did it because we thought it was a good idea. The formal requirements for 501(c)(3) status are incomprehensible; the actual requirements are basically that no one makes a lot of money, that no profits are distributed, and that some kind of community purpose is served.
And if Grex is co-sponsoringa p.ace like HVCN, somekind of community purpose IS being served then right? The 501(3)(c) debate has never gotten anwhere on grex anyway, despire rcrul'snbest efforts, so its a moot point.
It doesn't really matter if grex is "co-sponsoring HVCN", because that's not our primary mission. Ace hardware, or MSN, could co-sponsor HVCN too, and it wouldn't make any difference (except, perhaps, that HVCN could do a lot more).
Once again, I find myself ignorant of local history. What WIN grant fiasco?
Two or three years ago, there was some Federal agency that was giving out grants to organizations that were doing big telecommunications or computer networking projects. Grex, Arbornet, and HVCN, agreed to join forces to apply for a grant to put up a network of dial-up modem banks and public access computing sites to enable the public to access our systems, and the Internet as a whole. There were a bunch of meetings in which a rather elaborate network plan was put together. Much of the way through the project, the Arbornet people involved with the WIN (Washtenaw Information Networks) project showed up at one of the meetings and announced that Arbornet had just applied for a grant for a version of the WIN proposal, putting only Arbornet's name on the application and leaving out the other members of the group. Grex and HVCN were left having to submit a proposal quite similar to one that had already been submitted by another organization in the same town, a proposal that the Grex and HVCN people had had as much input on as the Arbornet people had. That was the last time Grex or HVCN has tried to work cooperatively on anything with Arbornet, because it made it very obvious at that time that the leadership of Arbornet really couldn't be trusted. As it turned out, it really didn't matter. Congress cut most of the money for the grant program before they could anounce the recipients, so WIN wouldn't have gotten the funding anyway. In a way, in this case, that's a good thing. Looking back on WIN's goals, Grex, HVCN, and Arbornet may not have gotten what we were hoping to get out of it, but the goals of providing various services to the community have mostly been met. The Ann ArborPublic Library, which was supposed to be one of WIN's public computing sites, now has a bunch of Internet connected computers with a much faster Internet connection than WIN was going to get for them. The public access dial-up and Internet access parts of the project have been achieved in a much better way than WIN would have been likely to accomplis by lots of private companies, selling Internet access cheaply enough that it is now very affordable. I'm actually kind of glad the WIN project never happened, since the community got most of its benefits anyway, and those of us who would have worked on it got a lot more free time. It should also be noted that Arbornet's leadership at the time was a very different group than Arbornet's present leadership. The actions of the Arbornet of two or three years ago shoudl not be held against the Arbornet of today.
Right, scg. When Craig resigned last year he took the bad smell with him.
Any idea where the smell is now? >8)
I wasn't aware of the change in M-Net's policy. I thought access to the web via lynx required a membership payment of some sort there. If it is available for free, then M-Net seems to be a viable alternative source of access and free e-mail/web access. I will point this out to the HVCN board. It is not good to harbor grudges. HVCN is a very open organization that likes to collaborate with local non-profits. At the moment, it is fair to say that HVCN is more closely allied to Grex than to M-Net for all of these historical reasons. Overlap in personnel, too.
Thanx, srw!
Response #20 avoids mention that WIN made abrupt changes in the intent of the grant in the week before it had to be submitted, and that was what led Arbornet to withdraw from the WIN project. Arbornet never did submit a grant proposal of it's own, although the Board stated it's intention to do so. It *was* a fiasco on two of the three sides, and it should be buried. Only one of the Board of Arbornet remains, and I can't imagine that person wants to carry on a grudge after all this time.
What is HVCN's financial structure? Would Grex be included in this to help support the heavier usage of Grex that would result? I think that at least the respective "business plans" of the two organizations be considered to see if any sharing of resources would be appropriate.
As we speak, Grex has more money than HVCN. HVCN is a 501(C)(3) with our treasurer reports posted monthly on our website. HVCN membership is less than Grex, at $25/year, and is also optional. We certainly would ultimately need to find a way of sharing costs that we could both afford. I can't promise HVCN funds to Grex to support this usage, since users become Grex users when they do this. Still, if one day HVCN users become a major source of dialup usage, HVCN would be supporting this financially. Presumably it could afford to then. Even if HVCN contributes money to it, I can't see HVCN wanting to run its own parallel dial-up operation unless HVCN and Grex had come to a parting of the ways philosphically.
This response has been erased.
[Me either. Admittedly I was only casually following the discussion on Grex & had no other source of info.]
[I was on M-Net at the time, and I don't remember that being offered as a justification for the change.]
[re: the subthread: Arbornet had opposed kiosks throughout our discussions, but they showed up prominently in the grant proposal. That's the main point that I recall.]
"kiosks"?
Public-access terminals.
Ah.
Re: #0 So, exxentiall, what ppl ahve said is that we have no objections? ^essentially
THat's true. A few objections were noted, but the overwhelming response is favorable. I am in the process of reconfiguring HVCN's pages to reflect Grex as our access point for the Community network.
You have several choices: