Board members present: Mark Conger, Lynne Fremont, Joe Gelinas, Bruce Howard, Mary Remmers. Others present: Steve Andre, Glenda Andre, Kip DeGraaf 1. Opening Gavel Tap 2. Treasurers Report: April and May were bad. $313 taken in and $372 spent so we are down around $60. There were no new members in April. We received official notification that our 501 c 3 is current and active. We are currently at 80 members with 67 paid up. 3. Staff Report: Kip has been doing some visable things such as locking certain users accounts and deleting posts for copyright violations. User jp2 has asked for a board discussion about copyright issues. Board and Staff discussed this. The Board has appointed staff and will continue to leave issues like this up to the staff. The Board will continue to trust Staff s judgement. DSL Modem The new modem donated by tod has not been installed. The modem will be replaced this weekend. There has been no lag since Wednesday. The issue may not be the modem at all but might be the wiring in the building. Discussion of moving Grex to the Ann Arbor Public Library since the library is getting a new high speed connection. Kip works for the library so he ll look into this informally. Our insurance is due in August but if we pay for a whole year and don t use it, we can get a refund, there is no real time limit for making a decision about a move. Other co-location options were discussed. Next Grex is still on hold. It just needs people to get working on it. The staff have been feeling discouraged by atmosphere on Grex. Staff will explore the option of going with Fronttalk on Grex rather than Picospan since Fronttalk is already installed on Next Grex. They also need quotas on newuser. Steve has a work around. Staff to have a partial staff meeting immediately following board meeting. 4. Next Meeting Monday, 6/28 at Mary Remmers s house. 5. New Business - Post office box keys. We have 2 but we might be able to get three. Mark is going to look into it. 6. Closing Gavel Tap.45 responses total.
Is Fronttalk graphical?
From my understanding it looks pretty much like picospan
"Fronttalk is a experimental command line interface to Backtalk. I'm announcing it here in the garage conference because it's really just a hackers toy - very flakey and incomplete now, might not ever turn into anything real" (janc, in Item 130 of the "garage" conference, Tue, Dec 4, 2001).
I believe Jan has done some work on it since that last comment because when I asked him about it, maybe a month ago, he said it was loading a little slowly but otherwise shouldn't be much slower that Pico. He also said that if BackTalk was running on top of FrontTalk, that he'd be able to do some creative things with BackTalk. Anyhow, it's on Grex and anyone can try it out. At whatever Unix prompt you have simply enter ft. It's a little sluggish loading but then seems quite perky. I think he said it was already on Next Grex.
I gather Jan's done a good bit of work on it since that message. You can run it on CurrentGrex by typing "ft". We currently have 2 keys to the post office box. One is on my keyring, the other is at janc's house. I asked at the post office, and they don't have a third key, and can't make copies. So they will re-key the lock in order that we might get a third key. The first two keys are free - each one after that costs $4.50. So I paid them $4.50, and will exchange my key and Jan's for 3 new ones when the box has been re-keyed. No charge for re-keying. Thanks for taking notes, Lynne!
(Mary slipped in.)
> The staff have been feeling discouraged by atmosphere on Grex. Can anyone explain just what that has to do with Next Grex?
I just tried ft. 26 sec to get into bbs, where it looks just like picospan. Typing bbs gets me the bbs in 2 seconds. If I type n in bbs it lists all the conferences where there are no responses almost immediately. With ft it is about 2 sec between conference listings. I am dialed in directly. I would use this as an emergency approach but not out of choice. I hope Marcus can find the time to compile picospam for next grex, soon.
Re #7: Kevin - when the staff feels discouraged about Grex, they are less likely to take the time to work on it. Since they are all volunteers, that is their perogative. Your name was mentioned, BTW, as being particularly supportive and helpful. So we should all act more like albaugh. :)
I included the date in the citation specifically to show that the comment was three years old. I included the conference and item citation so that people can check the item and see the record of progress for themselves.
re item #3 in minutes...Kip has been locking certian users accounts and deleting posts for copyright violations? What is the point in locking user accounts when they can run newuser and just get another one? As long as newuser is open, what is the point of locking accounts? seems like a waste of time Also, whether something is a "copyright violation" constitutes a legal opinion. You can't just say something is a "copyright violation", you have to have a legal basis for it. If Kip or any other staff member is deciding what is a copyright violation, and what isn't a copyright violation, they are opening a potential hornet's nest of dissenting opinions. I think its best to leave it alone. Don't remove posts for copyright violation unless there's a court order saying to do so.
Better yet, ignore richard.
Copyright vs fair-use issues are a muddy area. We could hire specialized attorneys and still get conflicting advice, I suspect. But Grex isn't in the position to do anything but use our best judgement, be open to user's advice on how it should be handled, and hope our staff doesn't burnout while doing the very best they can.
Re: #13: "We could hire specialized attorneys and still get conflicting advice[.]" Doesn't one hire attorneys *in order* to get conflicting advice? 8D
I completely agree with resp:13.
It does take a few minutes to run newuser, which might discourage vandals if they have to keep opening new accounts to be annoying.
Re: #7/#9: I knew the answer before I asked. :-) Obviously I understand that humans can get discouraged, especially when they feel unappreciated. I was wondering if by "atmosphere" it was meant "there are ingrates over- criticizing staff" etc. or that there was so much time cleaning up after vandals there was no time to do the interesting stuff, i.e. Next Grex? If it's the former, then all I can say is "try to ignore them and do what ya gotta do" - at least some of us aren't worried about / make an issue of administrivia re: punks...
Re #11: Richard - you're right that we shouldn't be making a determination as to what's a "copyright violation" and what's not. But we should still have our own policies/reactions when something is clearly in violation, as was the case with realugly's post of russ's poem.
With the request from the author to remove it, not a determination of copyright violation in a vacuum.
query...can newuser be modified so it locks out people that are running it from specific ip addresses? that might at least discourage users whose logins have been taken away from creating new ones, because they'd have to re-route the way they connect to grex (changing their ip) before running newuser
That's an approach to consider, but it has the downside that other users might want to connect from the same ip.
Re #8: I suspect that speed differences between Picospan and Fronttalk will be far less noticeable on NextGrex than on CurrentGrex.
re #20 Why are you chasing the rain? Why not just change your perspective?
Chasing the rain is a nice expression.
"With the request from the author to remove it . . . " Oh yeah, the Jep Solution. It worked so well in the past!
Not the jep solution. This was a copyrighted work, copied in total, and claimed to be the work of the person posting it. The actual author complained about it and asked that it be removed. Totally different situation. Even you should be able to see that.
Perhaps I was too subtle for you. When you adopt a system whereby a person can simply assert "I am the copyright owner, you must remove that" without independent investigation, then you are essentially giving power to anyone bold enough to make that claim, regardless of whether or not they in fact have a valid copyright. Even a pinhead should be able to see that.
Whilst cyklone's diatribe is rather aggressive, I would agree with a more measured version thereof.
We did do independant investigation before removing it. The incident and what was done about it and why were discussed in the item where the posting occurred. Before screaming about improper actions by staff go look at it. It is item 110 in Agora.
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Your work was fully cited as to author and where it came from. No one claimed it to be their's and not yours.
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Wrong, you are not a second class user. I is felt that what you are complaining about falls under fair use. From the DMCA: "`(c) OTHER RIGHTS, ETC., NOT AFFECTED- (1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title."
Jamie, unless you can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the use you decry was not fair use, I respectfully request that you cease demanding that the barn doors be locked when the horse was never even there to escape.
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Re #29: Before screaming about improper actions you may want to reread what I wrote, which was about general *principles* (a word many grexers seem unfamiliar with) and not the specific situation involving Russ.
Ho hum.
Re: #27 - cyklone, don't *you* be a pinhead. Any statement that asserts or implies that grex staff will not or is incapable of exercising proper and measured action instantly loses all weight.
I guess I don't follow your logic. The Valerie/Jep incident clearly showed that at least some staff were incapable of exercising proper and measured action. That being the case, I think only a pinhead would NOT be concerned about that happening in the future. Of course one way to provide assurances the lesson has been learned would be to restore the deleted posts not owned by Valerie or Jep.
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Bay away if you feel you must. Any notion that passing resolutions is really going to protect you from rogue staff on grex is delusion...
So we sit around and wait for the bombs to fall; and when they destroy the village, we don't rebuild it. Sounds like a plan!
If you are huddled like a wimp waiting for the bombs to fall on grex, you need a different place to hunker down. See ya...
TROGG IS DAVID BLAINE
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