I'd like this item to be used for us all to express our appreciation of Dan Cross and his contributions to Grex. While he hasn't contributed shit compared to what some of the old foagies have, he's one of Grex's newest (and perhaps, at least recently, most active) staff members. I'm not at all original and am indeed rather bland when I note that helping to admin a system is a job where you hear all sorts of complaints when shit happens, but don't hear many thanks for even acknowledgements when things go right. Despite those limitations, the sentiment is TRUE, and Dan ought to have what he's contributed acknowledged. I know I'm not exactly a respected member of the Grex community, and that I deserve the position of DISPRESECT I'm relegated to, and, indeed, that I seem rather ANTAGONISTIC to the Grex community and indeed even Dan Cross personally. However, I truly appreciate Dan Cross's contribution to Grex, a system I enjoy as much as anybody, and I hope my own desiccated status on Grex doesn't interfere with the purpose of this item: to acknowledge and support Dan Cross's efforts to improve and enhance Grex.42 responses total.
Thanks, scholar! :-)
I never thought I would live to see the day :-)
cross :-)
I'm Rick James, bitch.
Is Wayne Brady gonna hafta choke a bitch ??
Shit - he can actually string together a few humane and grammatically-sound structures together...
I'm not sure if anyone else on Grex has paid enough attention to certain actions of spooked to realise he's awfully creepy, but the fact stands: he's awfully creepy!
r 292 ql i'm spooked :(
I'm sorry to see Dan leave staff. His contributions have been very real. Not only did he do a lot in porting various code to OpenBSD (notably the login stuff), but his participation in technical discussions during the period when we were moving Grex to OpenBSD was very helpful to me in the work I did. His tolerance for aggravation and frustration weren't quite up to what is routinely demanded from Grex staff, but I consider that more of a problem with Grex than a problem with Dan. In any sane organization, I'd be happy to have Dan on my team.
Who's in charge here? -Captain Willard Aren'tt you? -Soldier at Do Long Bridge
I hope that Dan was only expressing his emotions and is not really going away. I get a bit annoyed at some people here sometimes too.
Welp, I was removed from all staff related aliases, groups, etc, and got my access to the staff conference yanked, so, I'm pretty much gone as staff.
Would you consider coming back as staff if asked politely?
as of what date, cross, were you offed? btw, for the 'offense' of keeping grex down - rather than destroyed - and also being somewhat of a staff-pest, i was summarily 'offed' after confiding some then-current stresses to staff member(s)` who, it seems, betrayed me. that sort of leadership was the absolute *last* of all my hopes for grex-as-friends/family. it has never been a matter of 'if', it has only been a matter of 'when' and 'who' that grex would blow up. for over a decade *my* focus has been to provide services to RECOVER from both 'when' and 'who'. damn shame it was STeve - too bad my services have been ignored since LOOOONG before 'when.' denying the inevitability of 'when' is borg/staff arrogance, or something similar. dumping on STeve is non=-productive in the extreme. stop it. dumping on borg for stucture failures IS productive - keep it up!
Re. 12: Don't call keesan a welp!
re #14 I thought the complaint was popcorn related?
Re: 12 Dan, you are off staff because you asked to be off staff. You sent mail to baff resigning and gave a good reason for doing so. But I suspect your resignation (the second time you've resigned) was again out of anger, because I'd criticized you for being critical of STeve, especially when you stated his reputation was "overblown". I have no problem with you disagreeing with me. It's a shame you go off like a bomb when I disagree with you. I'm glad the rest of staff doesn't likewise blow when you lob criticism at them. You may have thought about it some and reconsidered your resignation. It looks like some folks think you would be a good fit. If so, let staff know, they'll discuss it and ask the board to okay it, and you'll again have your access. My personal opinion (and you don't have to read this if you think it will bother you too much) is that you are talented and knowledgeable but way to volatile to be on Grex's staff. We've done talented and knowledgable and volatile before and it almost killed the system. But others might and obviously do feel differently. So there you go.
Taking Grex down without notifying users and then destroying their mail isn't "volatile"? Grex staff has always been volatile so long as Grex has gone down days on end without updates to the users. I think the Grex Board needs to work on its diplomacy skills and try to keep staff around. Insulting the existing staff members and then calling them volatile borders on mentally abusive. Why would anyone put up with that?
Mary, I have also found some of your remarks (probably based on unfounded assumptions) upsetting, though I did not mention it at the time. Perhaps you could wait until the next day and reconsider some of your statements before posting them, if they might offend someone here. And Dan, perhaps you could do the same before reacting to postings that you find upsetting. In person, they might not come across the same way. Mary is a good person, but can rub people the wrong way despite her good intentions. You could both write out your responses and put them aside to mull over until morning. Sometimes people post things that they would not dream of saying in person, maybe because the other person seems like an abstract concept not an individual.
re #18- there was a note in the MOTD about Grex going down for an OS upgrade... at least I remember seeing it there beforehand.
re #20 I log on Grex pretty regularly..several times a day. I would be surprised if that MOTD was more than a few hours in advance.
Be surprised, be very surprised.
re #22 I would also ask that the General Announcements item also include the notification about expected downtimes. Often as a SSH user or someone with a fast connection, you don't always catch the MOTD. Who on the Board is going to take that torch aand hold staff to it?
Sorry but that can't always be done. Its *good* to give notice about when the system will be going down, and I'll always try for that. But given the realities of access to Grex now, and personal schedules, the oppurtunity to do something physical is sometimes going to be on short notice. This is a simple reality of moving the system to a place where we don't have continued access.
I appreciate your limits, STeve. I hope the Board can find volunteers that are more flexible.
We've always had this problem before Tod. This is nothing new. Actually, I think things are worse for most techies now; 5 years ago I think we had more random available staff time. Now, everyone seems more pressed for time.
I would like to add that announcements can and should be made even when
its probable the system will be worked on. For example, if you think you
might be taking Grex down tommorow during the day but that depends on
whether something happens in your non-Grex life (smile), say so. For
example:
| Grex may be down tommorow from 12pm to 4pm for a system upgrade if I
| can make it to the colo. If it isn't down by 12:30, assume it will not
| be down at all. -staff
And while I know its near impossible to know how long things like
upgrades will take, an ending time would give the users an idea of
whether things are going okay or not..."Well, its 4:30pm and grex isn't
up, something must have happened and it'll probably be down for a while
longer". As for calculating this time, you could use the formula I use
for estimating project times:
best case + (4 x likely time) + worst case
------------------------------------------
6
A little communication can go a long way, and a MOTD change a few hours
before an upgrade is better than nothing.
I think we've usually given some notice, haven't we? The part that we need to work on I think, is putting better status notices on the hvcn status of grex page.
I think both tsty and dan cross should have their staff priviledges given back to them.
Would it be adequate to post a notice in the first five items of agora, once a day for five days before grex were going down for a rebuild?
A rebuild isn't going to happen that often. Worry more about abrupt changes in the hardware such that we need to fix things *soon*. If its reasonable to be able to predict when the system will be going down, I'm all for announcements.
Thats all we ask, Steve. Thanks!
thanks, steVE
> Would it be adequate to post a notice in the first five items of agora, > once a day for five days before grex were going down for a rebuild? This coming from the same person who told all of us to grow up back in the HUMOR item? Maybe you should take a little bit of your own advice Sindi.
To clarify #12: Dan's removal from the staff aliases were at his own request. I was also in the process of setting up an account for him on Grex's CVS server when he indicated to me that he was no longer interested and that I shouldn't bother.
grex has never has problems *finding* volunteers ... just keeping them.
To clarify, yes, I did ask to be off of staff, and I don't recall ever saying I didn't, though people seem to have interpreted response #12 as indicating as much. Regarding #17; No, Mary, I have not reconsidered and I don't want back on grex staff. Or rather, I have considered and my decision stands. I don't care if you criticized me for criticizing Steve, though I think you can hardly call yourself objective. Sindi, no, I'm not likely to come back to grex staff if asked politely. Grex just isn't the kind of community I feel like supporting with my time and effort. Sorry! To all those who felt I did good work on the system. I appreciate your kind comments.
cross :) GreX :(
thankxx, cross, for all the work *AND* commentary you have contributed to the system-grex. keeping volunteers has always been a problem. they eventually get 'run-on-down-the-road' ..... except the inner circle, of course. ...oh .... wait ... there is no inner circle ...oops, sorry!
)-:-(
maybe this item is interferring iwth the next item, eh?
TROGG IS DAVID BLAINE
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