jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa j jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa j jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa j jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa j jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa j jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa j jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa j jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa j jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa j jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa j jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa j jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa j jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa jp2 Feb 10 18:57:16 2004 Tao Xiao Sa j jp2 Feb 10 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The WWW page is pretty impressive. There are things on which I agree with you, and things on which I disagree. I think you're running a nice campaign. There's a basic issue of Grex governance which I'd like to bring up with you. On the Arbornet board, the Board members have traditionally *defined* policy. On the Cyberspace board, the Board members *follow* policy; they generally act to implement a consensus of opinion for the users. Were you to become a member of the Board, what would you see your role as being? If your intention would be to define policy rather than follow it, would you expect the rest of the Board to follow suit? Another question; your campaign material makes it seem that you're interested in winning a Board seat. You're clearly viewing it as a competitive race, as opposed to offering yourself as a candidate and passively awaiting the vote of the membership. Why is winning so important to you? Why is Grex that important to you?
Under a system where identification is not required for membership, how would you propose to prevent people from using multiple usernames to buy enough memberships to influence elections? At a cost of only $6/vote, and given the low turnout in some elections, it seems like this could be a concern.
re 0 Go away, David Irving.
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Impressive campaign. Just a smally petty point. You state "The second, a far greater incentive, is use of outbound Internet access." As far as I know, I can still use lynx to surf the web if I want to, even if I'm not a member. It's outbound "telnet access" that is the incentive.
I don't understand in what way you think Grex's accounting policies are not "open" enough, Jamie.
As far as I know, we require ID for membership because state law requires that we have an accurate list of members. Controlling election outcomes is not the basis for this policy.
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Where did you get that requirement from, Jamie?
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I have a question, Jamie. What do you think is Grex's mission, and how would your proposals help further that mission?
It's true that we don't require addresses from all members (though we have them for all but a couple). We do, however, require enough identifying information that we (or someone) could find addresses if necessary. You didn't answer my question in #6.
I have a question, Jamie: Do you think the users of Grex will forget your past abuses?
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Not to side-track Jamie's campaign, but I disagree that we need to switch to the accrual method. Yes, more detail could be available, but the cash method _is_ acceptable accounting practice.
> But the hardware, and Grex has quite a bit, is an asset and it is > not shown on the books. A full list of Grex's hardware, with its estimated value, is online at http://www.cyberspace.org/~invent/index.html, as I've said many times. It is available for anyone's perusal. > The PayPal account is a liquid asset and really should be shown on > the balance sheet. The contents of the paypal account is transferred to the checking account at the end of each month, so at the time of the reporting, the balance is $0. The report always includes the amount of money which we received through Paypal each month. > Income sitting in in the CafePress account is a long-term asset. We have had no income from CafePress since Decemeber of last year, and we received a total of $80 before that. I don't expect us to receive any more, unless something changes drastically. If $25 accumulates in the account they will send us a check. Otherwise, any balance disappears after 6 months. The amount involved is too small to be worth the trouble of reporting what goes on before we actually get a check. > Should Grex become an Amazon affiliate, the commissions become a > long-term asset and an Amazon honor system account is a current > account. Grex is not an Amazon affiliate, and I don't remember that ever being discussed. > Does Grex accept donations, via PayPal, in multiple currencies? No. Paypal takes care of any change of currency. > Is Grex's insurance policy a dividend policy? Can Grex take a loan > against it? Is there any other aspect of the policy which suggests it > should be an asset rather than expense? No, no, and no. I see that you're having fun trying to make Grex's finances seem as complicated as you can imagine, but they're really not. And what you're missing is that by making the treasurer's job more complicated, you will make it much harder to find anyone (or any group) willing to do the job. From M-Net you should have learned that *that* is a much bigger problem than anything a more complicated accounting system would solve. Any information on Grex's financial situation is available for the asking. We *do* have a problem. Not, as you incorrectly stated, because our membership has been dropping steadily. It hasn't. We were steady at about 100 members from 1995 through 2001, but in early 2002 we fell sharply to about 80 members, and have remained there ever since. The number of members hasn't been falling, but it isn't quite enough to pay our bills, so our bank balance has been declining over the past 2 years. (And you would have understood that if you'd read the reports.)
I don't see why complicating the bookkeeping system by going to an accrual basis make sense for Grex.
The part of the treasurer's job that deals with the actual finances of grex is, as I recall, really quite simple. The hard part of being treasurer is the rest of it: dealing with membership lists, trying to get people to pay up, checking the PO box regularly, dealing with the seemingly constant issues with SBC et al., and all the rest. The treasurer is Grex's mother; go ask your mother if balancing the checkbook was the hard part of raising you. :)
re 16 Haven't GreX's expenses been rising too?
No, Grex's expenses have been steady for a long time, except for a small increase in our rent each year. We just dropped 3 phone lines, so our expenses will drop because of that.
jp2, why should people vote for you, when you treated last year's election as a joke?
Don't forget the large increase in insurance costs.
Yes, Sindi's correct. The insurance costs went from $300/year in 199 and 2000, to $375/year in 2001, to $475/year in 2002, to $575/year in 2003. I had forgotten to include that. There's a summary of our 2002 debits and credits in ~aruba/2002.txt . I plan to post a similar report for 2003 at the end of the year.
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I don't think you read what I said, Jamie. There is a huge reason to keep Grex's accounting as simple as possible: so that we can find someone willing to do the treasurer's job. Over the last 8 years, only two people have volunteered. Do you think volunteers will suddenly increase if it gets more complicated? Grex does not have two sets of books. If you have real questions about Grex's finances, you should state them, instead of trying to snow us with a lot of talk about how the accounts are too simplified. This is a "death by a thousand questions" type of argument, which in this case has no real content at all, because Grex's finances really are simple and open to public inspection. It makes me angry, because we *do* have a financial problem. It won't be solved through different accounting. I'll tell you exactly how to solve it: get 10-15 more of the thousands of people whose lives are enriched by Grex to become members. Now, if you have an idea how to accomplish *that*, we're all listening.
(Insert the sound of applause.)
Ten memberships would be needed to pay this year's insurance costs, which keep going up. Membership dues have not been going up - maybe they should have something to do with increases in costs of running grex.
Well, no sooner do I open my mouth, than CafePress makes a liar out of me. We received a $30 check from them today, so I guess someone bought some stuff after all. :)
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Well, I hear the sound of one customer shouting.
(The question "Do the dial-in lines pay for themselves?" is not, believe it or not a financial one: it cannot be answered with _just_ financial information. No amount of bookkeeping will ever answer that question.) (But that has little or nothing to do with Jamie's campaign.)
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This isn't the place to argue it. ;)
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The potential benefits of implementation of a more complex accounting system are far too small to justify the problems that doing so would cause. No matter how many times you argue the point, it will not change. Statistical analysis of our accounts is the basis of the benefits you claim an accrual based accounting would provide, but our numbers are too small for statistical analysis to give results which are reliable enough for prediction purposes to justify the change. The degree to which you are insistent on this change and your inability to understand why it is a bad idea are suggestive of exactly why you are unlikely to be elected, even ignoring your past denigrations of Grex, its values, and all who hold them.
And how he won't answer my questions. That'll lose him votes.
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([I've only had a chance to browse through this item and probably won't take the time to read it more closely for at least another week, but I do want to say that I'm glad that Jamie has a vision and is willing to discuss and defend it and, as a voter, I'll have a better idea of why I vote for whom I vote when I do vote.])
1) What were Grex's total outlays (expenditures and refunds) during the
12-month period ending last September 30th?
Here they are, broken down by type.
2159.86 Hardware upgrades to the system (minus refunds)
1891.87 Phone bills
1620.00 DSL line
938.11 Rent
551.64 Electricity
525.00 Insurance premiums
103.72 Taxes paid
83.66 Paypal discounts
55.71 Fees to maintain our domain names
45.00 Refund of credits
40.00 Advertising
40.00 Fees to maintain the corporate status of Cyberspace Comms
38.00 Rental of P.O. Box
19.38 Postage
16.13 Miscellaeous expenses
12.00 Bounced checks
5.00 Bank service charges
2.09 Backup tapes
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8147.17
This information is 100% accurate and 100% available in the treasurer's
reports.
2) Historically, do Grex memberships fall off in the summer months?
No, not to speak of. Here is the average number of members, broken
down by month, from January 1995 to present:
Month Average
----- -------
Jan 91.2
Feb 92.1
Mar 92.8
Apr 91.9
May 92.4
Jun 91.6
Jul 90.3
Aug 89.7
Sep 89.9
Oct 90.6
Nov 91.5
Dec 92.3
The current number of members appears in each treasurer's report, so
you could compile this table yourself from the information available.
I can do it more easily, using the database, so if you want
information like this, the best way to get it is probably to ask.
3) What are the total costs of the Pumpkin?
The total costs of the Pumpkin, per month are:
80.41 Rent
45.97 Electricity
43.75 Liability insurance
------
170.13
4) If the price of membership were raised 5% today, what is the projected
fall-off in membership? Is it worth it?
If they taught you anything there at Maryland, they should have taught
you that you can't estimate the slope of a curve when you only know
one point on it. Grex dues have only ever been one price, so no
amount or style of bookkeeping is going to answer this question. The
only ways I can think to answer it are 1) do a survey of members and
nonmembers, and see what they say, and 2) change the dues and see what
happens.
5) Do the dial-in lines pay for themselves?
No. We pay for them, every month. If you're asking "How much money
would we lose if we stopped having dialin lines?", the way to answer that
would be to look through the members list (type "members" at any UNIX
prompt) and then for each name, scan the wtmp file to see if they log
in via the terminal server. The ease of doing this wouldn't be affected
one way or the other by the method of accounting Grex uses.
You and I agree, Jamie, that we don't want Grex to get into the
financial trouble that M-Net has enjoyed. And we agree that Grex has
a problem that needs fixing. And I welcome attention being paid to
the financial situation.
But Grex's problems are not the result of no one paying attention to
the finances, or not enough information being disseminated to the
users. I think you can pin down the reasons very simply:
1) The economy caught up with us in 2002, and we lost about 20
members.
2) We had a lot of money for a while, and people started to feel that
they didn't need to support Grex, because Grex was rich. I did all
I could to counter that sentiment, but I am not much of a
salesman.
3) We're not attracting new users like we used to. There are several
reasons for that:
a) Grex is slow. We need the faster machine online to have a
chance of holding anyone who finds us.
b) Grex's culture is not as welcoming to new users as it used to
be. If I were new, and I saw the way people treat each other
in Agora, I wouldn't want to stick around.
c) Grex has a lot of competition on the net, and technology has
passed us by. People are attracted to flashier sites.
I'm not sticking my fingers in my ears. I read everything you said.
If you're really interested in more data on Grex's financial
situation, I'm happy to provide any you want. Nothing is being hidden
here.
You have yet to ask a single question that could be answered more
effectively if Grex used a different accounting system. All you've
done is suggest that there is a mysterious wealth of information that
is being kept from you.
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It's an educated guess, because our membership was fairly constant for a long time before that. I'm open to suggestions for how to test the hypothesis.
I should add that I have a lot of anecdotal evidence that the economy is to blame, because a lot of members told me they weren't renewing because they couldn't afford it.
re #37: > You say the numbers are too small to permit statistical analysis. > This determination cannot be made until it has been attempted. I > strongly suspect there is a wealth of data to be mined. But how > would we ever know? If you'd read my comment you'd know that I did not claim that statistical analysis could not be done, but: > our numbers are too small for statistical analysis to give results > which are reliable enough for prediction purposes to justify the > change. The key difference is that you can do all the statistical analysis you want on our numbers, but it won't change the fact that the sample size is too small for the results to be reliably predictive. That is about as BASIC as statistics gets. And you don't have to run the analysis to make that determination. The whole premise behind your argument is fatally flawed. The notion that complexity is by itself the problem is a straw man argument. The complexity of Grex's systems is utterly unrelated to the fact that the treasurer's responsibilities are not often the subject of desirous competition. If you had any knowledge of Grex's operational history, you'd know that the argument against making the treasurer's job more difficult or complex is hugely significant in our little corporate microcosm.
Jamie, if you want to bring focus onto other areas of your campaign, you'll have to introduce new material you want to discuss. Your comments about finance have been construed as being critical of the treasurer. Not only does aruba have some stake in disputing you when you say he's doing a poor job, but those such as myself who think he's a great guy doing a fine job have some stake in it as well. Mark's record keeping is easily good enough for me. I regard myself as knowing enough about running a non-profit conferencing system to judge what's happening with the finances here on Grex, and what's happening here is good. Grex has problems, but not with the treasurer. I don't see your recommendations as making things better. So... my advice is to focus your campaign on something else, especially if you've said what you want to say about finance. Bring up other points to discuss.
(Has anyone noticed how occasional RAGE slips out when jp2 tries to be personable?)
#44: I disagree with the suggestion that jp's comments are construed as being critical of Mark. They are critical of how Grex chooses to expect the treasurer to perform. To try to focus the critique on Mark is to distract from the weaknesses of the critique itself.
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Income tax is not the only reason to use cash accounting. Cash accounting prevents the treasurer from having to book an expense or income item when it becomes due, and then re-book it if the money doesn't come in or the bill doesn't get paid. If we get refunds (like withour telephone haggles) the treasurer has to make several more entries under a double-entry and accrual system. It's not worth the effort for the few transactions that occur each month on Grex.
There are really neat things lurking inside the data if you know what
questions to ask and how to ask them.
I would love it if that were true. But, you have yet to ask any such
questions. The fact that the memberships in August account for about $9.80
less income than do the memberships in an average month isn't much of a help
in planning our finances, I'm afraid.
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That would make sense if price was the significant obstacle to increased membership, which is very doubtful.
(on a month-to-month basis, rather than annual.) Note that I say this with full knowledge that there is anecdotal evidence that price is a factor in the recent membership drop-off. $6 per month is not an amount that would cause most people who might ever pay for a Grex membership to pause, but the fact that supporting Grex is just one more of a number of ways money sneaks away probably is, especially when things are tight.
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More affordable, and yet harder to keep.
(Membership is not hard to keep. Nor, to be honest, is keeping an account. Vandalism is an act of _co_mmision, not _o_mission. But again, this item is not the place to discuss that matter.)
It is.
> But you have suddenly brought up something interesting. You say the drop > in August is $9.80 less than the average month. Depending on how you got > this number, you could be dead wrong, and this is an artifact of the > pricing structure. Your FUD is getting tiresome. You should realize by now that if you make vague remarks suggesting that you know more than the rest of us, without actually saying what it is you supposedly know, that I will call you on them and ask you to explain yourself. So, explain yourself. If we decreased the cost of membership by 1/2 in the summer, we would have to double the number of members signed up just to break even. If we only got one extra member, we would lose money. Duh.
Maybe he's suggesting a split-pricing structure in which new members get a reduced price special while renewing members are exempt from the special. That sounds like it would cause more headaches than encourage memberships. I could see trying a special price offer of $12 for three months or $40 for a year for only those people who have not been a paying member for at least a year, if the complexity of managing the necessary information isn't too great a strain. I could see some people possibly being upset about it, but I also think that if it brings in additional money beyond what might have otherwise been expected, the complaints might be worth it.
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Since the labor to implement a membership is volunteer, how could the cost of providing a membership be anything other than zero?
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Why do you need a special offer for new members when people can already use grex for free while deciding whether to become members?
It would be an experiment to determine whether people can be encouraged successfully to donate at all by making it seem like they're getting something more for their money than they might otherwise have gotten by donating money to Grex.
And Grex can indeed "lose money" on memberships if someone who was already going to pay the full price is offered a less-than-full-price membership.
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That's the distinction I was hpoing to suggest with the quotes. I knew it didn't actually mean our cash reserves would decrease by the amount of the discount, believe it or not. Nor, for that matter, did I think anyone reading this would so believe.
I'd rather see us set up a scholarship fund. More affluent members could donate a year's membership. Anyone who has paid _yearly_ dues and goes more than 4 months without renewing could have their login placed in a random drawing for that month. The winner gets the "scholarship". We could strongly suggest that all scholarship winners donate something back to the scholarship fund when they are able.
The scholarship fund sounds interesting, but doesn't necessarily sound like anything that would need any kind of official sponsorship from Grex (other than perhaps ease of bookkeeping). People could just as easily set that up on their own. The idea of offering a reduced cost membership for people who have previously been members but have not contributed recently is also interesting, and I think worthy of further discussion. I remain in the unconvinced majority who see grex's accounting as quite adequate. I have yet to see jp2 suggest as a benefit of some other accounting system anything other than mysterious "hidden information" that might be "mined". I've spent a fair amount of time (three years ago, admittedly) in that data, and I think Jamie is on a wild-wmd chase. Ain't nothin' there that isn't already available in treasurer's reports, except such things as members' personal data and the actual dates/amounts of the specific contributions. I note in passing that Jamie still hasn't answered my question from a while ago. Not that it matters a whole lot.
I admit to providing more significant figures than I should have when I said that memberships for the month of August provided us with $9.80 less than the average month. My point was, the difference is insignificant, and about that I am not "dead wrong", even if the correct number is something less than $9.80. As Eric pointed out, the cost of providing a membership has always been zero, and we can tell that just fine with a cash accounting system. I'm not going to argue whether or not memberships are selling service, because I think they are from one perspective and they aren't from another, so it's a semantic discussion. I will say that giving perks with membership is a very accepted part of nonprofit fundraising, accepted by the IRS and just about everyone else. I like Colleen's idea, but I'd always like to see more people involved with Grex by becoming members, rather than fewer people paying more. But, if it's a choice between fewer people paying more and going the way of M-Net, I'll take fewer people paying more. I'm still hopeful that when the economy recovers and the new machine comes online, our membership will increase again. I don't know, but I'm hopeful. The other option to consider is ways to convince people who don't contribute now to consider contributing. We have always been very lacquidasical about asking for money, mostly because no one wants to be the one who does it. I think finding a way to ask nonmembers for money is something we should explore.
"lackadaisical" - sorry.
re 55 At a certain point, it was nearly impossible for me to keep an account, and yet I had vandalised nothing related to the system.
I'd be really reluctant to see us move to any accounting system that assumed the treasurer owned a specific piece of software.
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Me too.
I think this item has gone so far afield, only discussing a narrow aspect of the changes Jamie wishes to see implemented here at Grex, and has bcome more of a forum to attack current methods and accuse others of not being with the times, rather than giving current methods their due and suggest way that the system could be improved. The negativity is unnecessary. The goal, it seems to me, it to continue to ensure Grex's technical, financial and social viability, but without becoming just another dime-a-dozen corner of cyberspace. Before we start trying to attract the outside world to grex, we need to bring those users in that already know we're here. That, of course, will not come by bowing to every demand in a mad scramble to get cash. Part of grex's charm as that it's not just another internet behemoth.
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Jamie, what other perks do you see grex offering paying members?
Jamie argues that membership in Grex is really a fee for service. I'm not sure I agree. As far as I know, all of the services we provide to members are things that we would cheerfully provide for anyone, except for the fact that they would cause serious problems. We would let anyone have outgoing internet access, except that it would swamp grex's resources and make grex an attractive base of operations for vandals. We would let anyone vote, except that there would be no way to ensure one vote per physical person (there are other problems with open voting, too; this one is arguable). Grex hasn't traditionally provided "perks" to members; we have just denied access to specific services to anonymous users, for very good reasons. We have to draw a line somewhere between users that we trust not to do things to hurt grex and users that we can't trust. Membership seems to be a good place to draw that line. (At least, it hasn't really hurt us yet.) Membership in Grex (or more properly in Cyberspace Communications, I suppose) resembles a fee-for-service in some ways, but I think it is well understood by most contributors that what we're doing with our money isn't buying some services, it's supporting Grex as an institution. That's why the membership, and in particular the board (at least during my service there), has tended to oppose making changes to what services we provide to members. That's also why I think that adding "perks" to membership won't really attract any new members. (I suppose I'm willing to be proved wrong: anyone who would become a member if we added some specific service for members should feel free to speak up.) I'm having trouble articulating it, but I think there's something important in this distinction. Concentrating on nifty new services we can add to attract new members so that we can make more money so that we can provide more nifty services is not what Grex is about. In so far as Grex is about anything, it's about the services that we can provide to anyone who runs newuser. In my opinion, that's our mission. That's why I donate money and that's what I strive to facilitate as a board member. Unfortunately, this item has made it pretty clear that Jamie isn't on the same page. So, I guess the item has served its purpose after a fashion.
The fact is that grex needs more members. And if you're not getting it by appealing to people's sense of charity, you need to get them some other way. I don't think we're talking about really snazzy perks, but maybe something really simple that might push the person hedging about paying for a membership over the edge. Like internet access and telnet access used to do back in the day. Of course, those don't quite cut it now.
Tote bags autographed by Jan Wolter! ;>
I want one autographed by remmers.
Something to keep in mind with respect to any perks is that membership is only $60 per year. Therefore, a perk had better be pretty cheap for Grex to supply, or Grex won't realize much income from any extra members that the perk might garner.
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When is the last time Grex has actively appealed to anyone's charity? The last time I remember was the new computer fundraiser, which well exceeded its target donations in a very short time period. We've tried pretty hard to avoid coming out and asking for money directly, because while we're pretty sure we'd get it, frankly we're not desperate yet. We don't want to become desperate, so we would like to get more members, but it's not time to panic yet. If Jamie really wanted to do something useful to Grex, he should spend some time talking to regular users who are not members and finding out why they are not members, and what we could do to entice them to become members.
Since the standard answer I've seen has been "I don't really think they need money that badly", I'm not sure what kind of enticement would be appropriate. I'm with those who want to avoid making membership a payment-for-services- received arrangement. And at that I'm probably closer than most to needing something Grex provides. We're financially at a point that we don't have an ISP, and we actually rely on Grex for web access & email. If I really decide I can't live without better access, I probably won't continue membership in Grex - but I was a member before Grex had any network connection, & my reason for stopping would be pretty purely financial.
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I read the MOTD. Now you know one person. But I think Jamie does have a point. If there are users out there who don't know that they have an option of becoming a member, then there is an avenue we need to explore. The web-site does a good enough job talking about membership. But we need to get the message across to the users that telnet in directly. Also, apart from sending messages to users who have survived one reaping, how about sending a message to every new user that makes an account giving them an overview of what grex is about (something like the new message you get when you open a Yahoo email account, but one that talks more about grex and the community) I think that it would help in putting the message across that grex is more than just free email. I'm sure we could find a few people out there interested enough in becoming members, even if they did come for the free email. (I came for free email in 1997, I'm still around. There are people who will convert)
Stop it. ,.
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I wasw thinking more like a welcome message, not necessarily asking them to become members. How many people who actually log in to grex make full use of the BBS? Of the games? (Ok, that's a joke, though I do play hangman if I'm really bored.) True, the message about becoming a member can be delayed. But a welcome message could prompt new users to explore the other facilities.
>From 84: > > If Jamie really wanted to do something useful to Grex, he should spend > some time talking to regular users who are not members and finding out > why they are not members, and what we could do to entice them to become > members. > >I've done exactly this. I emailed roughly 900 users Jamie has already been notified of this, but for the rest of you, please note, just in case it wasn't obvious, that this is not acceptable use of grex. Don't do it. Don't claim that I told you to do it. Mass mail is bad, mm'kay?
WHAT>! YOU NEVER WARNED JLAMB NOW DID YOU>< DID YOU>
Would a message in a new user's inbox be counted as mass mail?
Sending mail to users telling them about how Grex is supported, and how they can become members, has been discussed on and off for a number of years. A couple of years ago Valerie worked out a way to do it with minimal impact on the system, and wrote a program. danr wrote the message. We were all set to start sending the messages, when the quantity of Spam sent to Grex users suddenly exploded, and valerie and I got cold feet about the whole project. We realized how much we hated Spam, and were unsettled at the idea of becoming Spammers ourselves. I am on the fence about it, but I guess I do think it's a legitimate thing to do - after all, lots of nonprofits send newsletters and things to remind people to donate. They even call up on the phone, which is way more obnoxious than an email. At least one question needs to be answered before we implement it - what return address should be on the message, and who should respond to the angry replies? The answer could be "no one", but that seems like a copout to me - I think if you send Spam, you should deal with the consequences, or you're being irresponsible. Valerie did implement an "opt-out" in her program; I'm not sure how it would work. (I.e., would the user have to go to a web page, or reply with a keyword in the subject line, or what.) But undoubtedly there wuld be some angry replies as well. We're talking about a large volume of email, and we tentatively suggested sending a message every three months to people who aren't members. I forget the numbers, but say there are 30,000 users who aren't members; that's over 300 messages on the average day. No doubt some portion of the replies will be nasty, and it could become a lot of work to deal with them. (I don't *know* it'd be a lot of work - we'd have to try it to find out.)
I hate to put it so bluntly, but I've demonstrated that the angry replies just don't happen. As I have said before and will keep saying, there are a lot of messages in my inbox from users who are atleast somewhat interested in becoming members and they are not getting responses right now.
How about a detailed accounting of all the replies you received? I don't approve of your methods, but if you have data, quit talking in generalities, and post the results.
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I would love to post hard numbers, but the data is in jp2's inbox.
Well, you haven't "demonstrated" anything until you do.
Well, I have eleven responses I that were forwarded to an offsite account:
Just here for free email: 3
Asked how/why/benefits: 5
Too poor: 1 (explained how grex membership is
a months salary in Hungary)
Random 1 (doesn't want to make Grexers feel
more "smug" than they already do)
From what I saw on Grex prior to forwarding, there was one who simply could
not afford it. Two-three who like the idea, but not at $80/year, and another
dozen or so who didn't know you could become a member and asked what was
involved, etc. That is, obviously, working from memory.
Not great data, but it's still more than anyone else has produced.
(Dues are $60/year.)
Re resp:100: Right now, staff is preventing him from getting at the data, so I think it's a bit disingenuous to blame him for not being able to produce answers right now.
Making Grex dues affordable to people whose cost of living is hugely less than the average American cannot be a goal for us. We have to set a donation level which both allows us to meet out expenses and keeps the work involved in managing the system down to a manageable level for a committed volunteer. (In case you didn't catch it, that last bit means lower price/greater volume for international memberships is not a reasonable tradeoff for our system.) re #103: Technically correct, but it was his own idiocy that created that reality.
I'm curious as to who that "Random" one was from.
102: Yes, that's a typo in post 101. 104: Yes, but making it more affordable to average Americans can be a goal.
Resp 101: I'm curious as to who that "Random" one was from. Resp 104: And other is being a little too defensive. No one mentioned reducing dues for international users. And even if it was Jamie's "idiocy" that created that reality, the point is people now want to see the data he has collected through this "idiocy" to come up with a more viable plan. gull's point in resp 103 is therefore valid. Are you ever going to get over that chip on your shoulder?
I don't have a chip. I merely have a low level of tolerance for people who make it a point to be as assinine and annoying as possible. Jamie came to Grex that way, and shows no significant sign of abating, despite superficial appearances to the contrary. I'm beginning to wonder if naftee/dah/polytarp/willcome aren't all his aliases merely to allow himself the freedom to vent while he tries to attach an image of legitimacy to jp2.
You really should see a doctor about that chip, other.
Re #103: A fair point, that he can't enter the data now. I'm assuming he will as soon as he gets the chance. It's also disingenuous to say you've "demonstrated" something via a survey which wasn't scientific and whose results haven't been posted yet, don't you think? I apologize if it sounds like I'm picking nits or being obstructionist. I don't mean to be. I'm more than a little puzzled by how Jamie could have gotten a math degree when he uses the words "prove" and "demonstrate" with virtually nothing to back them up. One of the things mathematics should teach you is that those words have very precise meanings.
And if we were talking about math, I'd use those words very differently :)
Well, we're talking about reality. At least, most of us are.
I like my place somewhere in between. In between what I have no idea.
Re 108> It's more like you have no tolerance for anyone who disagrees or brings up arguments. Sure Jamie has argued about a lot of things, some of them a waste of time. But he's never vandalised bbs, and I use that term lightly (vandalism is willcome's "spam" all over agora in my book). All he's done is argue and been not-so-deferential to the grexers. This whole election campaign has proved one thing. You guys are never going to get over the fact that someone dared to question policy. A lot of the posts in this campaign and the other related items smack of personal dislike rather than actual flaws. You might think that you guys are winning, but really you are jsut running around in circles agreeing with each other, rather than looking at facts. Whatever, I guess the majority wins here. And Jamie, I'm not sure whether you are taking this election seriously. I personally believe that you could be a great addition, especially when it comes to making grex more visible (whatever visibility it can get in this day and age) and possibly getting more members and contributions. you may be able to bring about some necessary change in the way Grex is governed also. But one thing you haven't learnt is that more elections are won through diplomacy and tact rather than on legalities (or stuffing the ballot-box) And you don't have that. If you plan to get on teh board of any organizatrion you bet you need to get the people to like you, and maybe even respect you. And you've done neither here. Maybe just for that you do deserve to lose. Which is a shame, because I would like to see you on board. And don't even get me started on the hypocricy. A few weeks ago a staffer was rapped on the knuckles for locking out an account of a person who was causing actual trouble deliberately, with no good intentions. Apparently he was too "harsh" in punishment. Yet, at this point you people won't bat an eye when Jamie's account gets locked out, never mind that it wasn't an act of maliciousness. I've had my say. You may go back to living in your little grex world and Jamie in his world where he wins an election on a technicality.
I'd like to point out that I noted jp2 had no respect for the system weeks before he actually did anything wrong.
Re #114: Sapna: who do you mean when you say "you guys"?
She means Old Grex.
I think she can speak for herself.
Sure, she quite articulately did. You didn't bother to understand what she wrote. I helped.
There is more to grex than the conference system. Making the system unusable, as a user has reported jp2 did, is abuse of grex.
There's more to Grex than Old Grex.
I meant a majority of the "old school grex" that are still around. You may pretend you want new blood and new users and new members. but really, you aren't willing to change. You get your backs up when something is questioned, make excuses about why things are the way they are, and when no excuse is available try to pass it off (and successfully so) because the person who brought it up isn't a well-liked person. It's almost as if all of you are hand in glove with each other. I realise that this isn't how all the old schoolers feel. I've seen a few out there that actually seem to show some sense of fairness. So maybe there is hope. But most of them seem to be uncomfortable when anyone else apart from their clique suggest something or seem to want to break into their little circle. Maybe it is just the way I (and a few others) perceive the situation to be. But if this is the perception we have, maybe there is a problem? Maybe not in the fact that a problem actually exists but in how people have been presenting their views. Again you may not agree. Fine. It is your system. run it the way you think fit.
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See, aruba? Told you so. Whore.
AHAHA YEAH ARUBA AND OTHER ARE WHORES>
Re 122: I don't think you've seen a regular argument here before. We've had them, including some really serious ones like anonymous web reading of the conferences. The difference between then and now is that there weren't people spamming users.s
No-one's spammed anyone but your MOM, scott.
Speaking as a former board member, former staff member, and occasional lurker on the staff mailing list, I'm disapointed about how this was handled. Jamie's aproach to senidng out the mail was probably wrong, but this was the case of a known reasonable person who presumably could have been talked to, rather than jumped on like a vandal. In fairness to the staff members involved, this does appear to have been largely a case of miscommunication. I do hope Jamie gets elected, although I'm not a member at the moment and thus can't vote for him. I don't agree with Jamie on a lot of stuff, but I think he would bring a different perspective to the board that would be quite useful. I'm also particularly mistified about the venom with which Eric (other) has been going after Jamie and others who he disagrees with. Eric used to be quite a nice guy, so I'm not sure what's changed in the last few years. At this point, whenever I read Eric's comments I find myself really wishing I hadn't.
I find myself puking.
Re 128> Well put. I agree completely. As for voting in this election, you can pay up for three months and cast your vote, if that's what you want to do.
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Thanks for sharing the data, Jamie. Sapna - the reason I asked who you were referring to is that I've seen us go down this road before, where people rail about "what Grex thinks" and how the establishment is conspiring to keep down new ideas. It's the beginning of the end of a constructive discussion. Personally, I'm not conspiring with anyone. I just say what I think. So if you've got a problem with what I say, talk to me. And if you've got a problem with what Eric says, talk to Eric. I can't speak for Eric and he can't speak for me.
Thabjsm ho2! , q
I think perhaps I've simply become less interested in burying the intense distaste I have for people who come into a nice place and shit all over it for their own entertainment. Aside from that, I have been guilty of making a few pointed remarks about the style of certain perople's comments which, though I do not regret making them, would perhaps have been best left unsaid. Steve, I'm honestly regretful that you feel that way about my comments. I haven't had a lot of actual substance to say on Grex in a while, but if I take the trouble to think about an issue and to actually post my collected thoughts, I'd like them to be considered a reasonable contribution to the discussion at hand. Sapna, I have to say I am really at a loss as to how you could arrive at the position you represent above. I think it must come from a combination or arriving on Grex during a period when many members felt the system was under assault by an onslaught of people who had no interest in what Grex had been, but only in what they could turn it into. This is not inherently a problem, mind you, but it definitely does create a sense of conflict in those users whose attraction to Grex lay mainly in its character before that time. There are a lot of people who put a lot of time, effort and money into creating a place which served a specific purpose, but did it in such a way that a concerted effort by a few people without respect for the place and its past could change it into something else. I suppose that is the fatal flaw in any democratic experiment. The very principles on which it is built make and keep it susceptible to the tyranny of those who have the will to manipulate the system. Put simply, Grex is experiencing a conflict of cultures, and the people who birthed and raised Grex are trying to preserve the old culture because that culture is why those people are here. Ultimately, if that culture changes enough, Grex will become something else, and those people will be forced to decide whether they have any reason to remain a part of it. There is nothing undemocratic in all this, and I think that the staff have done an extremely admirable job of adhering to their principles in the face of this challenge. But the staff is human, and each one has his or her own way of doing their job, and sometimes this creates the appearance of inconsistency. For example, if I had anything to say about it individually, I would never have allowed dah/naftee/ willcome/polytarp/whatever the fuck it is to remain unlocked. I regret the loss of cross as a staffer, but he obviously did not have the ability to separate himself from the job he was performing. With regard to jp2, well, I would have locked the account immediately as STeve did not -- for legitimate reasons of his own. Locking accounts is primarily a symbolic punishment, as has I'm sure been plainly demonstrated, but as such, the reversal of it is equally symbolic. I oppose the unlocking of an account simply on the basis that someone who should have known better and has no excuse in the world good enough, despite the best of intentions, says they're sorry and won't do it again. I have no problem allowing people a second chance, but the price of intentionally abusing the system is the loss of the account. If someone persists in the abuse through creation of multiple accounts then the IP is locked out, and if they still persist then their ISP is contacted and other measures are taken as necessary and available. That's just how we protect ourselves. If we don't do it, Grex shuts down, period. I think I've said my piece for now. I hope I've said some things that were both true and previously felt but unspoken, because they should be said. Where we go from here is what gets interesting.
Jamie's data, as reported so far does not include any responses that don't support his position. Interestingly, I replied to him from another account with a response that has not yet shown up in his tally. For those of you who thing there is some "Old Grex" that is a closed clique, I have to report that you are simply wrong. I first became a user of Grex in 1996, long, long after it was established. I had none of the "acceptance" problems, the "ideas being ignored", or any of the other issues that have been raised by those who feel they are excluded. In an established community, you do not bring change by declaring something wrong, and going off like the Lone Ranger to demonstrate how wrong everyone else is. You especially do not bring about change by deliberately violating norms of the community, written or unwritten. And you really lose support for your cause, no matter how good it is, by claiming that you shouldn't HAVE to follow the rules in this case, because you are special. Donations of time, money, and equipment do not make a person more privileged on Grex. Staff did what our written policies say they should do. We are havin a (mostly) healthy discussion about whether those policies are reasonable, or whether we have found a case that demonstrates a need for changing those policies. Grex has an open, well-known procedure for users to bring about change in policy. Whining, namecalling, and claiming that people who started the system won't let others get involved are very counterproductive procedures. As much as I like Jan's statement (help me out here, someone) about not letting your dislike of a person's behavior get in the way of evaluating an idea they put forward, I find myself shutting down on this issue. Jamie deliberately violated written policy, caused the system grief, and is now getting supporters who claim that staff should not have treated him _just_like_our_policies_say_they_should_. Those of you who would like to bring about social change need to learn how to apply the tools of social change. Any organizational development text book, any community organizing text book, and many private treatises explain the principles in detail. If you want to change Grex, learn to use the Grex communities consensus building tools and work for change using the Grex community's style. Riding up to the gates on your charger, waving your sword, and scattering the chickens is _not_ real productive behavior outside of a society where power-over is the controlling norm.
Other slipped in.
An excellent response, Colleen.
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I agree with resp:128, except that I had decided after a few days of watching his campaign that I wasn't going to vote for jp2. I think he deserves a fair run at it, though. Resp:131 suggests that part of our membership problem may be simply not getting the word out to people who don't regularly read agora. Besides the "Becoming a member" item in each agora, what can we do to explain membership to people? I wonder how many of those 19 people would become members if they knew what it was all about?
I think an even more basic problem is that people simply DON'T READ the newuser text. I think it would be appropriate to have newuser offer something like this: In order to create a user account on Grex, you'll have to agree to the following. IF YOU VIOLATE THESE TERMS, YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE FROZEN. Press return to continue: [present terms] If you agree to these terms, press return to continue. If not, you may disconnect now.
scg mentioned that he wished staff had tried to deal with jp2 by communicating with him first rather than locking his account and then communicating with him. I kind of feel the same way, but... I find myself reasonably satisfied with the outcome. I think that the fact that Grex's staff is allowed so much leeway to deal with things by using discretion and common sense is something that makes Grex special. I think it leads to far more situations dealt with fairly and quickly, and with far less total effort, than if we tried to make a comprehensive policy and ask staff to stick with it rigidly. As has been amply demonstrated recently, Grex has people who will try to hack the policy system (willcome, jp2 et al.), and a simple, flexibly policy that relies on discretion and common sense is far more resistant to that kind of meddling than any more rigid policy structure. So I'm perfectly happy to accept the fact that staffers may occasionally disagree with me regarding the perfect response to a problem, and I'm quite content to stay off their backs about it. Bravo, staff, keep up the great work. Regarding the people saying that the Grex Old Guard is using personal dislike for people to justify belittling and ignoring their ideas... I have no idea whether you include me in that category (I'm just a spring chicken, only been here since '94. :), but I don't buy it. One of the things I've always been proud of Grex for is precisely the opposite of this accusation: I think that the community of Grex has always been very receptive of good ideas when they come from people who are generally disliked. The thing is, people disagree about what constitutes a good idea. You can't blame someone for being unreceptive to a bad idea, no matter who it comes from. Some examples: jp2 discovered a defect with the bylaws in that it was unclear whether a quorum was required for member votes -- and now a proposal is underway to amend the bylaws to fix this, a proposal made by other, who y'all have directly accused of being unwilling to listen to jp2's ideas because of personal dislike. On the other hand, jp2 also suggested that Grex make sweeping changes to the way it keeps its books. A lot of us thought this is a bad idea, and explained why.
Re #139: The only effect of locking jp2's account on his run at a board position was that his campaign statement wasn't visible in the vote program for part of a day. I fixed that, before the account was unlocked, by reconfiguring the vote program to look for the statement in his jp2test account and letting him know that the vote program would display it if he put it there (which he promptly did). If Jamie's run for the board fails, it won't be for lack of visibility. His candidacy has already gotten far more discussion than any board candidate in the history of Grex, and we're only three days into the election. I have to agree with cmcgee and others that some folks are imagining a conspiratorial old-guard mentality on the part of the staff that (a) doesn't exist, and (b) even if it did exist, wouldn't have the final determination in how things are run. I'll point out that since 1992 Grex has had a bylaw provision that allows policy to be set by member vote. This is far more empowering to the members than what one finds in most non-profit corporations. This provision has been exercised a number of times; various key policies (limits on outgoing internet access, anonymous conference reading, no quotas in elections, depermission of the censored file, opening up the board to non-local members -- to name five) were adopted by member vote, NOT by the staff, and NOT by the board. I'm sure there were staff members who disagreed -- I'd guess I voted on the losing side in around half of the member votes -- but they became policy because it's what the majority of voting members wanted.
I did reply to that email, Jamie, but my net connection died on me. Anyhow, my stand has changed since then, so it doesn't matter. Eric, I agree partially with what you say. The time I became interested with policy is when the system was inundated (maybe not the right word, I can think of only 2 users) with users that could be vexing and may have resorted to vandalism of some sort. It does grate when people can't seem to see past that and automatically dismiss all outsiders. True others have had annoying arguing habits. But who's to say what's annoying. I find some of the old school grexers argument habits annoying as hell. Doesn't mean I'd dismiss their ideas without giving them a chance. And that's what I've seen happen here. This whole thing about Jamie's little spamming survey. Ok, he spammed, he broke the system, he got his account locked, he got it back, he posted results. There have been a couple that have been interested in the results and that's good. Then there are others that refuse to see value in what he's done. I agree, sending out 900 emails was stupid, but what was he trying to do with those 900 emails? Sell Viagra? No, he was trying to guage users and what they thought of the system and how we could make it better for them? Isn't that part of grex's mission. He also unearthed that there are quite a few users out there that don't know what a member is and how to become one. For a system that needs new members, this is something that definitely needs addressed. But no one's looking at that. All most people seem to be hung up about is that Jamie spammed the system. Jamie is argumentative. Jamie is a bad person. They all may be true. But he's also brought up a few good points with his survey. Colleen, true you were accepted easily. Part of it could be that you were local, and therefore more visible, so it's easy to get people to like you and trust you. That, and 1996 still was pretty much old school. However, a person that comes into the community post 2000, and is not from AA or the vicinity, the general idea they get is that grex is for AA and that's it. If that's the way grex wants to be, sure, there's nothing wrong with that. Tell me if that's the case, and I'll shut up. You guys are working fine if that's your aim. Mark, fwiw, you are one of the few people on this system that I find fair and balanced when it comes to issues such as the ones at hand. I don't think there's a conspiracy per se. I don't imagine all the old schoolers huddled at their board meetings whispering, trying to keep people out :) But it's the attitude of a lot of people. There is a certain "smugness" that that random user talks about. True, it seems there are people who want to change the system. I agree that trying to do so without regard to where the system has been or caring what the general public feel is not the way to do it. Unfortunately we've seen a lot of that happen. But change is good. And the only way grex can survive is with change. I'm not saying we should become like AOL or MSN, but maybe move a little with the times? And I don't think there's a conspiracy within the staff either. They seem to be the most removed from political discussion than most of the other people, which is a good thing. (I apologise if my post is disjointed. This is the third time I'm trying to post and each time I get an error page. The next attempt to post usually brings up a new response to this item again. Is there a problem with backtalk? )
Resp 143: "However, a person that comes into the community post 2000, and is not from AA or the vicinity, the general idea they get is that grex is for AA and that's it." Can you back that up? I'm honestly mystified where that notion comes from.
I know a lot of people who use grex and they won't interact with other people. One friend (who no longer uses grex from what I can tell) told me he didn't like interacting with other people especially in party and on bbs because all of them seemed to be talking to each other about things they knew and people they knew. Agreed, he may be a little thin-skinned (I personally have never had a problem in party for the most part, though one user's comments about restricting party to English speakers because of all the Indians that would get on and talk in Hindi, pissed me off. However that was one user. Not a big deal) A lot of the items in Agora are AA based - the spotted item, the lunch item. Again. I personally think that these items are great. But another user told me how she hated them because they seemed to be rubbing it in her face that grex was for AA, and not to forget it. (This was from a member that was around from at least 1996 if not earlier) These are petty things, true. But the idea they are giving non-local people is that Grex is primarily for AA and the vicinity. Again, I've had this conversation with someone else, and it was pointed out that this was a recent development, not present in the old days. I agree this may be the case. This sentiment wasn't present in the early 90s when there were a LOT of non-local people in the userbase. But the general feeling of people logging on now seems to have changed. If it doesn't seem to bother people around here, and they think they're doing fine without making people feel welcome, that's all well. But if you do think you're creating a community that welcomes everyone, no matter where they're from, then sorry. That's not the case. There are people that will not participate because they don't think they belong. (Not me, I'm here posting, so I guess I do have some feeling of belonging). The question is a) Do we really want non-local people (both non-AA-ites and non- Americans) to feel like they belong. b) Is it worth it to make the changes (either in attitudes, prices, general content etc) to make other people feel like they belong? If the answer to either of these questions is No, then this discussion need not be pursued further. (I picked 2000, a little at random, maybe because I was around briefly in 1997-1998 and returned full-force in 2002. 2000 seemed like a good enough turning point, though it could have been earlier or later)
a) yes. I'm not sure it's possible to please everyone, but yes, definitely. What changes do you think would make non-Ann Arborites feel welcome? Are you proposing not having a walk or a "spotted" item?
(It would be impossible to forbid either without compromising Grex's free speech philosophy.)
Re 146) I'm not proposing that. I like those items. And even if I didn't like them, remmers makes a good point. I don't have the answers right now. Maybe this is something that isn't possible. Or maybe there are avenues we can discuss to bring these changes about. And I don't think this is a board/staff issue. Maybe more of a community issue. And you're right. You can't please everyone. I don't expect every person that comes to grex to love it for what it is. And I wouldn't suggest trying to please everyone. One thing I think I'd like to start seeing is "advertising" bbs and party a little more to the general user who logs in. Maybe in the motd? (I believe mnet tried a similar experiment, but I'm not sure of the details, maybe tod, jp2, jep or other mnetters could elaborate? ) Also, we do get a lot of newusers, but most of them come here for a free shell account to try Unix skills or for the email. I'd like some way to make these users aware of the community side of things. True, the newuser program does say some stuff, but face it, no one really reads through all that stuff. Neither of these ideas are aimed at anything specifically non-local, but they have the potential of getting more new people involved in the community which could bring in diversity to the interaction we have here. (Also, I haven't paid attention to the "Other conferences on grex" item in agora, but I think we need to mention coop there, to have more people involved in the actual working of this system, or at least aware of it's existance)
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Well, let me talk about the "visibility" issue. As far as I remember, I have been to one event where grexers were gathered. I went on a Grexwalk because coyote's mother woauld not let h im meet an internect acquaintence face-to-face unless she were with him. We all three agreed to meet at a Grexwalk. That's it. That's my "visibility" on Grex. I think Clees has been more visible than I have. But I don't think "visibility" is really the issue. I have never met anyone who is running for the Board, except for polygon. In most elections, I've never met any of the candidates. So their being "local" or "visible" has not been a criterion. Indeed, most of the people here have never met me, and were I running, would have to make up their minds about my suitability for the postion based on how I behave on Grex, not what they see me do IRL. My influence in the Grex community is based on how I behave here, not on some geographical context. So, no, once again, it is not hard to be accepted into this community. They don't even have to meet you anywhere but on-line. And you don't have to have been here since the olden days. People are having a hard time being accepted because they do not subscribe to the same values and behavior of this _already_established_community_. If you want to be comfortable in a group, you fit in. If you want the group to be radically different from what it is, don't expect to feel comfortable, and don't expect the community to work very hard at making you feel comfortable. What I do like is the way people's ideas are being evaluated separately from their behavior. I do not have to vote for someone whose behavior is disruptive and causes contention. But it's nice to see this community examining the ideas carefully, and discussing and moving on them in spite of the source.
RE 149> I think that was last year wasn't it? But that's not the incident I mean. I think I saw someone mention in general on mnet that after putting blurb in the motd about party, mnet had x number of new people join party. twinkie or trex maybe, or even casper. Something like a few weeks ago.
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Thanks for posting that Jamie.
Re resp:145: > One friend (who no longer uses grex from what I can tell) told me he > didn't like interacting with other people especially in party and on > bbs because all of them seemed to be talking to each other about things > they knew and people they knew. I've heard this complaint about every online chat system I've been on. I think it's natural that people tend to talk to their friends more readily than they talk to strangers, and I also think it's natural that newcomers perceive this as cliquishness. I don't think it's unique to Grex, however. Getting accepted by any new community takes effort and persistance. I've lived in my apartment building for two years and I don't know any of my neighbors. Is it because they're unfriendly and hate newcomers? Nah, it's because I've never made the effort. When I started using Grex I didn't live in the A^2 area. I can't say I ever resented the local items, even if I didn't always find them interesting. (For years I simply forgot the 'grex walk' and 'grexer spottings' items in every agora, since they were irrelevent to me 600 miles away.) People seemed to accept me into the culture even though I wasn't local, and even though I was a much more annoying person in 1994 than I am now. ;> One of the things I've really missed, since the Internet wiped out most local dial-in BBS's, is the sense that I was communicating with real people that I could conceivably meet on the street some day. Grex still has that, and I'd hate to see the local items go away just because they might make the occasional newcomer feel a bit left out. Grex's user base seems, to me, to be at least as diverse as it's ever been. Not only do we have people who are from other states and even other countries connecting, some of them are even running for elected office!
My experience with the helper bit is a bit different than braun's. I field help requests typically two to three times a day...in the last 24 hours, one needed help changing their login shell from the menu to ksh, one asked me how to become a member and another asked how to install a "mud". Time has undoubtedly added a somewhat rosier tint to the past than an objective history would support, but I recall the 1984-86 era on m-net as having an unusually lively run of conferences. A number of variables seemed to drive it. Certainly there were a number of charismatic (or at least verbose!) fw's driving and drawing folks into the conferences. Then there were the monthly picofests where at least locally based folks could meet, eat, drink or whatever together. Picofests created a certain critical mass and many conversations and ideas flowed out of those gatherings into the online discussions. Part of it also was Mike Myers himself. He seemed to have a talent for recognizing potential fw's, handing them conferences and letting them see where they could "run" with them.
Happy GreX staffers, its funny how you talk about the GreX community changing in one sentence and in the next one saying how the system rules must never change.
Regarding #134; I didn't resign staff because I couldn't seperate what I was doing from who I was doing it for, but rather because the president of the board of directors specifically encouraged a vandal I had locked out of the system. She further ignored me whenever I tried to explain what I had done and why. If I, as staff, couldn't expect the president of the board to even hear me out, how could I be expected to do my job? I didn't leave because my feelings got hurt, I left in protest of the attitude of the president of the board.
re: > b) Is it worth it to make the changes (either in attitudes, > prices, general content etc) to make other people feel like they > belong? > If the answer to either of these questions is No, then this > discussion need not be pursued further. Whose attitudes? We're all individuals, and Grex cannot change the attitudes of any individual, much less the whole community of individuals. As for the prices, let's see some specific suggestions, along with the numbers of members at those rates that it would take to pay the bills to keep Grex running, and I'd be willing to run an experiment in which memberships are offered at that rate for one month, and if the membership income for that month exceeds both the average income for that month and the average and actual expenses for that month, then let the experiment continue for as long as it continues to succeed. Regarding general content: The entire content of Grex is whatever any user interested enough to post something makes it. If you want to post an item you think would be more welcoming, do it! But don't expect someone else to do it for you, and don't expect anyone else not to post something because it may not be ideally welcoming and inclusive. There is something going on in this discussion which really annoys me, and I'm surprised no one has commented on it. Jamie has made some very interesting contributions along with all the annoyance he has generated, and I have yet to see any remotely reasonable idea he has presented be ignored simply because it came from him, but the thing that irks me is that he is being held up as an example of what's wrong here when what he represents is the idea that the ends justify the means, and that no matter how flagrantly one violates the basic rules of this community, if one appears to have good intentions then it's okay. That is just plain wrong, and no matter how valuable or interesting the results (and frankly I myself would like to see some changes made on the basis of those apparent results), it doesn't change the fact that it is wrong. Is it really that strange that I doubt the goodness of the intentions when the methods are so blatantly antisocial? cross slipped in, and to cross I say: remember, the president is only for one year, staff is for as long as you choose to do it. If you can't handle a difference of opinion with someone just because she's president, you're probably better off getting out. That said, I'd like to see you give it another shot.
And I'm glad to see you speaking up, cross. :) I've missed you.
Re 158> I agree that what Jamie did was wrong. What annoys me is that whenever we try to discuss the points he brought up about the users feelings, people revert back to the means he got them and try to gloss over the fact that his data has some potential. Point in note is your comment. There's a whole item devoted to his account being locked out. You can go whine about his means there. No one is justifying his means in this item (at least I'm not). And I wouldn't like to see the ends forgotten because of the means he chose to take. We can make some good happen from his results and I don't want to see that lost. As for what could be changed, I agree that attitudes are individual characteristics, prices may be rock bottm (I'm not one ot dictate prices, I don't know all the costs that go into grex so I couldn't come up with a air price scheme) and general content changes as it's up to the users. I don't expect you or me or Mark or the board to change all that. All I'm saying is recognise that there is a problem, and you do have some sense of responsibility as a collective to help change it. I don't expect every user/member to fall in with this idea. However I would like to see discussions brought up on how we can help change. I'll be frank here Eric. From all the responses in all the items in this cf, yours seem the most resistant to the idea. All you've done is whine about how some elements are vandals and you haven't gone beyond that. As I said somewhere else, get over the chip on your shoulder. "Is it really that strange that I doubt the goodness of the intentions when the methods are so blatantly antisocial?" I can understand you ignoring Jamie, polytarp and naftee. But what have I done that constituted anti-social. In your zeal to prove Jamie a bad person, you're losing sight of what other people are trying to do here.
Dan, if you want me to discuss, again, what it was about your use of staff power that concerned me, I'll do so. But I'd rather take it to a new item, or the item where this was discussed, or to mail. The is jp2's campaign item.
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And besides, when has an item on grex ever stayed on topic, without some drift. Drift... that's what Grex is about.
re resp:162: Jamie, I don't think you have any complaints about the focusing of this item on accounting, since it's something you brought up. This is the item where you're trying to tell people why they should vote for you. I think it's appropriate for people to ask you about events in which you've participated or been involved, when those events might influence how people view you as a candidate. I think it's right for mynxcat to bring up things you've said in other items, about Grex's shortcomings and problems, and what you would like to do about them. You will have no disagreement from me, though, when you say cross's issues are inappropriate drift in this item.
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re 157 > the president of the board of directors specifically encouraged a vandal I had locked > out of the system. No, the president did nothing of the sort. You were responsible for that entirely, by unlocking the dah and polytarp accounts.
Actually, I would like to hear Jamie's views on making Grex's community more diverse. How does he propose we move toward that goal?
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"change is good" - that's just as much a bullshit generality as "change is bad". Sometimes change is inevitable, regardless of "good" or "bad", but change is not always for the better. Each proposed change must be evaluated on its merits, and not automatically embraced just because it *is* change.
Regarding #166; Just for the record, I didn't lock the polytarp account.
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re 170 No, but you did lock the dah account, and mistakenly the asddsa account. I have no idea why you unlocked the dah account.
Regarding #172; Well, Mary was pretty convinced that I was abusing my powers. Even though I repeatedly explained my actions and she ignored my explanations. It was pretty clear we couldn't prevent dah from logging in, anyway. Somewhere in there, Mary got the horribly mistaken impression I was willing to turn off newuser---I have no idea how or why, but she made a comment about it being ``non-negotiable''. I was also getting some pressure from other members of the board to step away from the situation. So, I undid what I did and stopped. Mary continued to insist I had abused my authority (such as it is; grex staff has no real authority. That all comes from the board and membership. Grex staff does have discretion to do certain things, like lock accounts if circumstances dictate---anyway, that's minutea, and I digress). I admit; to this day, I'm still pretty perplexed as to what she was thinking. She never explained herself well, and mostly made sniping comments about it. I note she asked none of this of Valerie who just recently did something virtually identical. And indeed, the same board member who suggested I step away from the dah/naftee issue came down firmly in support of locking jp2. Also, what Jamie did wasn't even malicious. What dah did was. From that context, locking jp2's account was less defensible than locking dah's accounts. When dah logged in again and again using new logins, I blocked his ISP (though I missed some of the IP range). I had posted somewhere that no one other than dah and naftee had logged in from there in over a month, and only two or three people in the three months prior (at the time I still thought polytarp and naftee were the same person). The really funny thing was that polytarp himself (or whatever psuedo he was using) posted something along the lines of, ``Wow, I intentionally abuse grex and I get more out of it in return than I had at the time!'' after I unlocked the polytarp account. I've given up getting anything resembling a sensible statement of her comments out of Mary, though. This is the third time she's grossly distorted something I've said or done. The first time, I mentioned that grex should encourage users logging in *only* for free email to look elsewhere, and she insinuated that I was suggesting grex shut off email service. The second time I mentioned casually that my female friends who had had abortions had often felt emotionally conflicted over their descisions, and she insinuated I was against abortion and added the comment, ``my opinion of you just tanked.'' Shesh. I've never seen someone take random, idle comments and be so vindictive about their gross misinterpretations of them. That said, I was touched by how many people asked me to stay on grex staff. I would do it, but the unfortunate thing is that I have to leave in less than two months for a ten month stint, during which I will have only limited access to a computer.
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re 173 It seems that, apart from mary, you did have a lot of support in locking dah's account for filling up user partitions. In item 29 of this conference, the user other both offered constructive criticism towards your actions and yet commended your efforts, then immediately wrote a few choice words to willcome (resps 31-33). responses 43 to 72 are mostly willcome complaining about the mass IP ban, after you had unlocked the naftee account. Responses 76-82 are more interesting. Willcome gloats after needling you to get his accounts back and ISPs unbanned, and succeeding, and out of frustration for all the wrong things, you resign from staff. In short, it's a sad chapter.
"...both...and yet..." doesn't work.
This is a worthwhile discussion and there's a lot more to it yet to be said, but I think jp2 is right that it doesn't really belong in this item and we should move it to another. If, when I get to the end of coop, I discover that a new item has not already been created to continue this, I will create one. I hope that those of participating in the discussion of cross's activities on staff and departure therefrom will take up the discussion there.
(I think mary pointed out that this was not the right item. jp2 was resigned to it, or maybe he revelled in the fact his item was hijacked.)
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Politically motivated...as in revenge?
Re resp:179: Get over yourself.
re #173: I think this whole thing is a classic case of internet-style miscommunication, where if the principals could meet face to face, the whole thing would be cleared up in five minutes. I don't think mary is anywhere near as critical of your actions as you think (though her responses online really didn't make that clear). I think you're ascribing a whole lot more significance to the position of Grex President than really exists, too. Mary would be the first to tell you that you shouldn't pay any more attention to her opinion than that of any other member. I really wish you would come back and try being staff again, cross.
Yes, it's dress-up day. Try on those staff clothes.
I'm kind of tired of the "non A-A grexers don't feel wanted whine". This us versus them attitude is as much created artificially as it is organic. Grex is very local in that it is capable of fostering local community groups. There used to be an Ohio Grexers Group as well as a group in Philly. The reason why they aren't active anymore is because these folks mainly moved away. What is stopping grexers that aren't from Ann Arbor from creating Gtrex- Centered communities where they live? Folks are not looking at what they can do on a local level to create a grex community, which will increase the strength of community between the host city and other cities where users live. Yet, so of the very same people are also bringing for the problem of lack of membership.
annoying
TROGG IS DAVID BLAINE
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