Using Grex's MOTD to advertise M-Net fund-raisers

Mar 1 19:53 UTC 1999

   In discussion of fund-raising on M-Net the other day, I mentioned
that I thought it would have been perfectly appropriate for Dave Cahill
to use his abilities to edit Grex's MOTD and put an announcement for
their last fund-raiser there.

   Dave responded that he thought his abilities to use the Grex MOTD
was for systems type announcements only, and putting a fund-raiser
notice there would have been inappropriate.

   I only dimly remember the talk of giving an M-Net person the
ability to do this, and thought that Dave adding general M-Net things
was OK, not just systems things.

   Thats why I'm posting this, to see if anyone thinks that M-Net
putting something like a fund-raiser in the MOTD would be a bad
idea.

   I think it would be a fine thing to see M-Net's fund-raisers
advertised here.

response 2 of 42:

Mar 1 23:33 UTC 1999

!members -gmotd | fmt
ajax aruba canis carl coyote dadroc dang dpc dynamo gregc janc kaplan
kittie llanarth mdw mic mju mta nephi popcorn rcurl remmers rlawson robh
russ scg scott senna srw steve valerie

response 4 of 42:

Mar 2 23:19 UTC 1999

but if grex lets mnet post in motd, it has no defense if
other groups ask to start posting i motd.  if grex
makes an exception for mnet, it has to make exceptions for
others out of fairness.  One specific additoin leads to other
speicific additions

response 6 of 42:

Mar 3 04:00 UTC 1999

Well, we certainly haven't been terribly tight-fisted with the motd in the 
past, so I'd say that precedent is on the side of allowing an ad to help
M-Net.  As usual, Richard has overstated his case, however he does have a
point that if at any point lots of people *do* start asking us to put lots
of announcements in the motd, we may have to get more organized and
beaurocratic about which we let in.  I say let's cross that bridge when we
come to it.

response 8 of 42:

Mar 3 12:59 UTC 1999

Given the special relationship we have had with MNet since the beginning of
Grex, I say if a succinct notice is a helping hand for them, do it.  But maybe
dpc could run it by another staffer if he is uncertain about any given
announcement.  *shrug* as long as motd doesn't turn into a public-computer
fundraising event all the time, I wouldn't care.

response 10 of 42:

Mar 3 17:25 UTC 1999

I think M-Net and Grex have a special relationship, too.  I logged on 
here for the first time in response to a message posted in M-Net's 
/etc/motd when Grex first opened it's modems.

While I'm glad Grex was in no way associated with the last fund raiser, 
at which a member of the Board of Directors paraded with no clothes 
except a sign in front of a church to drum up business, most of M-Net's 
fund raisers are more controlled and responsible than that.  M-Net is in 
desperate financial need, and if Grex can help by putting a message in 
the motd, then it should.

I think Dave Cahill did the right thing by not posting the message 
himself, given his position as a Board member for Arbornet.  That might 
have looked bad, and probably would have, given this discussion.  Better 
to get someone else to do it, or to try to get a feeling of general 
approval first.

response 12 of 42:

Mar 3 18:04 UTC 1999

I meant that there was the appearance of a misuse of power.  Dave was 
given the ability to edit the motd file for announcing system problems 
for M-Net, as I understand it.  To use it for other M-Net announcements 
would seem to have required additional authority.  Dave felt that was 
true, and I think he probably dealt with the situation appropriately, 
from what I've read.  If the authority is to be given by Grex to someone 
to post other M-Net announcements, then Dave is the right person.

response 14 of 42:

Mar 3 20:57 UTC 1999

Well that sounds like a reasonable compromise, remmers, thanks.  Why don't we
just say that we'll post M-Net fundraiser announcements as long as they agree 
to post ours, when we request it.

response 16 of 42:

Mar 4 04:52 UTC 1999

#14 sounds good to me.

response 18 of 42:

Mar 4 17:22 UTC 1999

  Cool.  Probably you'd want to send it to staff instead.

response 20 of 42:

Mar 5 01:41 UTC 1999

I'm not convinced that having fundraising announcements in grex's motd is
a good idea, either.

I also don't think that grex and m-net agreeing to post fundraising
announcements for each other is likely to be an even trade.  m-net is
always nearly bankrupt, whereas grex is being managed in such a way that
I have a hard time trying to imagine a single event hapening which would
cause grex to go broke.  (Even if everything at the pumpkin was destroyed
by fire, it might be possible to mostly recover using less than $3000.)

I'd be comfortable with grex having a policy that fundraising announcements
for other organizations are acceptable in the motd only in unusual
circumstances; since fundraisers aren't unusual for m-net, we'd never see
such announcements about m-net.  However, if a building belonging to
some organization burns down, or something, I wouldn't mind seeing
the fundraising announcements.

response 22 of 42:

Mar 5 05:41 UTC 1999

What #20 states is usual for many non-profits. Each concerns itself only
with its own needs for operating and project fund raising. It really has
to as donors are motivated by causes and each organization has to establish
in the potential donors mind what its cause it. However in the event
of catastrophes, many non-profits will "stick together" and get the word
out about the emergency needs of the other. One important reason for that
is the non-profit sector is much larger than the individual non-profits,
and by keeping the sector strong, all benefit. 

response 24 of 42:

Mar 5 14:58 UTC 1999

I suppose it's possible that some users might start to confuse the two
systems; if they kept seeing "M-Net is having a fundraiser" in Grex's MOTD,
they might start to think M-Net and Grex were the same thing.  (I've gotten
mail from a number of people who refer to our system as "cyberspace", so I
know we're not doing a completely effective job of getting people to recognize
the name "Grex".)