|
|
| Author |
Message |
jp2
|
|
jp2's Campaign Item
| 
Nov 19 02:27 UTC 2003 |
This item has been erased.
|
| 186 responses total. |
jep
|
|
response 1 of 186:
|
Nov 19 04:29 UTC 2003 |
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?
|
gull
|
|
response 2 of 186:
|
Nov 19 15:00 UTC 2003 |
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.
|
naftee
|
|
response 3 of 186:
|
Nov 19 16:34 UTC 2003 |
re 0 Go away, David Irving.
|
jp2
|
|
response 4 of 186:
|
Nov 19 16:52 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
|
mynxcat
|
|
response 5 of 186:
|
Nov 19 17:23 UTC 2003 |
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.
|
aruba
|
|
response 6 of 186:
|
Nov 19 19:24 UTC 2003 |
I don't understand in what way you think Grex's accounting policies are not
"open" enough, Jamie.
|
cmcgee
|
|
response 7 of 186:
|
Nov 19 19:58 UTC 2003 |
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.
|
jp2
|
|
response 8 of 186:
|
Nov 19 20:39 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
|
aruba
|
|
response 9 of 186:
|
Nov 19 20:56 UTC 2003 |
Where did you get that requirement from, Jamie?
|
jp2
|
|
response 10 of 186:
|
Nov 19 21:01 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
|
flem
|
|
response 11 of 186:
|
Nov 19 21:28 UTC 2003 |
I have a question, Jamie. What do you think is Grex's mission, and how
would your proposals help further that mission?
|
aruba
|
|
response 12 of 186:
|
Nov 19 23:25 UTC 2003 |
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.
|
willcome
|
|
response 13 of 186:
|
Nov 19 23:49 UTC 2003 |
I have a question, Jamie: Do you think the users of Grex will forget your
past abuses?
|
jp2
|
|
response 14 of 186:
|
Nov 20 15:19 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 15 of 186:
|
Nov 20 16:22 UTC 2003 |
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.
|
aruba
|
|
response 16 of 186:
|
Nov 20 17:16 UTC 2003 |
> 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.)
|
cmcgee
|
|
response 17 of 186:
|
Nov 20 17:22 UTC 2003 |
I don't see why complicating the bookkeeping system by going to an accrual
basis make sense for Grex.
|
flem
|
|
response 18 of 186:
|
Nov 20 17:47 UTC 2003 |
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. :)
|
naftee
|
|
response 19 of 186:
|
Nov 21 03:29 UTC 2003 |
re 16 Haven't GreX's expenses been rising too?
|
aruba
|
|
response 20 of 186:
|
Nov 21 03:41 UTC 2003 |
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.
|
willcome
|
|
response 21 of 186:
|
Nov 21 04:03 UTC 2003 |
jp2, why should people vote for you, when you treated last year's election
as a joke?
|
keesan
|
|
response 22 of 186:
|
Nov 21 12:19 UTC 2003 |
Don't forget the large increase in insurance costs.
|
aruba
|
|
response 23 of 186:
|
Nov 21 15:07 UTC 2003 |
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.
|
jp2
|
|
response 24 of 186:
|
Nov 21 15:35 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
|