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Grex > Coop > #261: Where is Grex moving to when provide.net closes in a few months? | |
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scholar
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Where is Grex moving to when provide.net closes in a few months?
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Jan 4 18:04 UTC 2010 |
Now that Grex is back up with an IDE drive, which will hopefully solve the
problem of it crashing frequently, it seems to be that the most critical area
of concern is finding a new ISP. At the board meeting, Steve said that Grex's
current ISP, provide.net, is likely to go under within a few months. Without
an ISP, there is no Grex.
It is my understanding that Tony Publiski, who goes by the username tonster,
has generously offered to host Grex in his basement, on an indefinite and
free-of-charge basis. He has also offered to take on staff duties.
Can the board and staff use this item to discuss the issue, or at least keep
the userbase up-to-date on their plans? I understand that the time of Grex's
volunteers is the scarcest resource it has at the moment. However, finding
a new host is literally vital to the future of Grex. Therefore, I hope that
the people in charge are able to keep the userbase informed.
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| 60 responses total. |
tonster
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response 1 of 60:
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Jan 5 02:39 UTC 2010 |
If staff does want to take me up on my offer, feel free to ask me for
details or whatnot. I can also bring up a VM anytime to test installs
and such if that's desirable.
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tsty
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response 2 of 60:
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Jan 6 05:16 UTC 2010 |
fine offer tonster ... w/o doubt this wiell be discussed at the next
satff meeting .. whihd was supposed to bae a couile days ago .. (ahem).
in fact, satgff emetings are open ... you omight wanna sign up
on posteorus to stay tuned in. ... in additoin to grex.
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mary
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response 3 of 60:
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Jan 6 12:04 UTC 2010 |
Er, just to be clear, staff meetings have never been open. Those and the
staff conference are the only exceptions to our open tradition. The idea
was staff needed to have a place to discuss security concerns.
Now, not saying that can't be changed, but keeping those two areas staff
only has worked in the past.
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tonster
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response 4 of 60:
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Jan 6 12:22 UTC 2010 |
it's similar on m-net, and it's a good thing. if there's interest in my
offer or in me being on staff, let me know.
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tsty
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response 5 of 60:
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Jan 6 18:21 UTC 2010 |
i may be wwroing but the -conference- is strictly closed but
the ftf meetings were nominally open or closed depending on hte
circumstance ...
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jgelinas
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response 6 of 60:
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Jan 9 17:50 UTC 2010 |
Nope; staff meetings were (and are) invitation-only.
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richard
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response 7 of 60:
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Jan 9 20:46 UTC 2010 |
They shouldn't be though. Why shouldn't any user who is interested in
grex and wants to partake of the discussion be allowed to attend a
staff meeting if they want? I think that staff meetings should be
announced as taking place and anyone who wishes to attend need only
rsvp staff to be told the time and location.
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jgelinas
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response 8 of 60:
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Jan 9 21:58 UTC 2010 |
As mentioned in regards to the Board meetings, staff meetings usually
include discussion of security matters and similar things.
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tonster
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response 9 of 60:
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Jan 10 16:51 UTC 2010 |
You really have to routinely discuss "security matters" in private?
What "similar things" are so confidential? That seems overly cautious.
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tod
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response 10 of 60:
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Jan 10 18:01 UTC 2010 |
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rcurl
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response 11 of 60:
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Jan 11 06:11 UTC 2010 |
Only non-profit board need to be open to the public (except for certain closed
sessions). Committees (like "staff") are much less constrained. They usually
just conduct their business within themselves, though often open enough to
encourage member participation, as appropriate.
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nharmon
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response 12 of 60:
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Jan 11 17:55 UTC 2010 |
Staff should realize that such a lack of openness is easily mistaken for
absence and members who see the system go down for an amount of time
with nobody explaining why or how are not going to continue lending support.
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rcurl
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response 13 of 60:
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Jan 11 18:31 UTC 2010 |
Quite right. Committees should also report on their activities at least at
every board meeting and the reports should be available to the members (apart
from necessarily confidential information).
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arthurp
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response 14 of 60:
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Jan 13 06:55 UTC 2010 |
The staff used to report at every board meeting. I doubt that has
changed.
Think of it like this. I own some (now rather worthless) bank stock. I
am invited to be at the yearly shareholders meeting and to vote for
members of the board of directors. But it would be rediculous of me to
insist I be allowed into the IT department's planning session for
deploying a new generation of ATMs.
I also vote for my legislators, but I am shocked to find that I am not
allowed to sit in on the meetings of the oversight commitee for the
Central Intelligence Agency even though my senator is a member of that
commitee.
Prospective members of staff do get invited to staff meetings so I
wouldn't say they are exactly closed, but they are the next best thing
to it. And that is as it should be.
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veek
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response 15 of 60:
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Jan 13 13:06 UTC 2010 |
umm.. after Enron and Fannie May, I'm sure it's a good idea to sit on
the IT department's planning session, so to speak. A lot of people have
been calling for more transparency in the way companies and governments
are governed.
The real question to ask should be: how transparent can you get without
sacrificing profitability in the long run (include cost to society -
global-warming, etc).
A lot would depend on the nature of the business and what needs to be
protected. You might not want the latest Stealth-bomber schematics to
be part of the public domain, but a lot of routine work could be made
public at great cost savings to the tax payer.
In Grex's case, it's a non-profit, so barring security/privacy concerns
(accidentally airing the root password in public) there should be no
reason not to permit a open staff conference. It certainly is doable
since security through obscurity is a bad idea anyway. It's not like we
are an ad agency that needs to guard against theft of creative effort.
Mind you, in a truly advanced and enlightened society, you probably
won't need to bother about guarding against theft of your latest
Stealth-bomber and even that would be public-domain.
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nharmon
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response 16 of 60:
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Jan 13 13:52 UTC 2010 |
It just seems bizarre to me that staff insists on maintaining the
privacy of their work when it really is to their detriment to operate
like that. I don't think member support of staff is very high right now,
but that might be different if they saw the effort being made.
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veek
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response 17 of 60:
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Jan 13 15:00 UTC 2010 |
Re #16: In order of importance:
1. No functional board
2. Not enough users
3. More money, more volunteers, more users, more users
I really don't see current staff as being much of a problem right now.
Steve might have taken a month? to get Grex back, but he did get Grex
back for the New Year; so what have we/board accomplished in the last
13 days?
Right now, what Grex REALLY needs is a functioning board! Then lets get
some policy for handling volunteers - some efficient mechanism for
handling new users, updating the web-site, contributing code, setting
up an Internet presence (YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, Wiki, Flickr),
more features (MySQL access, virtualHost: veek.cyberspace.org, bigger
disk quotas).
The whole problem as I see it is that suggestions just seem to
dissipate once it reaches the board.. perhaps I'm mistaken, which is
why that video thing would be really useful! Right now, all I see is
Steve patching the box and heaving and hoing.. but a lot of policy type
stuff seems to be missing.. eg: the web-site could do with some minor
fixes; I need input for the Grex wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/User:Vivek.m1234/Myyyyyyyyyyyy_Cyberspace_Stuff) I don't know how
to handle the Grex logo thing TownHall.png - copyright+wiki??; etc Most
of this stuff requires board input??
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tonster
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response 18 of 60:
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Jan 13 17:42 UTC 2010 |
Comparing grex staff to a bank's IT department is rather ridiculous, but
some of what you say is certainly true. I doubt there's really that
much that's truly private or poses a risk if seen publicly involved in
the discussion.
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tod
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response 19 of 60:
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Jan 13 19:59 UTC 2010 |
re #14
I also vote for my legislators, but I am shocked to find that I am not
allowed to sit in on the meetings of the oversight commitee for the
Central Intelligence Agency even though my senator is a member of that
commitee.
What about the GAO and congressional constituents? They listen to popular
opinion frequently. Why wouldn't Grex want to spend funds according
to the membership?
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cross
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response 20 of 60:
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Jan 18 02:27 UTC 2010 |
I see no reason not to open up the staff meetings. Then again, I've never
been invited to a staff meeting. I'm not sure they're particularly useful.
Also, for the last few years, the staff conference has been almost dead.
Before that, it was more of a gossip session than anything else. I would
go so far as to suggest restarting it and opening it up read-only (unless
you are on staff) so that people have visibility into what staff does. It
would embarass folks to open up older generations of the conference, but
opening it up going forward would be good.
The security concern is not relevant; security issues haven't been discussed
there in years. If they need to be, that's what email could be used for
(perhaps with a copy kept in a file on grex).
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tsty
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response 21 of 60:
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Jan 18 05:23 UTC 2010 |
if the timing is right, you can particoipate as you did, by phn, with
the board meetigs.
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cross
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response 22 of 60:
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Jan 18 06:03 UTC 2010 |
I think the timing should be made right so that I can participate.
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richard
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response 23 of 60:
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Jan 19 04:43 UTC 2010 |
re #20 how would it embarass folks if older versions of the staff
conference were opened as read-only? Was the staff conference being
used as a place to trade hurtful and malicious gossip about other
users and say things about them that you wouldn't say if they could
read it?
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cross
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response 24 of 60:
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Jan 19 16:27 UTC 2010 |
In my opinion, yes and yes.
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