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Grex > Coop > #261: Where is Grex moving to when provide.net closes in a few months? | |
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| 25 new of 60 responses total. |
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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tod
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response 25 of 60:
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Jan 19 17:35 UTC 2010 |
re #23
I think you've pretty much found the hot button. Sure, there might be that
1 out of 20 security discussion but I'm betting the true fear is that
there was too much unprofessional bashing taking place.
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cross
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response 26 of 60:
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Jan 19 17:39 UTC 2010 |
Yup.
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tod
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response 27 of 60:
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Jan 19 18:00 UTC 2010 |
Open the archives!!
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tsty
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response 28 of 60:
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Jan 20 19:16 UTC 2010 |
re 22 ... and i agree totally. how many hours different are you from est?
btw, sned me an email with a phn number so i ca test out magicjack
here, from home, befoe we try a board meeting.
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richard
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response 29 of 60:
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Feb 25 21:16 UTC 2010 |
see this item is a perfect example of what is wrong with grex. Read
the title, " Where is Grex moving to when provide.net closes in a few
months?" and then find any of the twenty eight responses that actually
discusses that.
I think it is becoming clear that Grex's board and staff have become
entirely reluctant to make any real decisions. Probably out of pure
complacency and disinterest.
Clearly the downtime grex has had due to the box being at a co-lo where
nobody has the time to go over to it shows that things need to change.
How many times does Grex have to be down days at a time simply because
nobody has the time to go over to provide.net and reset it? Grex's
board needs to get off their asses and accept Tonster's very generous
offer.
If the inclination of Grex's board members is to not do anything and
make no decisions, why are they serving in that capacity? To put it on
their resumes?
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mary
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response 30 of 60:
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Feb 25 21:26 UTC 2010 |
I think we could move forward here without beating up our volunteers.
Really I do.
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slynne
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response 31 of 60:
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Feb 25 22:01 UTC 2010 |
I think that the beating up of the volunteers just makes things run even
slower
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richard
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response 32 of 60:
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Feb 25 22:47 UTC 2010 |
re #30,31 I disagree. I think the fact that the board members are
volunteers should in no way insulate them from user/member criticism.
If you agreed to serve that is a contract between you and those that
elected you, and you therefore have to accept whatever heat comes from
doing or not doing the job, regardless of whether you are being paid
for it.
I have served in volunteer positions, on campaigns and other such, and
I have never thought that the fact that I was 'volunteering' gave me a
free pass to be less responsible than those who were doing paid
positions.
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krj
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response 33 of 60:
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Feb 25 22:49 UTC 2010 |
I think having Tony on staff is a great idea.
I'm less enamored of the idea of having Tony as Grex's landlord.
Grex has always tried to stay in commercial space because there
were some issues in Olde M-net Days about having the system in
someone else's home.
Having a private individual host Grex in his or her home works
great -- until it doesn't. When it breaks, it breaks spectacularly.
Possible bad things:
1) Law enforcement could decide to seize Grex. Since it wouldn't be
clear to them which computers were Grex and which were Tony's, they
would find it easier to take everything.
2) Access by other staff for hardware issues might conflict with
family needs of the host: say there's a sick kid or something.
3) The host and the rest of the Grex community could sour on each
other. (This is not meant as a dig at Tony, it could happen with
anyone.)
4) Not to be too morbid, but something could happen to the host --
unemployment, incapacitating illness, stuff like that.
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mary
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response 34 of 60:
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Feb 25 23:00 UTC 2010 |
Worst case - off-site backups installed on new hardware or hosting. I
think we could worry so much about all that could go wrong that we'd
simply die from paralysis.
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slynne
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response 35 of 60:
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Feb 26 01:28 UTC 2010 |
resp:32 Do you think that being very critical of volunteers makes other
people more likely or less likely to volunteer? If Grex had hundreds of
people who wanted to volunteer and only a very few volunteer slots,
there would be room for a lot of criticism. That isnt the case here. And
it is especially galling when the people who do the most complaining are
not people willing to do any work themselves.
It is one thing to helpfully point out things that need to be done and
perhaps even suggest possible solutions. It is quite another to demand
someone else's unpaid time. It really bothered me when I was on the
board that no matter how much effort I put into things, there was always
someone bitching that not enough was being done and it was usually
someone who couldn't be bothered to do anything themselves.
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tonster
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response 36 of 60:
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Feb 26 02:04 UTC 2010 |
Note that in my scenario there should be no need for anyone to touch the
hardware grex is hosted on, any more than if grex were hosted as a
virtual machine at a commercial company would it have physical hardware.
Unlike now, however, I could provide access to the machine it is hosted
on so that grex staff (all grex staff, or whoever staff appointed to
have access, and I would not be the sole person to give that access)
would be able to access the machine remotely as if they were sitting
right in front of it. Power on the machine, power it off, get on
console, reboot, whatever.
I do understand the hesitation due to m-net's beginnings, though I have
no intentions of doing anything like that. As mary said, though, theres
always the option of offsite backups. Staff can also take snapshots of
the VM and probably copy those offsite occasionally. I've never
actually done that, but I'm certain it's possible.
As far as being critical of board and staff, I have to say that it's
coming to a point that something more harsh needed to be said. The
conversation has sat stagnant for the past 3+ months. Offers and
suggestions have been made since grex was down late last year with
little or no mention by most of the board and staff. At some point the
clock is going to wind down on provide.net's service and they're going
to call someone and say 'hey, we've been telling you for months that our
service is shutting down. You need to be out by Friday.' and noone is
going to know what to do because noone will discuss it.
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slynne
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response 37 of 60:
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Feb 26 02:23 UTC 2010 |
FWIW, it is very different when criticism comes from someone who is
obviously willing to do things. It is also fine to point out things
which need to be done which is a much different thing from demanding
that someone else do those things.
The real problem with Grex is a leadership void though and nagging isnt
going to solve that problem unfortunately. It has been my experience
that harsh criticisms can sometimes get people to do things in the short
term but in the long run, those harsh criticisms result in things like a
board of directors who dont log on, dont participate in online
discussions, don't attend board meetings and so on. It sucks but that is
how I see it.
Maybe it is too late for Grex. Maybe there really is no one willing to
step up enough to save it.
(if I cared enough, which I don't, I would make sure that board meetings
happened by organizing them and calling board members to remind them to
show up. Then I would insist that Grex be moved to Tony's house and I
would do everything I could do to facilitate that. That might include
calling staff people and encouraging them to participate by doing things
to make it fun for them.)
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tonster
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response 38 of 60:
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Feb 26 04:07 UTC 2010 |
I should also make clear that i'm not encouraging berating volunteers.
I've been volunteering for m-net long enough to know that what slynne
says is correct, too much of it happens. however, after months of
getting no response at some point you've got to get more firm. Whether
it's to my server or finding another solution, the problem isn't going
away, time is running out, and a decision must be made.
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richard
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response 39 of 60:
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Feb 26 18:26 UTC 2010 |
I think when/if Tonster takes the box, that should also be the time
that Grex formally stops offering email. There is really no reason for
Grex to be offering email these days, there are only eighteen zillions
places where you can get free email from places that can provide better
services than Grex. There was a time years ago when Grex offering free
email was a valuable service. Not anymore. Besides I think that
without the email, it might discourage trolls from bothering to come
here.
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slynne
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response 40 of 60:
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Feb 26 18:27 UTC 2010 |
I agree that it is probably time for Grex to stop offering email
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tonster
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response 41 of 60:
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Feb 26 19:23 UTC 2010 |
alternatively, it could be offered in the same way it's now offered on
m-net.
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nharmon
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response 42 of 60:
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Feb 26 20:33 UTC 2010 |
^^^^^^ Yeah, that!
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richard
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response 43 of 60:
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Feb 26 20:44 UTC 2010 |
but why offer it at all with grex's limited resources when there are so
many other places that offer better free email? I think offering
censored email is contrary to grex's mission of being fully open
anyway. Censoring/whitelisting email and validating new user are
really getting away from grex's mission of being open access.
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