|
Grex > Coop > #278: Grex Town Hall -- How do we move forward? |  |
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 357 responses total. |
kentn
|
|
response 229 of 357:
| 
Jun 25 17:25 UTC 2010 |
Consider that there is fair use of what others write and then there is a
potential copyright violation due to wholesale copying and publishing.
Electronic documents are not immune to copyright violations even though
such data are very easy to store and bring back and some people seem to
think because it is possible it is okay.
|
remmers
|
|
response 230 of 357:
|
Jun 25 17:40 UTC 2010 |
Quoting kentn from resp:0 - "we'd like to ... develop a plan for Grex
to move beyond where it is today."
230 responses later, how much closer are we to doing that?
|
tod
|
|
response 231 of 357:
|
Jun 25 18:24 UTC 2010 |
I am absolutely completely with 100% certain without a doubt clueless where
we're going but we're way ahead of schedule
|
mary
|
|
response 232 of 357:
|
Jun 25 18:37 UTC 2010 |
I've got a clue.
|
kentn
|
|
response 233 of 357:
|
Jun 25 19:07 UTC 2010 |
It's only been a week and a half. Unfortunately, I don't expect much
else at this point unless we get some new participants with ideas.
I'd like to be surprised, of course.
|
jep
|
|
response 234 of 357:
|
Jun 25 19:12 UTC 2010 |
The whole community wants things to stay the same, and they will get
their wish. Things will continue to shift in uncontrolled and unplanned
ways, just as they always have in the past.
That is, unless someone takes charge or gets a small group to do so. A
year ago, I thought Dan Cross would do that. Now, I'd say Mary Remmers
could. It'd take someone who wants Grex to follow a particular plan, is
willing to put in some work, has a little ambition, and can get some
people who will go along with what he or she wants and maybe help a
little. My guess is that won't happen here, and so no significant
choices about the future will be made.
|
kentn
|
|
response 235 of 357:
|
Jun 25 19:25 UTC 2010 |
If things stay the same as they are right now, Grex will cease to exist.
As to people who will go along being not likely, more's the pity.
Inertia tends to win out due to being easiest. So much for democracy.
It will take the Board to do something, I expect, but they are not
responding here.
|
krj
|
|
response 236 of 357:
|
Jun 25 20:25 UTC 2010 |
"To everything there is a season." :-)
I participate in two other forums whose structure is derived from
Picospan -- NewCafe (formerly Utne Cafe) and TheTown -- and both
of those are fading away from inactivity, just like Grex.
(And they don't even have the troll problem, as users can be banned
in those systems.) I am thinking that the Confer/Picospan model
has just run its course, kind of like Usenet and Gopher.
On the other hand, if anything changes, some sizable amount of the
remaining user base will be turned off and go away.
One of the big issues is that there is no consensus on what is to
be saved, what the priorities should be.
|
kentn
|
|
response 237 of 357:
|
Jun 25 20:34 UTC 2010 |
Thanks for responding, Ken. What do you think should be the priorities?
|
richard
|
|
response 238 of 357:
|
Jun 25 22:15 UTC 2010 |
re #236 The generational issue is being ignored. These places don't
attract young users. Younger users want as much functionality as
possible. They aren't likely to participate in conferences that aren't
as functional as Facebook and the like. What you have here on Grex and
these other boards as a result is a user base that is getting older and
dwindling away. Grex used to attract plenty of college students, from
UM, MSU and other schools. There was a school down near St. Louis,
whose name escapes me at the moment, where a number of students used
Grex.
Not anymore. Those times are long gone.
|
tod
|
|
response 239 of 357:
|
Jun 25 22:31 UTC 2010 |
re #235
If things stay the same as they are right now, Grex will cease to exist.
Why?
|
kentn
|
|
response 240 of 357:
|
Jun 25 22:55 UTC 2010 |
No members, no money eventually. End of story.
|
kentn
|
|
response 241 of 357:
|
Jun 25 23:13 UTC 2010 |
Re 238: which is why we should add more functionality.
|
tod
|
|
response 242 of 357:
|
Jun 25 23:25 UTC 2010 |
I don't think features need to be changed to attract users and revenues.
It is always amazing to me how the existing positive of features enjoyed
by existing users is not leveraged toward better marketing.
|
kentn
|
|
response 243 of 357:
|
Jun 26 01:47 UTC 2010 |
Certainly there is more than just features that will attract and retain
users, but a failure to keep up with the times will leave us with a
group of users attracted to what we have now and as we've seen, a slowly
dwindling group. I don't have a problem with a retro style of offerings
per se. It's just that there are other groups of people out there that
look for more. And of course, our restricted shell and validation
procedure probably chases off many (I know I wouldn't go for it if it
were in place back in 1991).
|
tod
|
|
response 244 of 357:
|
Jun 26 05:57 UTC 2010 |
That newuser is almost IMPOSSIBLE to use, too..
*snort*
|
bru
|
|
response 245 of 357:
|
Jun 26 14:34 UTC 2010 |
|
richard
|
|
response 246 of 357:
|
Jun 26 18:22 UTC 2010 |
There's also a strong sense of inertia here. For instance people have
been complaining about the validation patch since the day it was put
in, but its all hot air because staff has its feet bolted in place.
|
mary
|
|
response 247 of 357:
|
Jun 26 22:13 UTC 2010 |
I forget if this is the item in which the question of our resident agent
came up, or not, but... I spoke with Mark Conger today and he'd be fine
with continuing in that role.
I'm looking around at conferencing sites for an online community we
could experiment with. Not places where we'd rent disk space and
install our own software but rather where we'd use existing software on
a hosting service dedicated to such use. Quite a few look fine but tend
to function more like mailing lists than conferences. Google Groups, on
the other hand, threads better and has some nice features. I'm still
playing with it and will come back with a list of pros and cons sometime
within the next. But I thought I'd mention it here so the naysayers
could have a head start. ;-)
|
cyklone
|
|
response 248 of 357:
|
Jun 26 22:55 UTC 2010 |
Count me out of anything with Google attached to it.
|
kentn
|
|
response 249 of 357:
|
Jun 26 23:07 UTC 2010 |
Re 247: that may have been one of the Board minutes items, but it
doesn't matter as long as we get the information :) For that, thanks
for talking with Mark and I'm glad he's willing to continue in that
role. There isn't much to do for it, generally, but we do need someone
to take care of the requests that the resident agent gets, like that
once a year corporate update form.
|
keesan
|
|
response 250 of 357:
|
Jun 27 02:49 UTC 2010 |
Could someone PLEASE tell Mark we have a reel-to-reel tape deck for him.
|
tonster
|
|
response 251 of 357:
|
Jun 27 04:13 UTC 2010 |
resp:248: why the negative stigma to google?
|
cyklone
|
|
response 252 of 357:
|
Jun 27 14:21 UTC 2010 |
Because I don't trust their data policies any more than I do with FB.
|
slynne
|
|
response 253 of 357:
|
Jun 27 14:31 UTC 2010 |
Yeah. One if the things I like about conferencing here is that posts
here don't turn up in search engines. But I am not too worried about
that on whatever web based place we try. I'll probably use a pseudonym
though. I figure you folks can probably handle that.
|