response 26 of 115:

Jun 6 03:45 UTC 1995

        I apologize greatly, but if you would care to go read the old
Item, you'll see that indeed, I was absolutely refused, and NO, I was NOT
asking staff for ANY help, other than to let it be.
        I was asking for VOLUNTARY help by NON-staff programmers. No one
dared step up, though, because, as of response #4, steve stepped up to say
that we don't want a censorable cf on grex ANYWHERE.
        The kangaroo court got worse from there.

        Now, please try and keep to the facts.

response 28 of 115:

Jun 6 10:54 UTC 1995

That's exactly the reason I didn't offer to program your conference,
sidhe, not because I was "intimidated" or whatever nonsense you're
spouting about it now.  Do you have any idea how much programmers
get paid for their craft?  And you expect me to drop everything else
I do on Grex, to write a program I have no intention of using, and
do it for free?  I don't think so.

response 30 of 115:

Jun 7 21:04 UTC 1995

 wow. overewxction 29 times, anyone/>
 er, overeactioon..

response 32 of 115:

Jun 7 22:52 UTC 1995

geez jwp you sure can spark a conversation :-)

response 34 of 115:

Jun 9 15:02 UTC 1995

<shakes his head> <cleans his glasses>

The only person I remember threatening to be a jerk in sidhe's conference
would have been raven. There are a few nasty FW tricks that would have
dealt with that. 

Staff didn't use policy when "disciplining" ryan1 and avi. In my
observation, it would have been staff policy to "slap their wrists", i.e.,
send them mail stating that what they did wasn't very nice and that they
really shouldn't do it again. 

I think that disabling their accounts should have been controversial (and,
voila! It has been!), but I also think it was the *best* thing staff
*could* have done, given what the situation had developed into. Selena's
right in that staff didn't gather Avi's or Ryan's input first, and that
they probably acted in prejudice (although the evidence spelled out very
clearly what had happened), but I don't think anyone realizes how long
either Avi or Ryan had been jerking staff around with their antics. (Don't
look at me. I'm not staff, and I don't know either. 

I believe staff when they say that the reason Avi and Ryan were locked out
of their account was to get their attention. I don't believe that staff as
a body had (has?) any intention of keeping Avi or Ryan off of Grex, nor
even of keeping them out of their usual accounts for an excessive period
of time. I've met and gotten to know many of the staff, and I'd wager that
even if *one* staff member did want to kick Ryan or Avi off, there'd be at
least five staff members who would say, "NO."

I'm very impressed with how well the situation has turned out,
comparatively speaking. I think it could have been much more nasty. 

I also feel that Justin is overreacting, but that's another response.

response 36 of 115:

Jun 9 22:39 UTC 1995

Quite right - there is no elite. However there are a lot of volunteers,
and it is very well known that one must handle volunteers with *some*
care and respect, or they go away. Therefore one must consider very
carefully what one wishes to ask of volunteers, and only call them
bad names, or misjudge them in public, if you don''t mind them going
away. It is totally usefless, if not destructive, to get upset with
volunteers *unless* you are prepared to find others to do what they do.
In some cases, that becomes necessary, but careful thought should be
given to it. I'm pretty pleased with Grex staff, and their dedication
to the organization, even if they want the system to run smoothly
without consuming their whole lives, and even though I will disagree
at times with their actions of a non-technical nature. Discussing
the latter is quite appropriate, but I don't like people to try to
"lump" individuals, especially volunteers, into *word groups*, in order
to diminish or insult them. 

response 38 of 115:

Jun 10 00:50 UTC 1995

No free access to Grex?  Why on earth would anybody *voluntarily* try to
keep an old machine running all hours of the day and night, against
normal bugs AND malicious hackers, only to be abused as "elitists"?

I think staff does a fine job, considering what they put up with.

response 40 of 115:

Jun 10 06:40 UTC 1995

As a staff member, I am glad that people appreciate my efforts, our efforts,
to keep the system running smoothly. I don't think that it's healthy to
use that appreciation as justification for our behavior, though.

The policy we are accused of "hiding behind" is board policy, not staff
policy. This is a different (although overlapping) group of people,
elected by the members of Grex to represent them and make policy.
Staff is just doing their job and enforcing it. The policy Selena
is railing against can be overturned by a vote of the members or the
board, but is certainly not going to be overturned by the staff.

I can see no parallel with the Avi/Ryan case. There is no policy really.
The board/members have no directives for the staff to follow when 
users invade other users accounts. By staff convention, warnings are 
usually given first, before action is taken. In this case, though, 
the transgression was major, and these users were both on notice 
for prior (less serious) misbehavior. Staff members felt that these
users were just not paying any attention.

response 42 of 115:

Jun 10 15:38 UTC 1995

   Selena, back in #33 you mentioned that "It's a poor system that cannot
deal with things, case-by-case, and has to hide behind policy when anything
controversial comes up".

   I think Grex deals with so many things on a case-by-case basis
that we've gottem more flak for *that*, as opposed to being entombed
in an endless series of rules.

   Suspending the ryan1/avi accounts are a good example of that.
Had we had strict rules about behavior, things would have happened
differently, and much farther back.

   As far as elitism goes, I'm not saying that people should be
thankful that staff exists--staff participation is after all,
entirely voluntary just like usage of Grex itself is.  I realize
there is always going to be the appearance that however, as only
0.1% of Grex's users have root for example.  I don't know how to
get around that.

   I'd like to hear your ideas about elitism here, and how we should
deal with it.  You've complained, but I haven't hear any solutions
coming from you.  It's OK to complain--but I think I'm hearing more
complaining than I am proposed solutions to the problems behind the
complaining, and we need both.

response 44 of 115:

Jun 10 21:41 UTC 1995

Actually that is sort of true and sort of misleading.
The staff gets lots of requests from people on the net offering to
help us run the system. Some of them are probably even qualified to help.
We do not turn them down cold, but rather we tell them that in order
to join the staff of Grex one must be well known to the staff, and trusted
to support the well-being of Grex.

The only way for someone to become trusted is to join in the discussions
of the coop conference. If someone has been active in these conferences, 
has the necessary skill to help, and has clearly shown the staff that
he or she has good judgment and respect for what Grex stands for, then
staff will recommend that the board appoint such a person to staff.
Only the board has this authority.

You do not need to live in Ann Arbor to be a staff member.

No one has been awarded root access outside Ann Arbor, but I think if
the right person came along we would know and it would happen. When I
started Grexing, the staff was well constituted and I was a total outsider.
I participated in coop, and went to meetings (though the latter is not
really required). Eventually I became a staff member, and later I was
given root access.

response 46 of 115:

Jun 13 00:47 UTC 1995

Well, staff & board, actually.

response 48 of 115:

Jun 13 02:29 UTC 1995

Er, there seems to be a misunderstanding here.  Having root is not
some lofty privilege that lowly users strive many years to attain.
The Grex staff are really janitors, not gods -- our job is to keep 
the system running smoothly.  If you don't notice us at all, we're
doing our jobs properly.

Last week, I drove over to the Dungeon at 1am (after stopping by
STeve's house to get keys, since I never got an updated set of
keys when I came back to Ann Arbor) to reboot Grex.  I was there
until around 3:30am.  When I finally went to leave, I had to
feel my way through a dark driveway to get to my car, walking in
the rain with no umbrella (since it wasn't raining when I went
inside 2 hours ago).  Being a staff person is not glamorous, it's
not this great power trip.  It's a volunteer job that I (and others)
do because we care a great deal about the things that Grex stands for,
and we realize that without volunteers to keep the system running it
would go away.