response 26 of 135:

Jul 25 01:27 UTC 1996

I too like rickyb's idea of sending an automated message to folks asking
them not run multiple login sessions.  Unless it's proven folks won't do
the right thing, voluntarily, and it's shown multiple sessions are indeed
a big problem, heavy-handed management is not the best way to go. 

response 28 of 135:

Jul 25 02:55 UTC 1996

A better example is the convocat account, and similar accounts, used by
NPOs.At points throughout last winter, as many as four people could have been
using that account.  
(Frankly, given the historic abuse by the freekmans, I'm hesitatnt to be
sympathetic to that argumment... except for mail, which is what the convocat
account is used for, I don't see any reason why more than one person would
need to use the same handle.)

response 30 of 135:

Jul 25 11:49 UTC 1996

(She brought it to coop because some "jerks" at the board meeting
started "attacking" her for it.  :)

response 32 of 135:

Jul 25 18:49 UTC 1996

Re #29 - you might be referring to my suggestion that it would have been
better to have started this item and discussing the subject before turning
on the kill switch. That is certainly no attack on Valerie. It is just
the way that Grex says it operated. Even the header here says that coop is
where we "discuss Grex's current & future state of affairs". If anyone
has a good idea for Grex, present it here in coop, for discussion - and
implementation if the consensus is that its a good idea (and doable, too!).

I like the "notice" suggestion, for when the system is full and some users
have multiple ptys. If that is not sufficient in most cases, my second
choice is offering the user the option of which pty/tty to keep, before
killing the rest 

response 34 of 135:

Jul 26 04:34 UTC 1996

Hmph.  I guess I'm just too sensitive, because when I first read through
this item last night, it sounded for sure like people were really attacking
Valerie for making a rather trivial decision when installing some software.
 
I think we all agree than not every change is fodder for Co-op, and the
line between what is and what isn't is really nebulous.  Although I (now)
think that this decision was definitely Co-op fodder, I would have never
guessed that so many people would come up with so many good alternatives to
what we thought we had.  And if I were installing that software, I would
certainly never have thought that keeping people from hogging extra pty's
while Grex was full would have been at all unpopular.  Since Valerie only
rarely telnets in, I'm quite positive that she wasn't exercising some agenda
by flipping on the "double-killer" switch, besides doing what she thought
would make the most people happy.
 
Of course, when I went back and read this item again, I couldn't find anyone
who was attacking her at all.  I noticed some people saying that they
thought she had made a bad judgement call and wished that she would start
posting more trivial things to Co-op, but what I thought were attacks were
merely "contstructive criticism," perhaps not worded so diplomatically . .

response 36 of 135:

Jul 26 10:56 UTC 1996

Any change in software that ends up logging people off is a major change. 
Our "policy of use" was that we were already hand zapping idles, so no biggy
to automate that.  We hadn't really been doing that for multiples, so I can
see some people being upset.

response 38 of 135:

Jul 27 13:18 UTC 1996

Valerie, maybe, just maybe those folks who you think of as 
perpetually dissatisfied soul are really users who care about
the concept of Grex being a community project.  That they really
do want to be part of the plan and policy implementation.  

I'm going to worry when staff ends up making significant changes
without bringing it to the users, and nobody cares.

response 40 of 135:

Jul 27 19:27 UTC 1996

re: #34...Valerie, you misunderstand the motives of those of us who
complain the most vocally.  I happen to think grex is a very unique and
worthwhile endeavor that has great potential.  We need "grex"s in the world
because they are vehicles that can bring people together.  But the idea of
"community" only works when everyone is valued, when everyone has a
contribution to make and where great efforts are made to ensure that noone
feels disefranchised. Most of staff seem to think that grex is just a quirky
place, where community is helpful in reaising money but operationally is not
necessary. The idea of government only being around when it serves one's 
interests is very selfish.  These institutions exsist for the protection
and betterment of everyone, and that means we have to live within
protocols and boundaries.  This isnt some philosophically ideal world
where we can all be libertarians and do our own thing.  

There is something wrong when grex has 12,000 logins and less than a
hundred read coop and fewer than that participate.  There is a large
degree of apathy because people dont know their voices can be heard, they
have no idea what grex is and I think many just assume that grex is privately
owned by one individual or small group.  

For grex to acheive its own potential, it needs to do more than simply deal
with tech issues and software upgrades.  The people most actively involved, the
board and the staff and the twenty or so users who make up 99% percent of the
responses in system issue items, need to think of ways to develop a sense of
community around here.  To find ways to make people feel that they belong. 
That just as when you are born, you become a citizen, when you get a login, you
become a member (not just a participant) in the grex society.  That your
presense and your voice matters.

The problem staff has is its insistence on being autocratic and essentially
answerable to noone but themselves.  This simply alienates everyone else and I
guess the feeling is that well, if the system is maintained, who really cares. 


It is not so much to ask that software changes and other modifications to the
Grex not be made unilaterally.  But staff feels that since they are volunteers,
they can operate outside the setup of grex's democratic structure.  Valerie can
set up an Idle Time Zapper and Marcus can write a "Wait Que" prog just because
it is their sense of what should be done, as if they owned grex themselves.  I
guess it is natural for sysops and tech staff to act proprietarily but if they
idea is to build a community, that attitude simply cant be prevalent.    If you
look at the w ay things are done, can you blame regular users if they are under
the impression that grex is privately owned by staff?

response 42 of 135:

Jul 27 20:52 UTC 1996

This is more than just debating something to death.  Both grex and m-net need
supporters, but people will not contribute if they dont feel they have a voice.
Unless the idea of a "community" is fostered, grex will not expand its current
base of support and will either  die or whither on the vine eventually when
much of the core group starts going to other places.  Grex has a great staff
mostly but they want to have their cake and eat it too.   They want a
democratic setup so everyone contributes and noone has too much responsibility,
but at the same time they want a proprietorship where they effectivley own grex
and can make all the deciosns themselves if necessary.

If Grex is to become a vehicle for a vibrant cyber-community, and achieve what
I think is its true potential, then it has to start with staff, it HAS to start
with the people administering grex's services setting the example and proving d
ay in and day out that this is run by and for the community.  That means
accepting certain restrictions.  It means not acting like libertarians and as
if its every person for themselves.  

Grex has a "vote" program.  The Idle Timer and Wait Que programs should have
been proposed, put up in testing mode for a few days here and there, and then
at a proper place and time voted on one way or another by the user populace. 
There could be "software referendums" a couple times a year.  THAT is the
democratic way.  It is what  small towns and communities all across the country
do all the time when they need to make policy changes.  

This isnt a libertarian society.  If grex doesnt have standards, it is going to
appear to most to be just another board.  Grex's survival is predicated on
making more people understand and appreciate what it is and who runs it.  This
is not bitching, it is just a fact.

response 44 of 135:

Jul 27 21:55 UTC 1996

Valerie entered this item, asking for opinions on the multiple login zapper.
First thing that happens is she gets attacked for being autocratic and not
paying any attention to the opinions of users.  Gee, that makes sense.  She's
asking for your opinions right here, dang it.

So it was installed for a little while before the item was entered.  Who the
futz cares?  When people do you favors, do you attack them for not doing them
in exactly what you consider the the optimal way, even if everything comes to
right end?

In a volunteer organization, you have to be polite to your volunteers.  You
don't nitpick over everything, so long as the greater good is being served.
When you attack volunteers for not doing their job right, you discourage them
from volunteering in the future.   This is not a theory.  This is a fact.

There is nobody on the system more interested in keeping this system running
in a democractic way then the people on staff.  Yeah, sometimes we slip up a
bit, and do things that seem to us such obvious goods that we don't seek enough
feedback in advance.  We're human, we make mistakes and misjudgements.  When
that happens, staff has *always*, ALWAYS be willing to listen to input
afterwards, and staff has *never*, NEVER failed to comply with any board
decisions on an issue.

In the last few weeks, Marcus has installed at least a dozen different versions
of telnetd.  Valerie has made at least that many changes to various system
programs.  Srw changed lynx, I installed two new versions of party and a
new version of gate.  Which of these changes should we have annouced to the
users in advance?  Which of them needed board approval?  Which should we have
held referenda on?  You guys with hindsight may be very good at deciding which
were critical and which weren't, but we aren't always that good at anticipating
the effects of software changes and the reactions to them.  So sometimes,
when user feedback is important, we don't get to the feedback stage until after
the change is made.  THIS IS NOT A FIXABLE PROBLEM.  It is also not a big
problem.  If the change is really unpopular with enough people, staff will
either put it back the way it was, or make further changes to try to correct
the causes of complaints.  Staff is and has always been dedicated to making
this system work the way the users want it to.

These childish over-reactions, attacking staffers everytime something goes
wrong and throwing around absurd accusations about staff being "autocratic"
are not constructive.  They serve only to discourage our volunteers and
foster an ugly atmosphere in this conference.

As an aside, I don't think Grex will always or should always be responsive to
the will of the majority.  I think some day Grex is going to find itself so
flooded with people who want to use it as a free Email site or Web site that
it will have difficulty continuing to be the virtual community many of us
want it to be.  But even now there are probably more users who want Grex to
be a free Email server.  I don't think we should give in to that majority.
I think someday we will find it necessary to restrict our email service in
ways that majority dislikes.  This won't be a staff action though.  It will
be a board action.  Board may like to follow user consensus, but it doesn't
have to.  Thank God.

response 46 of 135:

Jul 27 22:02 UTC 1996

He started out okay, but the farther he gets into rant mode, the worse the
text formatting gets. ;)

I have to say that Grex is probably the best-run system I've ever used.
The staff here seems to work long and hard to keep the system running.  I
think sometimes we overlook how much volunteer work is done by the staff
here.

I can see both sides of this argument, but I think blasting the staff over
such a minor software change is an overreaction.  At the time, i'm sure
the idle-zapper seemed like a simple change that noone would mind.  Since
people complained, it's been turned off.  Shouldn't that be the end of the
argument?

 As far as the queue goes, maybe we should let it be debugged before we
make a final decision on it?  Deciding to trash a software project because
of fixable bugs seems silly.  Make it run, *then* vote.  You can't make an
informed vote on software that hasn't been tried anyway.

response 48 of 135:

Jul 27 22:55 UTC 1996

Kerouac tells that we have a serious problem when we have so few users being
active participants in Coop.  We can certainly look at it that way.  It would
be nice to get input from more people about how Grex is run.  But, at the same
time, I know why people often get involved in various discussions of how
things should be.  Typically, as long as people are happy with how things are
going, they're likely to think they have better things to do with their time
than go argue about them.  It's only when people have something that they're
upset about, that they generally start looking for people to complain to. 
Looking at things that way, I can assume that those users who aren't
participating either absolutely don't care, or think things are going just
fine the way they are.

While I'm sure we could get a really large fraction of our users participating
in Coop, that would probably involve doing something that would get a lot of
people mad enough to make it worth their time to come complain here.  For
example, if we really awnted to get a lot of those people who don't care about
the Coop conference mad, we could cut off everything Grex offers excpet the
Coop conference.  Somehow, I don't like that idea too much.