response 27 of 70:

Dec 6 23:13 UTC 2002

22 and 23 look right on the mark to me, but all of this has been said before,
over and over again.  And nothing changes.

response 29 of 70:

Dec 7 03:38 UTC 2002

I understand the point of #23.  I understand it *really* *really* 
well.  I was on the staff of M-Net once.  It is very hard to turn over 
any control of something important to you, to anyone to whom you aren't 
close.

However, I would like to suggest there are other trustworthy and 
capable people on Grex besides just the ones who were staff when Grex 
first opened for business.  The ones you want may not jump up and down 
and scream and yell and demand to be added to the staff; those are the 
ones who should be viewed very skeptically.  The ones you want almost 
have to be sought out, wooed, and brought into the tight Inner Circle.  
Or started with a little responsibility, evaluated, and then brought in.

It takes a *lot* of faith and trust to turn over the keys, root 
password, and especially *control* to someone you don't know.  But 
dangit, every user on Grex has trusted the current staff, to some 
extent.  In most cases, they've done so without knowing much about any 
of the staff.  Surely some of that trust can be returned, to some of 
the users.

It is vitally necessary that this happen.  Right now, there are 
proposals earlier in this item about turning off newuser and setting up 
tiers of access, just to relieve the burden on the staff.  One thing 
that could happen, with some more help, is to relieve some of that 
burden.  Another is it would spread the future of Grex onto more 
shoulders than those of just Marcus and STeve.

I'd say it's just as important, though, that it would be socially 
beneficial.  Right now there's an Inner Circle of no more than 15 
people, and maybe only half that.  We all know who they are.  They will 
always be elected to the Board if they run.  They are the only ones who 
can suggest any kind of change and have any chance of having it 
implemented.  If they really want to see a change, they can persuade 
just a few others to make it happen, and then it will happen.  (It 
doesn't happen often.)

Grex is egalitarian, but some pigs are more equal than others.  As long 
as that is so, and especially when the Inner Circle is as static as it 
is, then most people here are just visitors.

It's unrealistic to think that visitors are going to support Grex the 
way the Inner Circle does.  Give a little access to governance and 
control by some others, and it might well go a long way toward bringing 
in more support.  It would bring in more buy-in.

Anyway, I call it foolish to cut services -- and much worse, exclude 
new people -- without trying to relieve the burden on the staff in a 
more positive way.

response 31 of 70:

Dec 7 04:52 UTC 2002

No, I don't have huge amounts of spare time.  I don't have great 
interest, but might be willing to pitch in some if I knew I could 
help.  I sure don't have skills like yours, Marcus, but have survived 
for a decade in part based on what I know about Unix.  Somehow I think 
I could even contribute useful technical ability to Grex.

I don't really expect you to ask me, though.  I tried to make it clear 
I'm not looking for a position on the Grex staff.  I'm strongly 
suggesting that there's something wrong, if it's seen as a better idea 
to cut back on Grex than to try some new staff members.

I'm also aware of some of the bad experiences.  You're right, it's not 
really something I have to know more about.  I'm suggesting that you 
not give up, but instead, try harder to find more good new people.

response 33 of 70:

Dec 7 23:53 UTC 2002

I'm not asking for anyone's trust or for any responsibility on Grex.  I 
do not have a long history of strong interest in Grex.  I was involved 
in a conflict with Grex in the past, several years ago.  I haven't 
always had the sort of philosophy about running a conferencing system 
which the Inner Circle of Grex has had.  These things all make me a 
less than ideal candidate for the Grex staff.

I'm suggesting it's better to extend a little trust to a few additional 
people than to shut down newuser and mail, and that there are very 
likely people here who could help if approached.  I'm one, but believe 
there to be others.

response 35 of 70:

Dec 8 20:12 UTC 2002

When my term on the board expires, I would be interested in volunteering 
to take on some low-skill staff responsibilities.  Heck, even before then 
if there isn't significant concern about it.

response 37 of 70:

Dec 8 20:30 UTC 2002

(#34 and #35 slipped in, but my #36 seems to fit anyway.  ;-)

response 39 of 70:

Dec 8 22:32 UTC 2002

(Dave L. is not a staff member.)

Re #38, last paragraph:  To an extent, if you're using it to argue
against Russ's proposal.  Personally, I think that looking for ways
to augment staff is a good idea regardless of the fate of Russ's
proposal, and deserves its own item at some point.

Donning my voteadm hat for a moment:  This is an official "member
proposal" item, and so some timelines apply, as specified by the
bylaws.  After two weeks have elapsed, the proposer can either
drop the proposal or submit a final wording to be voted on by
the membership.  Since Russ posted the item on December 4, the
two-week point occurs on December 18.

response 41 of 70:

Dec 9 03:34 UTC 2002

Re #36:  The current method requires a lot of maintenance too; I recall
Marcus saying the way he deals with FTP abuse is by altering ftpd to
block the offending accounts.  It would probably be much easier to have
a file which contains the list of non-members who are allowed to use
FTP, and permit all staff to alter it (it can't break much).

The advantage for ftp is that staff wouldn't have to run around chasing
abusers all the time, which is one less thing for staff to do.  I doubt
we'd ever see another edonkey episode if we did this.

Eliminating off-site e-mail as a default priviledge would be a more
complicated matter, but if staff is spending a lot of time cleaning
up after mail overflows it might be worth it regardless.

response 43 of 70:

Dec 9 17:45 UTC 2002

Hmmph.  If you're in a decision making position, then what you think is 
a decision-making factor.  For a wild example with no basis in fact, if 
mdw says he's opposed to gay people on the staff, but it's only his 
private opinion, it's not really only his private opinion.  (I do not 
believe Marcus thinks anything of the sort.)

But anyway, it's not relevant in this case.

response 45 of 70:

Dec 10 14:16 UTC 2002

Actually, it's not quite accurate to say it's been on the black-hole
list 'for a while'.  It's been on it intermittently, for fairly short
periods each time.

Really, this is a problem with SpamCop.  Their blocking system is overly
sensitive.  It's not the kind of system I would want to use to reject
mail, and in fact they warn against using it that way.  Any site using
it to block mail is, IMHO, irresponsible.

response 47 of 70:

Dec 10 19:35 UTC 2002

We have been blacklisted since Sunday, as I found out when one of my mails
bounced, and we may be blacklisted for a week.  Is there some way to program
things at grex to not allow bulk mailings to anyone but paid members and local
dial-ins?  Bulk mailings being mail to groups or to more than three people
at a time.  But I suppose there are ways around that too.  

AOL has also been blacklisted for periods of time.  The bigger systems are
less likely to be blacklisted because one spammer is not going to increase
the percentage of spams coming from them to a critical value as easily.  Yet
most of my spam comes from the bigger free email providers like yahoo and
hotmail.  I don't get the point of spamcop's approach.  

response 49 of 70:

Dec 10 20:45 UTC 2002

The problem is that newuser doesn't explicitly "set up" email, it
simply sets up a Unix account on Grex.  Unix accounts automatically
get access to email.  I'm not aware of an existing mechanism for
granting/denying email access on a per-user basis.  We'd have to
invent one.

I'm opposed to the email part of this proposal in any case and
basically agree with gull in one of his early responses.  I could
be persuaded about the ftp part if it's easy to implement.