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Grex > Coop13 > #376: The problems with Grex, e-mail and spam | |
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| 25 new of 480 responses total. |
mary
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response 360 of 480:
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Dec 16 14:25 UTC 2006 |
Are we having fun yet?
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cmcgee
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response 361 of 480:
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Dec 16 15:06 UTC 2006 |
I think there might be a way to structure the job so that it was primarily
a peer relationship instead of a hierarchical relationship. The included task
would have the person help each staff member (or teams of staff members) find
resources, track progress, and identify when a project was getting bogged
down. Staff would need to shift thinking a little bit as well.
When the person pointed out that it had been X weeks since the staff member
had had time to move the project forward, the staff involved would have to
practice saying Yes, I need some help, rather than defending the downtime with
the shield of personal priorities above this task.
The person could help find and integrate new staff, acting as a mentor, and
keeping an eye on progress.
All staff would have to relinquish total ownership of any particular piece
of Grex. But there is no reason that staff wouldn't be able to choose a
domain of expertise, and become the initial go-to-person with problems in that
area. The difference is that the process observer saw no progress, the staff
person would have to be willing to let someone else step up and begin working
on the problem as well.
This might require more frequent "meetings" of staff, but I don't think so.
The "cat-herder" might have to initiate conversations, and be willing to spend
time keeping a thread going.
I nominate Remmers as our first cat-herder.
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rcurl
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response 362 of 480:
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Dec 16 20:14 UTC 2006 |
I don't think of it as either a "peer" or "hierarchical" function, but rather
as a coordinating function, to keep the members of the orchestra in tune.
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maus
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response 363 of 480:
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Dec 17 21:24 UTC 2006 |
resp:315
This may not be a good idea, but would it be reasonable to simply name a
new group, have newuser drop new folk into that group and then define
either a login.conf or systrace policy to bar network access, instead of
using pf for it? This would allow someone to gain access by simply
doing:
sudo usermod -g "nice_users" new_user1
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gelinas
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response 364 of 480:
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Dec 18 02:33 UTC 2006 |
Basically, that's how pf works. I've created the new group, set newuser to
use it, and defined a pf rule for the old group. The only thing left, I
think, is an easy way for the volunteers, solicited elsewhere, to do the user
modification.
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cmcgee
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response 365 of 480:
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Dec 18 13:20 UTC 2006 |
Actually one line of unix is manageable. But, to lower the fear factor, a
tiny script, where you responded to the question "Which user ID should get
outgoing mail access?"
with a comma separated list of user ids, and an "is this the correct list"
confirmation question would be nice.
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cross
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response 366 of 480:
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Dec 20 23:59 UTC 2006 |
Regrding #329; I'm guessing it probably depends on the tape changer.
Regarding #331; Modern relative to a Sun4m machine running SunOS 4.1.4....
That is certainly true.
As far as PAM goes, maus has it right in #333. We have login.conf, but we
still need custom code to support the custom hashing algorithm.
Regrading #340; I'm going off my recollection here, but I seem to recall
reading things like that in the staff mailing list. It's been a while;
my memory might be flawed.
Regarding #360; Beats me. Are you? Perhaps you should calm down. :-)
Regarding #361; I think that getting staff to relinquish ownership is going
to be one of the harder things to do.... Part of the problem, as I see it,
is that too many people view grex as a hobby versus something important to
maintain. There's too much personal investment and too little community
ownership. How does one go about changing that?
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rcurl
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response 367 of 480:
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Dec 21 03:21 UTC 2006 |
I think you're right. A long time ago I tried to interest Grex into seeking
to serve the local non-profit community. There was no particular interest.
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cross
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response 368 of 480:
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Dec 21 04:05 UTC 2006 |
I suppose HVCN would be thought of as the place for such things, but it is
distressing that grex isn't more active in things like that.
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ric
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response 369 of 480:
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Dec 21 14:17 UTC 2006 |
Grexers - and M-Netters - are only really interested in one goal. Keeping
Grex (or M-Net) up and running.
The charitable mission is a joke.
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cross
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response 370 of 480:
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Dec 21 14:24 UTC 2006 |
Wow. That's a pretty hardcore statement.
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cmcgee
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response 371 of 480:
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Dec 21 15:19 UTC 2006 |
cross, send me an email at this login if you would please. I have a couple
questions for you I'd like to clarify.
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cross
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response 372 of 480:
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Dec 21 15:50 UTC 2006 |
Sure thing.
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remmers
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response 373 of 480:
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Dec 21 16:23 UTC 2006 |
Re #367: It was the manner of service that was the problem. We didn't
want closed conferences.
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jep
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response 374 of 480:
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Dec 21 16:46 UTC 2006 |
It is definitely true that Arbornet's charitable mission was interesting
to only a few, from the time of the merger on forward. Almost everyone
involved wanted only to keep M-Net up and running. A number of vocal
posters were pretty hostile to the idea of doing anything beyond that.
I don't think there were more than a dozen people who ever did anything
which was not exclusively for M-Net from the time of the merger.
M-Net was tied to the Arbornet charter, which had provisions for
community forums and an educational mission. No one at all was ever
interested in those sorts of things, not since M-Net came along, anyway.
Arbornet was founded with a big budget at first, I guess as a potential
tax write-off for NETI.
When Grex became a 501(c)(3) organization, Jan chartered it as doing
exactly what it was already doing. That was simple, straightforward,
and clever enough I didn't think it would actually work, but it did.
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mcnally
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response 375 of 480:
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Dec 21 17:57 UTC 2006 |
re #373:
> We didn't want closed conferences.
Except for staff, right?
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nharmon
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response 376 of 480:
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Dec 21 18:00 UTC 2006 |
Good point, Mike.
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cross
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response 377 of 480:
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Dec 21 18:11 UTC 2006 |
(That's where staff can bitch about all the users!)
(For the humor impaired, that was a joke. Okay, only partly.)
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tod
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response 378 of 480:
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Dec 21 18:39 UTC 2006 |
Before too many people get off on a tangent about MISSIONS, lets just look
at the Articles of Incorporation for both ARBORNET and CYBERSPACE
COMMUNICATIONS.
ARBORNET
To organize and operate a community-based computer conferecing system in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, involving as many local citizens as possible in computer
conferencing activities of an educational, informational, and data collection
and dissemination nature.
This organization is organized and operated exclusively for purposed described
in Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
CYBERSPACE COMMUNICATIONS
The corporation is organized for such charitable and educational purposes as
may qualify it for exemption from the federal income tax under Section 501(c)3
of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (or the corresponding
provisions of any future United States internal revenue law.)
More specifically, such purposes include, but are not limited to, the
advancement of public education and scientific endeavor through interaction
with computers, and humans via computers, using computer conferencing.
Further purposes include the exchange of scientific and technical information
about the various aspects of computer science, such as operating systems,
computer networks, and computer programming.
re #369
Grexers - and M-Netters - are only really interested in one goal. Keeping
Grex (or M-Net) up and running.
The charitable mission is a joke.
re #374
M-Net was tied to the Arbornet charter, which had provisions for
community forums and an educational mission. No one at all was ever
interested in those sorts of things, not since M-Net came along, anyway.
Neither of you remember when we had toolkits made and taught hardware class?
Or maybe you missed the M-Net/UNIX manual that was published?
To date, it seems both organizations have stuck to their purposes to provide
"computer conferencing" or "interaction with computers" and the educational
or scientific or data collection bits are sort of ancillary but they DO
exist.
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rcurl
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response 379 of 480:
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Dec 21 18:41 UTC 2006 |
The particular closed conferences for local charitable non-profits would
have been a service to the community. There is no reason why Grex cannot
provide different services for different community functions, within its
mission statement. They decided, however to continue to just do one thing
one way.
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cmcgee
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response 380 of 480:
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Dec 21 18:47 UTC 2006 |
on Gres, "they" is "we". Grex is run cooperatively, grex is run
democratically, and there are procedures for anyone to bring an issue to a
vote. Any minority viewpoint can be posted for discussion. Any viewpoint
that is turned into a votable motion can be voted on by the whole membership
IF a sufficient percentage of the membership agrees to place it on the agenda
for a vote.
It is disengenuous for rane to say "They decided, however,,,,,,". Rane is
a member, and Rane's viewpoint did not prevail. No anonymous "they" made a
decision.
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tod
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response 381 of 480:
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Dec 21 18:53 UTC 2006 |
To be fair, Rane probably didn't know that historically Grex wasn't a
501(c)(3) from its inception nor for many years so that mental picture of
reaching out beyond the embittered Marcus crowd hadn't happened yet.
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remmers
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response 382 of 480:
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Dec 21 18:59 UTC 2006 |
Todd, that's ridiculous.
Grex is perfectly willing to support non-profits in ways within its means
and consistent with its policies, and has done so.
Re #375: "Except for staff, right?" Right. The policy disallowing closed
conferences, with an exception for Staff, was passed by member vote in
1997, by the way. See http://www.grex.org/grexdoc/archives/votes/vote05b
. The resolution was even stronger that, allowing unregistered users to
read conferences.
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rcurl
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response 383 of 480:
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Dec 21 18:59 UTC 2006 |
I did know that as I was participating when Grex applied for 501etc. But
that was no reason why Grex could not have acted out of "community spirit".
I've noticed this tendency in other charitable non-profits. They tend to close
around the specific interests of the controlling group, and avoid the more
difficult realm of community outreach: unless, of course, that is specifically
written in their mission.
Re #380: don't read more into my use of "they" than is there. They, we, those
that discussed it, the board....were opposed.
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cross
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response 384 of 480:
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Dec 21 19:19 UTC 2006 |
It seems clear that the staff needs a place to communicate privately. I'm
not sure the staff conference is it; when I was on staff, I saw a lot of
bashing in the (admitedly older) items that I found distressing. The staff,
if anything on grex, is too closed, as has been stated. I would think that
a mailing list would be better suited for that sort of thing (and probably
more immediate, anyway: sometimes things get posted in the staff conference
that aren't acted on by certain people because those people haven't logged
into grex and thus don't see the conference).
Perhaps it's time to reconsider opening up the staff conference (or
restarting it with a new public conference).
I also think that, instead of calling Todd ridiculous, one should take it
as a clear voice of frustration with the current state of grex. This is
something that should be addressed, not dismissed out of hand.
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