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Grex > Helpers > #140: Grex System Problems - Spring 2005 | |
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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 457 responses total. |
cross
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response 377 of 457:
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Jun 3 03:40 UTC 2005 |
This response has been erased.
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slynne
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response 378 of 457:
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Jun 3 03:50 UTC 2005 |
I have a feeling that both glenda and steve would agree that it isnt
fair to dump everything in their lap. I am sure they will correct me if
I am wrong.
I agree that the lack of staff is a board issue. I am not sure exactly
what the solution is here. I want to make people feel welcomed enough to
feel that they can volunteer to be on staff without being in some sort
of in-crowd. I want the staff to let those people who volunteer do things.
Part of the problem, as I see it, is security. The staff tend to allow
people they know onto staff because those are the people they know they
can trust. It is true that the best way to become staff on grex is to be
invited. It is an "in crowd" on staff. On the board too I suppose
although it is probably easier to get on the board than it is to get
onto staff.
I really dont know what the best solution is though. We could always
double the staff's pay ;)
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aruba
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response 379 of 457:
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Jun 3 03:52 UTC 2005 |
Re #375: Drew - the problems with newuser are more recent than either the
move or the change to NewGrex.
jep's assessment of the staff situation in #342 (I think) was pretty
accurate a couple of years ago. But we definitely passed the point where
the board felt it was a good idea to depend on STeve and Marcus to fix
things. A few years ago we acquired 3 or 4 new staff members, and we really
hoped that would solve the problem. Unfortunately, for various reasons,
we're largely back where we were. When this latest crisis came up, for
instance, no one but STeve stepped up to work on it, and then he got it half
fixed and moved on to other crises, leaving Grex in limbo.
We certainly need more staff, and it's certainly true that there have been
many barriers to getting onto the staff. We need a procedure for giving
potential staff members some responsibility to see how they do, then
"promoting" them if they do well. But the board/staff also needs the
discretion to ignore applications from people who are clearly just trying to
cause trouble.
There's a needle to be thread there.
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aruba
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response 380 of 457:
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Jun 3 03:53 UTC 2005 |
(Lynne slipped in.)
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glenda
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response 381 of 457:
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Jun 3 07:36 UTC 2005 |
Re #354: Because Glenda is burned out from almost 6 years of intensive
computer classes and needs a break, that is one of the reasons she is not
working regular classes, just the 4 one week long special sessions this
summer. She is going to spend most of her time working on the organizing the
house, get her spinning wheels and looms up and working, stitching, beading,
and other general crafting, and reading fiction and crafting books. The most
technical reading will be SciFi (my favorite genre). The only real computer
work I am planning on doing is building the computer that I have had
components for since just before the emergency surgery in December 2004. It
is a 64 bit processor machine with a minimum of 250G hard drive (maybe more),
a gig of memory and will run OpenBsd as main OS, Net and Free BSDs and SuSe
to play with, haven't decided whether it will have a small windows area or
not. Some of my needlework, weaving, and beading software only runs on
windows since most of the people using it aren't really computer literate and
only use windows.
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scholar
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response 382 of 457:
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Jun 3 08:33 UTC 2005 |
Right, because computer literacy is defined by Unix.
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jadecat
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response 383 of 457:
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Jun 3 12:44 UTC 2005 |
In regards Cross's comment in #377- it does seem that more information
needs to be shared between current staff members.
It's hard for other staffers to help when the only one that knows isn't
sharing info. I've seen Cross ask several times, in this item, for more
information on what's wrong so he (or someone else can help) but
haven't seen ANY indication that STeve (or glenda) is sharing any of
that. Maybe this is happening in staff e-mail, but I would think that
if it was Cross wouldn't be here repeatedly asking for more info.
Right now I'm one of those people that can telnet in to my account but
can't access the mooncat account via Backtalk (which makes me glad I
created this account on a whim a few months ago).
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jep
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response 384 of 457:
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Jun 3 13:42 UTC 2005 |
It was a lot easier for me to write my perspective about how Grex is
limited by lack of trust than it is to overcome that limitation.
I think resp:379 is part of the right approach for bringing in
additional volunteers to the staff. There's also a need for some sort
of training procedure to bring new staffers up to speed with the
philosophy and practices of the staff. That will require time and
effort from someone on the staff.
It's also going to require patience and flexibility from the staff and
all of Grex, because new people coming in are going to have their own
ways of doing things. It's not fair to expect them to suppress their
personalities and the techniques they have used in the past in other
contexts to volunteer for the staff of Grex. They do have to fit into
the team which exists, but the team has to adjust, too.
In the short term, it's easier for the existing staff to just do things
themselves to get by, but right now it seems apparent the short term
doesn't last forever.
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twenex
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response 385 of 457:
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Jun 3 14:55 UTC 2005 |
Hear, hear.
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naftee
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response 386 of 457:
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Jun 3 15:36 UTC 2005 |
has steVE still not told cross what is wrong ?! i believe cross is available
to fix.
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tod
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response 387 of 457:
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Jun 3 16:02 UTC 2005 |
Cross is not in the Burns Family "circle of trust"
I've got my EYES on you, Focker. ;)
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naftee
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response 388 of 457:
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Jun 3 16:59 UTC 2005 |
that movie was OK, but got kind of tiresome, i think
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mary
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response 389 of 457:
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Jun 3 19:15 UTC 2005 |
Sorry I missed you on staff, Glenda, and thanks for the correction. Did I
miss anyone else?
And a huge thanks to STeve for looking at the newuser problem last night.
Is there an update? Is newuser back on?
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naftee
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response 390 of 457:
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Jun 3 19:49 UTC 2005 |
thanks, huge mary !
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tod
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response 391 of 457:
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Jun 3 19:49 UTC 2005 |
Don't call her huge, looni Jim
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naftee
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response 392 of 457:
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Jun 3 19:52 UTC 2005 |
whoops, big slip :(
sorry, mary !
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glenda
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response 393 of 457:
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Jun 3 19:57 UTC 2005 |
Re 389: Not yet, still working on it.
Putting an item in Agora asking STeve for information doesn't work. He hasn't
read Agora in years unless I tell him of an item he should look at. I forget
more items in Agora than I read, so I don't always see them either. I also
heavily filter what/who I read just so that I can keep up. About the only
CF that STeve reads is staff, and I am not sure how often he gets there.
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tod
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response 394 of 457:
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Jun 3 20:52 UTC 2005 |
That's good to hear! Right, Mary?
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naftee
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response 395 of 457:
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Jun 4 01:23 UTC 2005 |
I sure hope steVE reads the system problems' item.
oh wait; that's THIS item.
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tsty
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response 396 of 457:
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Jun 4 02:21 UTC 2005 |
... ???? mdw is gone? huh?!
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jor
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response 397 of 457:
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Jun 4 16:24 UTC 2005 |
May I have permission to just *look*
at the source code for newuser?
I can take "no" for an answer.
Where is it?
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naftee
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response 398 of 457:
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Jun 4 17:14 UTC 2005 |
/grex/grexdoc/newuser
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drew
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response 399 of 457:
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Jun 4 20:02 UTC 2005 |
Newuser was working just before the disk went bad, was it not? My guess is
that it isn't the code itself that's broken, but one or more data files that
newuser depends on.
What exactly happens if you put newuser online and have someone run it?
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gelinas
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response 400 of 457:
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Jun 5 04:39 UTC 2005 |
I've updated the staff list at http://www.grex.org/staffnote/
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scholar
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response 401 of 457:
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Jun 5 20:33 UTC 2005 |
thanks, joe!
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