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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 125 responses total. |
tsty
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response 41 of 125:
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Oct 9 02:17 UTC 1998 |
mdw is the best .. but notthe 'only.'
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richard
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response 42 of 125:
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Oct 12 23:09 UTC 1998 |
I dont think the board should vote to cut the ICNet link unless the
staff is unanimous in its recommendation to do so. Steve Andre seems
to be the closest thing grex has to a sysop, and if he is so strongly
opposed, that should be more than enough reason to delay any such
decisions indefintely.
Why not go ahead and cut two phone lines now, and then six months or so
from now, re-evaluate and re-consider whether you want to get back the
phone lines and get rid of ICNet. If the decision to cut ICNet cant be
reconsidered, it clearly makes sense to try the other alternative first.
cut the phone lines and see how much they are needed.
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steve
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response 43 of 125:
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Oct 13 03:20 UTC 1998 |
Thanks Richard but I'm only one many. ;-)
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lilmo
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response 44 of 125:
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Oct 14 00:22 UTC 1998 |
So, who else can do the work on the mail machine?
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dpc
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response 45 of 125:
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Oct 14 14:14 UTC 1998 |
So, has the link been dropped?
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aruba
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response 46 of 125:
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Oct 15 00:41 UTC 1998 |
I told STeve that I would be willing to discuss this for 2 weeks before
executing the board's decision. It will be two weeks tomorrow, so I will call
Ameritecch tomorrow and ask them to drop 761-8228; Valerie is the one who is
going to call ICNET and drop the other half.
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saw
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response 47 of 125:
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Oct 16 00:16 UTC 1998 |
So, it's been dropped? I don't think it should be if we can come up with
a productive use for it. If we were paying the entire connection ourselves
then I would see why, but hey, it's donated, it's cheaper than most people
would pay, so hang on to it. If we can't find a good use for it, drop it.
If it's already dropped, no use in crying over spilt milk..
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lilmo
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response 48 of 125:
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Oct 16 03:18 UTC 1998 |
I thought that there was still considerable debate about the merits.
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steve
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response 49 of 125:
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Oct 17 02:18 UTC 1998 |
There is.
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aruba
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response 50 of 125:
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Oct 17 03:15 UTC 1998 |
I called today and had Ameritech drop our 761-8228 number, which is the one
we have been using to connect to ICNET. As stated earlier, the board made
the unanimous decision to do that last month, and it seems clear from this
item that none of the board members have changed their minds. I concluded
that I would be derelict if I waited any longer to implement the decision.
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janc
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response 51 of 125:
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Oct 17 06:22 UTC 1998 |
I think Grex needs to look for better net connectivity. Not that what
we have is bad or insufficient for our current needs, but our needs are
going to grow. I expect demand for dial-ins will be very gradually
declining over the next few years, which will free up some money to do
better internet connectivity. We should be looking around for good
deals, and for people willing to donate connectivity.
I do not see the old 28.8K link as fitting into this. Yes, if someone
got off their butts and did some work, they might be able to put the
thing to some kind of use, but if someone is going to get off their
butts and do some work, then a much more sensible thing to be doing
would be to try to drum up a second ISDN connection or some such. It
just doesn't make sense for us invest our money and labor in doing
something with such obsolete technology. We aren't limited to that.
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scott
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response 52 of 125:
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Oct 17 11:27 UTC 1998 |
(Depending on the definition of "unanimous"... the vote had one absence and
one abstention. Still, everyone on Board has since said they were in favor)
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valerie
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response 53 of 125:
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Oct 17 13:05 UTC 1998 |
This response has been erased.
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other
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response 54 of 125:
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Oct 17 16:14 UTC 1998 |
in order to achieve a consensus, there would have had to be some sacrifice
in the extreme positions, but given the discrete nature of the options (keep
the icnet link or don't), there was no continuum on which to make sacrifice
in order to reach consensus. Thus, unless the parties representing one view
capitulate to the other view, we are forced into a majoritarian paradigm of
decision-making rather than consensus...
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steve
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response 55 of 125:
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Oct 17 19:23 UTC 1998 |
Valerie is right.
I am *really* digusted with the board for the way this has worked
out. I am also extremely unhappy with the idea of throwing the link
away, as we don't have anything else to replace it.
But even more than the fact the baord has made a bad move, the
process here was truly horrid. We did not come to any consensus
here, and statements that this had been adaquately talked about are
simply false.
They haven't been and there was never a staff meeting to talk
about this.
So. Bad decision coupled with an even worse decision making
process. This does not bode well for Grex if the board starts
making decisions like this in the future.
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scg
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response 56 of 125:
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Oct 17 19:31 UTC 1998 |
The board is supposed to represent the users, but the board also has to make
decisions. Not everybody will be happy with all those decisions, but if we
avoid doing something that will offend one person, even though most other
people seem to be in favor of it, that doesn't mean we're representing users
better. It is the board that is elected to make decisions, and giving
somebody else arbitrary veto power over a decision the board has made is not
a good idea. I'm not opposed to more discussion of this, if I thought it
would get us anywhere. However, the board pretty clearly did not authorize
paying for an extra month of service on the ICNet connection after it was
cancelled, which raises the question of where the money to pay for the
connection during this delay between the board vote to cut it and the
apparrent unauthorized veto of that decision is going to come from.
The question the usefulness of the modem link comes down to, as far as I can
tell, is whether, at the point when Grex has enough use to fill its ISDN
connection, mail will be less than 1/5 of Grex's bandwidth usage. (128K +
33.6K = 161.6K of bandwidth, of which 33.6 is roughly 1/5). I haven't seen
any evidence that that will be the case.
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steve
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response 57 of 125:
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Oct 17 22:22 UTC 1998 |
No argument there Steve, that the board is to make decisions.
But I have every argument over the way this was done. This was
one of those decisions that is financial, technical and strategic.
Staff never sat down and talked of this, specifically. There has
been reference to item #31 in old coop where some small amount of
discussion was made, but that is hardly justification for the
decision.
The reasons to keep the IC-Net link until something better
comes along (and it assuredly will, in time) are far beyond
simple numerics. Putting mail traffic on that line will be a
win for Grex, in that we've taken some traffic off our main
link. Coupling that with the mail machine makes an even better
win for Grex. Having an alternate point of entry for Grex staff
to be able to get in is an excellent thing, as well.
Please understand that I don't "like" paying $39/mo for a
33K link, but it's all we can afford currently, given the
market rates for such a link. Other faster methods of moving
data only cost more.
But I'm drifting away from my main gripe, which is that the
process used to determine dropping the link was highly flawed.
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scg
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response 58 of 125:
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Oct 17 23:13 UTC 1998 |
(it will only be useful for mail if grex's mail load is still small enough
to fit over it at the point when the ISDN link fills)
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steve
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response 59 of 125:
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Oct 18 00:00 UTC 1998 |
Certainly--and there will come a point when a serial link can't
do that. We're not there yet. Will we? At some point yes. Remember
I never said that the link was going to be useful to Grex forever.
Just that it's the back/alternate that we have now, and it's not wise
to throw that away.
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scg
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response 60 of 125:
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Oct 18 00:38 UTC 1998 |
Right, we're likely not there yet, but we're also not to the point where our
usage doesn't entirely fit over the ISDN link. The modem link won't be useful
to us until we are, and at that point I'm guessing we'll have too much mail
traffic for it to be useful to us.
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scott
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response 61 of 125:
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Oct 18 12:36 UTC 1998 |
Or perhaps we won't have enough CPU or staff time to handle enough users to
saturate the ISDN link.
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steve
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response 62 of 125:
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Oct 18 18:00 UTC 1998 |
Do not think that, Scott. Grex usage is growing every month. Unless
we take forceful actions to stop that growth, we're going to hit a point
where the ISDN link is going to saturate.
However, ISDN saturation is not the only reason why the IC-Net link
should stay. We need that link to carry mail on the mail machine: having
a seperate link for that will be a large win. Yes, putting mail machine
on the current ISDN link will win too, but having a seperate link lets
us process mail when the ISDN link is down.
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scg
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response 63 of 125:
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Oct 18 18:36 UTC 1998 |
Which so far has been a once every six months occurrance. Having a separate
link for the mail machine while the ISDN connection is working only helps us
if the ISDN link is full. Otherwise, it doesn't make a difference. So that
leaves us with the 33.6 link being marginally useful maybe for a few days
every six months, based on current experience with one of our ISDN lines.
The board was well aware of that when making the decision to cut the link,
and there was a pretty clear consensus that that kind of marginal usefulness
wasn't worth $480 per year, given Grex's budget constraints.
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scg
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response 64 of 125:
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Oct 18 18:40 UTC 1998 |
It's also worth pointing out that the 33.6 link was considerably less reliable
than the ISDN link, so having mail only going over the 33.6 link would reduce,
not enhance, the reliability of the mail system.
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steve
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response 65 of 125:
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Oct 19 00:22 UTC 1998 |
Look at the logs, Steve. There was a time when the PPP link was
crashing every day. Two things changed, however: Marcus made a new
kernel for it which got rid of the serial port bug, and moving to
the Pumpkin changed the line noise picture very much. But, look
at the logs.
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