response 50 of 71:

Jun 23 17:37 UTC 2005

You can naftee. You can pay without being a member.

response 52 of 71:

Jun 23 18:27 UTC 2005

If conferences are going to be on google then make sure everyone knows first.

response 54 of 71:

Jun 23 18:56 UTC 2005

Is this the chase-your-own-tail item?

response 56 of 71:

Jun 23 19:02 UTC 2005

Re: #55. You do know this isn't Grex's rule. It's Michigan's rule...

response 58 of 71:

Jun 23 21:39 UTC 2005

what tod said

response 60 of 71:

Jun 24 16:07 UTC 2005

re resp:47, resp:48: Membership rates have been the same for all of 
Grex's existence.  If Grex needs the money, I'd be willing to see the 
membership rate double.  If Grex already receives all the money it 
needs, then I see no reason to use ads to generate revenue.

How about some discussion on how much money Grex needs, what it would 
buy, and what it is needed for?

response 62 of 71:

Jun 26 18:09 UTC 2005

Re #61:  Any conference that's still online at all is available via
Backtalk.  This includes all the Agoras except for a few of the early
ones when we had a lot less disk; they were taken offline to free up space.

I've been taking a sabbatical from Coop for the last month and just
encountered this item.

Some history:  Anonymous conference reading was authorized by member
vote in 1997.  The discussion is in the coop9 conference, item 55, (for
Backtalk readers, the link is item:coop9,55) and was *very* contentious.
 Quite an interesting read, eight years later.  The motion itself does
not mention indexing by search engines, so I suppose one could say that
there's no official policy one way or the other on that.  However, the
Backtalk developers (Jan Wolter, and also Steve Weiss at the time) made
it clear that if the proposal passed, the implementation would exclude
search engines, so I think members had that in mind when they voted.

I hope that the benefit of eight years' experience has helped put the
issue of anonymous reading in better perspective than it was in 1997.  
     I voted for the proposal because I saw it as a way of increasing
Grex's visibility on the web, and thus helping to attract new users, by
allowing people to sample Grex without committing to an account.  I
don't think we have statistics on how much actual benefit anonymous
reading has been in that regard, but I think it's fair to say that none
of the dire consequences envisioned eight years ago have come to pass. 
Allowing anonymous reading but requiring registration to post is common
practice in web forums, so Grex certainly isn't doing anything unusual here.

The web is a big and noisy place - much more so than in 1997.  In
general I'm in favor of things that increase Grex's visibility and help
drive traffic - and hence users - to us.  One of the best ways to do
that is to open up to search engine indexing, so I'm for it.  Anybody
who doesn't want their own responses indexed can opt out via the "shy"
option.

One caveat:  Sites that allow posting for free, and whose content is
indexed by search engines and permits posting of links, tend to attract
spammers.  The fact that posting requires registration protects us from
spam to an extent, but since registration can be anonymous it doesn't
protect us perfectly.  There's a protection that the major search
engines actually support (rel="nofollow" on the anchor tag, for HTML
techophiles) that tends to discourage spamming for reasons I won't get
into here.  Nonetheless, conference spam might be something we'd have to
figure out how to deal with if we open up conferences to search engines.

Re advertising:  Does the fact that we're a 501(c)3 non-profit restrict
what we can do?  (Just asking; I don't know the answer.)  In any case,
I'd be opposed to subjecting registered users to ads, even the
unobtrusive Google ones.  As for anonymous readers - dunno.  I'll have
to ponder Rick's idea.

response 64 of 71:

Jun 27 15:02 UTC 2005

I do not like the idea of chasing ad revenues just because we can.

I don't see a need for more money for Grex.  I don't see what we would 
use more money for if we had it.  Aside from future upgrades and paying 
the monthly Internet bills, we don't have expenses, do we?

What do we *want*?  Give me that first, then let's discuss raising more 
money.  Is there anything Grex wants money for?  Paid staff?  
Advertising?  A bigger faster computer or better Internet connection?  
What?

If we needed more money, I'd be more willing to increase membership 
amounts than advertise.  But I think we're fine right now.

response 66 of 71:

Jun 27 15:06 UTC 2005

We have $100 per month in recurring expenses, and $3000 in the bank.  I 
don't think we're in trouble financially.

response 68 of 71:

Jun 27 20:28 UTC 2005

I don't think it is.

response 70 of 71:

Jun 27 22:11 UTC 2005

Right - John, our two monthly expenses are $100 for colocation and about $45
for phone lines.  Plus a few other miscellaneous things that occur only once
a year.

I think Grex is in much better shape financially than it was before we
moved.  I'm not too worried about it right now.  I'd always like to see
more members, but at our current level I think we'll be operating in the
black. (Note - I haven't figured this out rigorously, and don't have time
to do so right now.)

So I guess I agree with jep.  Let's talk about how people would like to
improve Grex, and if we get a sense that it will take money to do so, then
talk about raising it.