Item 342. Munutes: Grex Board of Directors Meeting 6/27/06 S. Lynne Fremont (slynne) Tue, Jul 11, 2006 (18:43). 64 lines, 13 responses. Grex Board of Directors Meeting Minutes 6/27/06 8p opening gavel tap Attending: Larry Kestenbaum, Mary Remmers*, Mark Conger, Joe Gelinas, Jan Wolter, Lynne Fremont. * = non board member Treasurers Report: In May we took in $43 and spent our usual $150. In june we took in $150 and spent our usual $150. There are currently 53 members with 42 paid up. The interest on our savings account has increased from 0.65% to 0.75% Staff Report One new member asked about IRC. Staff told them that we don t have IRC. Maybe we could install it and have something that tells non-members why they cant use it. There have been no crashes since the last meeting. Steve Andre fixed a problem with mail and it is working for now. Old Business There has been no progress on the PC Weasel. Jan, Lynne, and Larry agree. There is a lack of commitment to grex especially among staff. Mary asked if there was another model we could try. There is no way to have shell access with a different model. We would not be able to get some other people to maintain grex in its current configuration. If we ever get to a point where staff cant operate grex, we would have to consider reducing services at that time. We could consider an ISP based system where we mirror conferences which would provide a back up for the conferencing system in the event of a systems crash. We would have to invent a process to mirror them in such a way that new responses and items would appear in both places simultaneously. Or we could move the conferencing to an ISP based system and leave the shell access on the old machine. This might be crucial because if grex were to go down for a long period of time (like six weeks), people would go elsewhere and the community might not recover. We may want to look into seeing if Provide.net could provide this service for us. New Business It might be time to update OpenBSD Web Page Contest Our current site is outdated and there has been some interest in a contest for a new site. The prize could be one years membership and we could use the vote program to allow the members to judge the contest. Moved by Lynne Fremont: We will have a website design contest. Judging will be done by members and the prize will be one years membership. The contest will be for a front page and templates for subsequent pages. The contest will start immediately and will be judged starting on August 15. Lynne Fremont will co-ordinate the contest. Seconded by Mark Conger. Motion passed unanimously Schedule next meeting: Tuesday July 25, 2006 7:30p at Larry Kestenbaum s house 1726 W Stadium Blvd. (734)769-7388 Closing gavel tap: 8:45p 13 responses total. !slynne ---------- (342) #1 S. Lynne Fremont (slynne) Tue, Jul 11, 2006 (18:43). 2 lines. I will be posting an item here in coop and in agora soon about the web design contest. !cross ---------- (342) #2 Dan Cross (cross) Tue, Jul 11, 2006 (20:34). 2 lines. More people might be willing to be grex staff members if it wasn't such an insular, hostile community. !slynne ---------- (342) #3 S. Lynne Fremont (slynne) Tue, Jul 11, 2006 (21:00). 3 lines. Unfortunately, I dont see this community changing anytime soon. I would love to make everyone all lovey dovey, I really would, but I dont know how to accomplish that goal. !cyklone ---------- (342) #4 Cyklone (cyklone) Tue, Jul 11, 2006 (22:57). 3 lines. Jeez, some board member you are! ); !slynne ---------- (342) #5 S. Lynne Fremont (slynne) Tue, Jul 11, 2006 (23:15). 1 line. Ah well, you are only stuck with me for another year and half. !spooked ---------- (342) #6 Michelangelo Giansiracusa (spooked) Wed, Jul 12, 2006 (06:50). 9 lines. It's really not that hostile. OK, so some staffers (and/or some staff members' relatives) are mega-scratchy and obsessed with the ancient past Grex. You just don't bitch or sook back - do your job, that's all that matters. For many of us, though, I suspect it's lack of time and/or interest due to dwindling/static policies/environment on Grex. !remmers ---------- (342) #7 John H. Remmers (remmers) Wed, Jul 12, 2006 (07:54). 5 lines. Given the delay in announcing the web design contest, the August 15 deadline might be too tight. In response to the concern about irc, I installed the "ircII" irc client from the OpenBSD ports collection. !slynne ---------- (342) #8 S. Lynne Fremont (slynne) Wed, Jul 12, 2006 (08:19). 2 lines. Yes, the Aug 15 deadline might be too tight. I think I will ask to extend it at our next meeting. !krj ---------- (342) #9 Ken Josenhans (krj) Wed, Jul 12, 2006 (13:26). 15 lines. Before the current software and network installation, Grex used to have IRC installed. I was a bit of an IRC-head in those days, and so I tried Grex's old version of IRC. Performance-wise, it was dismal, so whenever anyone asked in party about IRC on Grex, my recommendation was that no one should expect to become a Grex member for the IRC service. With the new Grex hardware/software/net connection, I'd imagine that IRC from Grex would now be pretty decent. However, I don't know anyone on IRC to talk to any more, so I'm not likely to be able to give it a decent evaulation. I think IRC should continue to be restricted to validated users; there are lots of malicious IRC users in the world and a free anonymous IRC service is going to be too tempting. !naftee ---------- (342) #10 Arc! Sin! Weld! (naftee) Wed, Jul 12, 2006 (16:08). 1 line. yay slynne ! !tod ---------- (342) #11 Todd (tod) Wed, Jul 12, 2006 (17:42). 1 line. !remmers ---------- (342) #12 John H. Remmers (remmers) Thu, Jul 13, 2006 (09:44). 2 lines. Re resp:9 - Yes, IRC is restricted to members. That was automatic, given the way our blocks are set up. !naftee ---------- (342) #13 Arc! Sin! Weld! (naftee) Thu, Jul 13, 2006 (14:16). 1 line. unlucky