Item 49. Minutes for Grex BOD Meeting, September 9, 2007 Jan Wolter (janc) Sun, Sep 30, 2007 (13:29). 89 lines, 9 responses. Grex Board Meeting Minutes - September 9, 2007 Present: S. Lynne Fremont (slynne) - Board Member, President Mark Conger (aruba) - Board Member, Treasurer Jan Wolter (janc) - Board Member, Secretary - Staff Colleen McGee (cmcgee) - Board Member Larry Kestenbaum (polygon) - Board Member Telepresent: Dan Cross (cross) - Board Member Absent: Bruce Howard (bhoward) - Board Member - Staff Opening Gavel Tap: 7:30 pm Jan Wolter was initially absent, so Lynne Freemont started taking minutes. Treasurer's Report: Grex took in $193 in August and spent $400, leaving a balance of $6756 in the bank account. There are 56 members, 45 paid through September 15. The major unusual expense way $222 for the new external 500GB disk, meant to be used for backups. Staff Report: OS UPGRADE Dan Cross has successfully completed a remote upgrades of the OpenBSD systems, so Grex is now running on OpenBSD 4.1. Thanks Dan! NEW HARDWARE The new backup drive did not work with the old version of OpenBSD, so I think Dan backed up to various nooks and crannies of the other disk. The external disk, however, seems to work fine with the new version of OpenBSD, so we will be able to use it in the future as a backup device. Last month we felt that it was time to buy a new computer, and asked that someone come up with a proposal. Nothing has been done on this yet, but we'll get back to it. There have been some attacks on the system. Staff has been working on this. Old Business: ADDITIONAL SUBSTAFF ROLES Discussion centered on social validation policy. This is a validation procedure that must be passed to get even basic internet services, like email. No ID is required, but a certain willingness to interact with others and behave like a human being is. This was discussed, though the specific validation procedures will be left to the people involved to work out. Various names for this group of validators were discussed, finally arriving at "porters" in the sense of someone who guards a doorway, rather than in the sense of someone who schelps and carries. The board would appoint/approve people for this role. Colleen McGee moves: That we create a group called "porters" which will perform the social validation to add users to the community user group. This is contingent on passage of the member proposal in coop 14 item 39. Larry Kestenbaum seconds, passes unanimously. Schedule Next Meeting: The next board meeting will be on October 14, 2007 at the home of Larry Kestenbaum. Gather at 7:00pm, gavel at 7:30pm. New Business: There was some discussion of meeting bimonthly instead of monthly. Actually we have mostly been meeting 1.5-monthly, which seems to work well. There was some discussion of having Grex's email come through Google. Grex users would still be able to access their mail from Grex in the same ways, but it would probably be easier to administer and would certainly provide better spam filtering. Might be free to non-profits. We hoped Dan could investigate further. Closing Gavel Tap: 8:38 pm 9 responses total. !janc ---------- (49) #1 Jan Wolter (janc) Sun, Sep 30, 2007 (13:30). 1 line. Sorry to be so late to post these minutes. !keesan ---------- (49) #2 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Sun, Sep 30, 2007 (13:35). 4 lines. Next month could you please discuss upgrading the modems with a newer and more reliable set that a modem-using grexer has tested out thoroughly? For some of us this is more important than replacing a working computer, since the old modems keep going down for weeks at a time. !slynne ---------- (49) #3 S. Lynne Fremont (slynne) Sun, Sep 30, 2007 (17:58). 1 line. Do they even make dial up modems anymore? !keesan ---------- (49) #4 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Sun, Sep 30, 2007 (20:10). 5 lines. Most likely, but that is not really relevant to the issue because grex has had a set of newer modems for years now, and they are tested working. Dang brought them to another member a while back and he keeps phoning me to ask when grex will be usable again. Someone (forget who) said nobody cared about the modems, which is not true. !gelinas ---------- (49) #5 Joseph L Gelinas (gelinas) Sun, Sep 30, 2007 (21:28). 7 lines. When I get a chance, I'll stop by Kiwanis and pick up the modems. I don't know when that will be, though. Maybe this next Saturday. However, I begin to suspect that the problem with the modems is NOT the modems. I've not figured out exactly what the problem is, though. Have they worked at all since the upgrade to the OS? !keesan ---------- (49) #6 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Sun, Sep 30, 2007 (21:56). 2 lines. They stopped working a couple of weeks ago. Just rings and rings. Thanks for working on this problem. !unicorn ---------- (49) #7 Chuck Martin (unicorn) Sun, Sep 30, 2007 (22:56). 5 lines. Re #5: "Have they worked at all since the upgrade to the OS?" It appears that they have. The OS was upgraded on Aug. 12, and it appears that the last login via modem was on Sep. 1, shortly after 10:00 a.m. !jan ---------- (49) #8 no (jan) Mon, Oct 1, 2007 (21:37). 1 line. Unicorn, shut your fucking mouth before I fucking shut it for you. !mary ---------- (49) #9 Mary Remmers (mary) Mon, Oct 1, 2007 (21:57). 9 lines. Here is hoping Chuck takes the high road and says not a word in response.