-- Start log: Wednesday, August 30, 2000 10:05:59 pm ASI Meeting Server time --

Severy says, "Oops, sorry"
jburk says, "did you add the period at the end?" Greg-1 says, "That's an
interesting way to generate a password." Greg-1 says, "It's in the string
that it generated." jburk says, "ok try it now"
jburk says, "click on moon society registrations to see the new
regisrations" Greg-1 says, "Yup. That works."
jburk says, "the add new event form there is hooked up to the home page, so
don't mess with it :)" Greg-1 says, "Um ... why do we have this banner
here?" jburk says, "its a linkexchange banner" Greg-1 says, "Linking to the
admin page?" jburk says, "we get free advertising when it gets page views"
jburk says, "2 page views = 1 exposure of our banner" Greg-1 says, "Oh."
jburk says, "anyway that registration data is live in the database" Greg-1
says, "Why aren't we just using Team Director?" jburk says, "as soon as
Scotty gets the processing info & the account opened, we can hook this up
to it" jburk says, "for what?"
Greg-1 says, "For our membership registrations." Greg-1 says, "I'm not
comfortable with having a duplicate system." jburk says, "we will hook this
up to team director, we needed to set this up to process the credit cards"
Scottyg says, "We need an intermediate database before it goes into team
director." Greg-1 says, "Oh. I understand."
jburk says, "this is only for payments, all the rich info on each member is
still in team director" Scottyg says, "Jim's database is the original data
entered by the member from the website." jburk says, "right"
jburk says, "this is just a view of those entries" Greg-1 says, "This page
will eventually go away?" Scottyg says, "It needs to be scanned by a
person, errors corrected, and the membership approved. Then it goes to team
director." jburk says, "right i think we will still need to have a pair of
eyeballs look at each new member before they're in team director, but we
can capture as much info from the member as we can" Scottyg says, "Tim goes
thru much the same process now. We just don't see it." jburk says, "the
comments field has been very useful so far, they've been putting in why
they joined the society & what they want to do." Greg-1 says, "Neat!"
jburk says, "anything else on this item" jburk says, "also note that we've
been getting a high rate of donations with this form" jburk says, "and 1
conference registration already for 2001" Greg-1 says, "Um ... well ... yes
..."
Greg-1 says, "That LinkExchange banner bothers me enough that I'll ask you
to remove it, Jim." Scottyg says, "Greg, there will be *something* to view
the data. I don't see any reason to change what Jim has here. Once the
membership is approved, it will be deleted from this database. These are
only the ones in "limbo"" jburk says, "remove it from the admin area or
from the whole site?" Greg-1 says, "From the whole site."
jburk says, "why does it bother you?"
Greg-1 says, "Oh good."
Greg-1 says, "Well, the first reason it bothers me is that we're providing
advertising for a commercial company with nothing in return." Scottyg says,
"See # 10 and #17 for why this is necessary." Greg-1 says, "It bothers me
even more to see commercial advertising appear on our web site without
first having reviewed the plan with the board of directors." jburk says,
"first item is incorrect: we are getting worldwide advertising in return"
jburk says, "ok, I guess I should have cleared it, I only put it on there
yesterday" Greg-1 says, "One exposure of our banner per two click-throughs
from our site doesn't sound like much return for the number of
impressions." jburk says, "no its per exposure of their banner, not
click-through" jburk says, "we've already gotten 150 exposures of our
banner on other sci-tech sites" Greg-1 says, "What banner do they display
for us?" jburk says, "http://www.moonsociety.org/images/moonsoc_banner.gif"
jburk says, "i'll take it off if you want to, but I think its a good way to
build traffic. I've been using it on my sites for years" jburk says,
"besides its at the bottom of the page where almost nobody sees it" jburk
says, "but it does its job by getting loaded every page view" Scottyg says,
"Ok, there are two issues here." Scottyg says, "On the first, I agree with
Greg. Someting like this should be approved by the board." Scottyg says,
"As to the banner itself, I have no objection." jburk says, "well does the
board approve it :)" Greg-1 says, "Oh, I have a third whine: We also need
to check out banners advertising the Moon Society before they're released.
It's important to maintain a consistent corporate identity." Scottyg says,
"Randall is away for a bit. We'll have to get his input, since we don't
have a quorum otherwise." jburk says, "ok, how about we go on to the other
items in the meantime" Greg-1 says, "Actually, I really like the basic
layout of that banner, but would have used a better image of the moon and a
different font." jburk says, "I can change it"
Greg-1 says, "Well, at least for the sake of being consistent in
policy-making, let's remove the banner for now." jburk says, "alright"
Greg-1 says, "Thanks, Jim."
jburk says, "no problem, lets go on"
Greg-1 says, "What's next on the agenda?" Scottyg says, "Jennifer Day is
asking about new member packet contents." Scottyg says, "Looks like we need
another welcome letter." Scottyg says, "Oh, and how about buttons?" Greg-1
says, "Oh. Darn. We do need a welcome letter!" Greg-1 says, "I'm trying to
think of how to dodge that bullet, but not coming up with any good ideas."
Greg-1 says, "I don't think we need buttons, since we never promised
buttons." Scottyg says, "Especially since you have the text of the current
one, and can plagarize." Scottyg says, "I think we might need to change the
links off the join page. I believe one of those links to asi, and mentions
a button." Greg-1 says, "Yeah."
Greg-1 says, "ASI's join page -should- point back to moonsociety.org."
Greg-1 says, "Oops! I'm wrong. On http://www.moonsociety.org/register/, it
says "a really nice Artemis button"." Greg-1 says, "Would it hurt us to
just drop that bullet?" Scottyg says, "Ah. I knew I had seen that
somewhere." Scottyg says, "That's why I raised the question." Scottyg says,
"I would like to drop the bullet." Greg-1 says, "Since getting buttons made
and mailed has been a royal pain for the past 6 years, I strongly agree."
jburk says, "ok, I will remove that right now" Greg-1 says, "Thanks, Jim."
Greg-1 says, "That's another of my past blunders taken care of." jburk
says, "we are still giving them the poster, right>" Scottyg says, "Let Tim
sell them for $1.00" Scottyg says, "Yes, new members get a poster." Scottyg
says, "If I can ever get Bob to ship them to me." jburk says, "any other
benefits that are not listed on that page?" Scottyg says, "Bumper sticker
for renewing." jburk says, "what kind of bumper sticker?" Greg-1 says, "Hmm
... there's a picture of it around here somewhere." Greg-1 says, "FYI,
according to Alex, if you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and then roll
over them with rollerblades, they will ignite." Greg-1 says, "The bumper
sticker simply says Moon Society, with the URL. I think." jburk says, "ok"
Greg-1 says, "It also has a simple graphic, but basically it's very basic.
:)" jburk says, "ok lets move on"
Greg-1 says, "I think we're somewhere around Publications." Greg-1 says,
"Anybody got time to do anything with publications this month?" jburk says,
"annoucements"
jburk says, "we need to have a method for HQ to make announcements to
members & the public, inc press releases" Greg-1 says, "Oh, announcements."
jburk says, "i have been working on a news form for Dave to use on the news
section and we could use it to make HTML press releases (& archive them)
really easily" jburk says, "basically have one form for maintaining the
news section and another form for making moon society hq press releases"
Scottyg says, "Jim, I have the bumper sticker image in my email. Want me to
mail it to you?" Greg-1 says, "Shouldn't press releases go out as plain
text?" jburk says, "it will autofill the date, header, and the boilerplate
paragraph at the bottom of th release" jburk says, "I can make it look just
like plain text" jburk says, "and you will be able to copy/paste to email"
jburk says, "or even have the utility send an email to msoc-list" jburk
says, "check this out: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=2498"
jburk says, "they generate those pages from plain text press releases"
jburk says, "this way you can also attach an image & other metadata to the
release" jburk says, "scotty, yes please mail that image to me" Scottyg
says, "On its way."
Scottyg says, "Its done as black print on white background. Same as the
image i think." jburk says, "anyway, this form I'm talking about will solve
one aspect of the announcement issue. i think we also need to have regular
bulletins to our members, maybe via email" jburk says, "in addition to
pleiades"
Scottyg says, "I agree Jim. Members need to see things happening and kept
in the loop." jburk says, "whoa thats a big image"
Scottyg says, "Yeah, you would prolly want to run it thru resampling for
the web." jburk says, "yesterday I posted some stuff on the home page and
also emailed it; most of it was old news but I think we need to do this
regularly" Scottyg says, "It was for the screen printer." jburk says, "plus
we need some approval process for it" jburk says, "thoughts?"
Scottyg says, "I agree, but am mulling over the approval process." Scottyg
says, "Too much bureaurocracy will stifle the process, but we need some
sort of controls." jburk says, "one way is to have one person write the
bulletins and send them around to a group just before publication. that's
what Mars Society does with Zubrin writing and about 6 people approving
before being sent out on majordomo & posted to the website as individual
articles" jburk says, "I think something close to that is what we should
do, with greg being the primary person to write bulletins (others also
contributing) and a bunch of us on news-list or whatever approving it"
Greg-1 says, "That's a great idea, except for the greg part. :)" jburk
says, "the bulletins can be emailed out to msoc-list and also posted on the
website as press releases or articles in the Moon Society News section (we
will have other articles & other sections in the news area)" jburk says,
"obviously you need to write ones concerning stuff like accepting bids for
conferences" jburk says, "but others with relevant background can write
them too" Greg-1 says, "Yeah."
Greg-1 says, "Y'know, it might be easier if there were someone besides me
responsible for figuring out what to write about." jburk says, "on a
related note, I added a "sign up for our email list" form on the home page,
and I think we should accept non members being on msoc-list" Greg-1 says,
"These days, by the time I get home, I've pretty much exhausted all my
creative corpuscles." jburk says, "or set up a separate list for the
public" Greg-1 says, "Oops. Not msoc-list."
Greg-1 says, "MSOC = Moon Society Organizing Committee." jburk says, "ok,
whatever list"
jburk says, "right now I have to add them manually" Scottyg says,
"bureaucracyI have an alternate suggestion." Greg-1 says, "Didn't we define
a general discussion list for the Moon Society, or are we just using
artemis-list?" jburk says, "not sure"
Scottyg says, "Set up an open list that anyone can submit to." Scottyg
says, "(For announcements)"
jburk says, "according to my http://www.moonsociety.org/forums/proposed.txt"
jburk says, "the public list is news-list" Greg-1 says, "Yeah, like the
nss-discuss group." Scottyg says, "We've sort of been using msoc-list that
way." jburk says, "i don't think that's set up yet" Greg-1 says, "My
objection to using msoc-list as the general discussion list is that I don't
want to institutionalize the abbreviation." Scottyg says, "Anyway, to
finish my suggestion, approval from three board members required to publish
anything submitted." Greg-1 says, "Oh. I get it. Like artemis-news@asi.org."
jburk says, "I don't think this should be a general discussion list, just a
news release list" jburk says, "outgoing from HQ is the only traffic on it"
jburk says, "we can add all our members by default" Scottyg says, "Yep.
That spreads the load around. If I want to announce some infrastructure
thing, I just send it to the list, and all the board members get copied."
Greg-1 says, "Yeah. Scotty is suggesting that we set it up so that anybody
can submit a news article, but only the board can approve things that go
out on it." Scottyg says, "Or we could make it approval by any 4 officers
or directors.\" Greg-1 says, "Or any ol' ossifer or director as long as
it's not the person who submitted it." Greg-1 says, "That would provide for
on sanity check before something goes out. " Greg-1 says, "And if someone
doesn't feel comfortable with approving a thing, he need not feel obligated
to approve it." Scottyg says, "In this group, that would work fine. Might
cause problems downstream." Scottyg says, "Two guys approve something that
a majority doesn't like." Greg-1 says, "Oh, OK. Three guys, then." Greg-1
says, "Four?"
Greg-1 says, "At the moment, it's kind of hard to get four folks to do
anything." Scottyg says, "3 of 5 directors, or a majority of officers +
directors." Greg-1 says, "That would do it."
Scottyg says, "Presently there are 7 officers + directors, so it takes four
of them." Scottyg says, "The only relevant case is two officers + 2
directors. Otherwise the 3 directors rule covers it." jburk says, "should
we use board@moonsociety.org for the approval list or make a new one?>"
Scottyg says, "Make a new one. The news list needs to be open submission.
The board list is closed." jburk says, "I can force submission from a form"
Greg-1 says, "Golly, we almost need an application to handle this approval
thing; but then, there has to be an editing capability. It gets
complicated." Scottyg says, "BTW. Greg, is there a board@tlrc.com list?"
Greg-1 says, "Scotty, let me check."
jburk says, "I can have an editing capability for it" jburk says, "ok I
will set up news-list for the public releases, secure it, and then set up
news-approval & add the board to it" Scottyg says, "Add yourself and rhoda
to news-approval." jburk says, "right"
Greg-1 says, "Scotty, there's some kind of list for the TLRC board, but I
can't find it." jburk says, "what is "Moon Society Online News" referring
to?" Greg-1 says, "I think Dana Carson maintains it, whatever it is."
Scottyg says, "Ok. I have some things to discuss that shouldn't go on the
exec list." Greg-1 says, "Moon Society Online News sounds like it has a
genetic heritage with the ASI Online News, which seems to be rather
moribund of late, having been overcome by the Moon Society home page."
Greg-1 says, "We can ask Dana when he resurfaces from Chicago." jburk says,
"like i said we plan to have an area either in the news section or separate
that is just news releases from the society, and links to news stories
about the society." Scottyg says, "Would that be the "Moon in the News"
section of the home page?" jburk says, "Moon in the News" is the whole news
section, which covers more than just the society" Greg-1 says, "Yes, I
think that's what it refers to." Scottyg says, "Announcements = "whats
happening in the Moon Society", and online news = "Moon in the News"?"
jburk says, "right now it's lumped together in one news feed but Dave & I
have the forms now set up for categories" jburk says, "yeah close enough"
jburk says, "Moon in the News will be more external news, but we will have
a section that covers the society. but other areas of the home page should
have the press releases, and the top of the home page should have
announcments and stuff" jburk says, "it's somewhat blended together, but I
think we will have all the needs covered" jburk says, "lets move on to
publications" Greg-1 says, "As I was asking, does anyone have time to do
anything with publications this month?" Greg-1 says, "I think the answer is
no." jburk says, "what needs to be done"
Greg-1 says, "Heh. Maybe answering that question is the first step." jburk
says, "i will get this form set up, once it is we can use the output to
fill content for a lot of these publications" jburk says, "i can think of
about 5 releases we need to make for past events anyway" Greg-1 says, "We
might also invite members to tell us what publications they would like to
see from the Moon Society." Scottyg says, "Someone needs to contact Peter
about changing the contact info in MMM. And the title of the Pleiades
section." Scottyg says, "Someone had that as an AI, but I can't remember
who." Scottyg says, "Greg or Ian I think."
Greg-1 says, "Could be me, but it would be foolish of me to accept even a
simple action item these days." Greg-1 says, "Ian, by his title, would be
the logical guy to do it." Scottyg says, "Its probably in the log, but I
don't think the recorder can play back while recording." Scottyg says, "And
the logs haven't been uploaded to /private/leaders yet." Scottyg says, "No,
both of those logs are BOD meetings, and they are uploaded to
/private/board/meetings/logs" Scottyg says, "I don't find any reference to
MMM or Peter in them." Greg-1 says, "So ... what is it that we want to ask
Peter to do?" Greg-1 says, "At the moment, I'm too sleepy to try to figure
this out by myself." Scottyg says, "Update the contact info on page 2 to
include the Moon Society." Greg-1 says, "That should list the Moon Society
address?" Scottyg says, "And change the title of the Pleiades section to
"Pleiades/Moon Society Journal" is my recollection." Greg-1 says, "At the
POBox in Plano?"
Scottyg says, "Yep."
Severy has disconnected.
Scottyg says, "Also, in the Pleiades Section, I would like to see
instructions for getting a Team Director account." Greg-1 says, "Message
sent to Peter."
Scottyg says, "And the Pleiades section sends people to Lunar Traders
address for membership matters. That needs to go to the P.O. Box too."
Scottyg says, "Uh-oh. You're too efficient!" Greg-1 says, "Second message
sent to Pter." Greg-1 says, "Peter, too."
Greg-1 says, "I figure I'd better get 'em out now, because I won't remember
this conversation." Greg-1 says, "My nose keeps bouncing off the keyboard."
jburk says, "anything else on publications" Greg-1 says, "I think not."
Scottyg says, "I think we're about done for the evening." jburk says, "ok,
local chapters -- item 1 we discussed" jburk says, "what is the web
application form?" Greg-1 says, "Apparently Margo would know." jburk says,
"who wrote the agenda?"
Greg-1 says, "Sounds like a web form that a local chapter leader can fill
out to sign up." The housekeeper arrives to cart Severy off to bed. Scottyg
says, "I don't think I can answer that one either." Greg-1 says, "That
would be good to have. It could include an offer to be a local contact."
jburk says, "ok i am working on somehting like that already" Greg-1 says,
"Actually, ALL our member sign-up literature should have a checkbox for
folks to check if they'll be a local contact or form a local chapter."
Greg-1 says, "And, of course, we should follow up on all such volunteers."
jburk says, "so far, I've been individually hitting them up if they're in
an area we don't already have a contact in" Greg-1 says, "Phone calls are
good for that. People will remember a phone call forever." Greg-1 says,
"Great!"
jburk says, "I've got 2 guys in Germany working on a chapter already" jburk
says, "and one of them registered moonsociety.de before he knew about us"
Greg-1 says, "I have a question about the chapter web pages: Why doesn't
chapters.moonsociety.org point to www.moonsociety.org/chapters/ ?" jburk
says, "randall is supposed to get that set up, I think pair needs to do it"
Scottyg says, "We need a more formal way for local contacts and Chapter
organizers to get a list of members in their area." Greg-1 says, "OIC."
Greg-1 says, "That's good news about the guys in Germany." jburk says,
"yeah, I need to send the german members to them btw" Greg-1 says, "Yup."
jburk says, "what is the best way, team director report?" Greg-1 says,
"That's how the NSS chapters got started. They sent me a list of all the L5
Society members within 500 miles of Seattle, and the Northwest L5 Society
was born." jburk says, "Yep, I'm sure that's how a lot get started" Greg-1
says, "Well, a few hundred letters and phone calls later, the chapter was
born. But it only took about a week of intensive effort." Scottyg says,
"Greg, I think www.moonsociety.org/chapters is generic, while chapters/
moonsociety.org is for the individual chapter web space." Greg-1 says, "But
the chapter web sites are all under www.moonsociety.org/chapters/"
<http://www.moonsociety.org/chapters/> jburk says, "no, greg has it right,
/chapters will be the root page for chapters.ms.org -- it will look a
little different then" jburk says, "some are still on chapters.asi.org"
Greg-1 says, "For instance, http://www.moonsociety.org/chapters/lasvegas/.
Coolest site on the web." Greg-1 says, "OK, it's one page with overdone
graphics." Greg-1 says, "So ... the action item is to figure out how to
migrate the ASI chapters over to moonsociety.org, and then do it. Sounds
like something for Randall to lead." jburk says, "and that will be
chapters.moonsociety.org/lasvegas or lasvegas.moonsociety.org without
having to move the site" jburk says, "yeah randall and i are in the process
of doing it. i don't think we should require them to move however, if they
want to be on asi.org or even geocities or something, they can" jburk says,
"but we should encourage new chapter sites to go to chapters.ms.org"
Scottyg says, "Thats another task of mine. I have Tom Martin's permission
to move the Dallas Chapter info to our server." Greg-1 says, "Hmm ...
somehow, the index.html in /chapters/ needs to list all chapters and link
to their sites." Scottyg says, "Just haven't gotten around to it." Scottyg
says, "I think it does Greg."
Greg-1 says, "That's easiest to do if they are in www.moonsociety.org, but
we could alternative put a redirect from that chapters
/<chapter>/index.html" Greg-1 says, "Alternatively, too."
jburk says, "right"
jburk says, "anything else? what are items 4-6?" Scottyg says, "Greg, can
you send a clone to moo.tlrc.com?" Scottyg says, "#4 was to get the
paperwork done for existing chapters." Greg-1 says, "#5 is the charters."
Greg-1 says, "And a certificate suitable for framing." Scottyg says, "A
number of chapters met the requirements, but charters, etc never got
prepared." Greg-1 says, "I'm not sure what the heck #6 means." Scottyg
says, "Boise had whatever records there are of that, so part of the problem
is getting that info from him." Scottyg says, "Me either, unless its part
of the welcome/renewal message? "Support your local chapter" stuff?" Greg-1
says, "I couldn't gues.s"
Greg-1 says, "guess"
jburk says, "the requirement is 5 members, right?" jburk says, "we can poll
all the current chapters to see if they fit that" Greg-1 says, "Good idea,
Jim."
Greg-1 says, "Peter Kokh would be happy if we lowered it to 3 members, but
I dunno. It sounds phony to me." Greg-1 says, "That is, phony to say that 3
folks count as a whole chapter." jburk says, "5 is good"
jburk says, "3 active and at least 2 peripheral" Scottyg says, "Charles
Radley wants 3 too." Scottyg says, "Around $1,200. Let me go fetch the
book." Greg-1 says, "We need a good word for a chapter-in-formation so we
can recognize groups of less than 5." jburk says, "no idea"
Greg-1 says, "Hmm ... have we run out of great Moon Society things for this
evening?" jburk says, "i think we've covered a lot; we've been going for 3
hours" Greg-1 says, "Yeah. Let's call it a night. I'm totally wasted."
Greg-1 says, "Er ... rather ... move to adjourn." jburk says, "second"
Greg-1 says, "In the absence of chairman, I'll declare the meeting
adjourned." jburk says, "i will have those chapter documents ready as soon
as I can. the news release form will probably be done soon too" Greg-1
says, "recorder off"
Greg-1 says, "That didn't work."
Greg-1 says, "Thanks, Jim."
jburk says, "I've alraedy got the backend ready for the news form, so its
easy" Greg-1 says, "Now all we gotta do is generate some news! :)" jburk
says, "Yeah, I can write some basic releases for the past stuff --
conference, bids for next one, etc" jburk says, "it will be good test data
for the system" Scottyg says, "stop recorder"

-- End log: Thursday, August 31, 2000 12:25:46 am ASI Meeting Server time--