-- Start log: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 9:46:55 pm ASI Meeting Server time -- TimCadell says, "Scotty, sorry to hear about that. Yours are worse than mine. I just lost two cars (one got fixed for $1600) and the friendship of someone close." Scottyg says, "For the record, this is a special meeting of the Board of Directors of Moon Society, called for the purpose of discussing our response to the IRS request for more info on our application for non-profit recognition under 501(c)(3)" TimCadell says, "Scotty, someone has edited "http://www.moonsociety.org/chapters/chptrules.html", but I believe that "http://www.moonsociety.org/chapters/chptrules2.html" is the correct version." TimCadell says, "Ah, that clears things up, Scotty." Scottyg says, "Would everyone in attendance please state "here"?" Severy says, "here (I think)" TimCadell says, "here" irs says, "Here." dcarson says, "here" Scottyg says, "Again for the record, Tim Cadell is an invited guest in his role as Chapters Coordinators." Scottyg says, "Correction: Chapter Coordinator." Scottyg says, "Greg is also here, but "away" at the moment." TimCadell says, "Chapters Coordinator?" Scottyg says, "Randall, as Chairman, the honor of calling the meeting to order is yours...." Scottyg says, "Yeah Tim, what I meant, not what I said. :=)" Severy says, "Ahh, ok, I hereby call this meeting to order at 9:54 pm EDT on Wednesday, May 30, 2001 " TimCadell grins. Severy says, "And on that note, I need to disappear for about 10 minutes for the drive home, I'll be back on from there" Severy has disconnected. Scottyg says, "I'll stand in for Randall until he returns." TimCadell says, "I'm still trying to load my email, so I can't read your message, Scotty. Is there anything in it to recap?" Scottyg says, "Will all present signify waiver of notice by saying aye?" Scottyg says, "Aye" Greg says, "aye" TimCadell says, "Aye." TimCadell says, "(Okay, didn't need a waiver, but it was automatic.)" Greg says, "Let's see ... Dana, Scotty, Ian, and Tim are here. So that's who I'll send this Word document to. And Randall, too." irs says, "Aye." dcarson says, "send one to rhoda also for the rords" dcarson says, "aye" irs says, "If I need to read it now, please send it to irs0@erols.com (that's a zero)." Scottyg says, "All Board members are present, so we have a quorum." Scottyg says, "Tim, want I should send you the IRS letter?" Greg says, "It's probably not complete, but we're an hour into the meeting so I figured I'd better give you something to chew on!" Greg says, "OK, the mail is in the mail. Look for a Word file named IRS-LETTER-reply.doc." TimCadell says, "Sure, but I won't be able to read it until I get the email working. It's godawful slow right now." TimCadell says, "tcadell@savageresearch.com is a good spot." Greg says, "The complete text of the IRS letter is in the file I just sent." Greg says, "My notes are in red." The housekeeper arrives to cart Severy off to bed. Greg says, "Now that I've done that, which points were you particularly interested in, Scotty?" Scottyg says, "Oh, Ok. Cancel that then." Greg says, "Uh oh! Does Randall's wife know the housekeeper is carting him off to bed?" Greg says, "Is anybody logging this meeting?" dcarson says, "the recorder is on" Greg says, "If I suddenly disappear, it's because my beloved ISP's NT system is giving me fits again." Scottyg says, "Questions 5, 9, and 10 (Incorrectly numbered 5 in the doc i sent) involve matters we have not decided, so those are the ones I especially need help with." Greg says, "Oh dear. Of course I don't have answers for those. " Greg says, "Item 10 is "5. Please address the following items regarding your research activities"?" Greg says, "I wrote a lot of crap about that." Scottyg says, "Yep. I scanned and OCR'ed the original IRS letter. That typo crept in." Greg says, "Lemme work on Item 9 here. I'll put it in a separate file." Greg says, "(Hey neat! Weird things happen to MacMoose when you copy and paste from Microsoft Word!)" Scottyg says, "Ok, I declare a short recess for reading Greg's document." irs says, "I still haven't gotten Greg's document. irs0@erols.com" irs says, "If that's too hard to read, ian@lrcpubs.com" TimCadell says, "Got the IRS letter. Downloading and about to read it." Greg says, "Most of the answers to item 10 are "we're not doing that yet."" Severy has arrived. dcarson says, "worse comes to worse we reply and they ask for more details/clarificatio and we go around again" TimCadell says, "Strangely, I got two of the letter. The first one couldn't be read. Reading the second now." Scottyg says, "Dana, I think if we can firmly establish that we will be doing at least one of our non-profit purposes, the "we aren't doing that yet" answer will get by on the others." irs says, "Still no e-mail here from Greg." Scottyg says, "Are you telling your mail client to "Get messages"" irs says, "Just did it again. Still nothing. Got an e-mail from Tim 6 minutes ago." dcarson says, "I expect so alos, just saying what the worst case is. They won't so never, we have a lefit cause." dcarson says, "legit" TimCadell says, "Try http://www.savageresearch.com/IRS-LETTER-_reply.DOC" TimCadell says, "I just uploaded it to there. I can delete it when everyone's downloaded it." irs says, "checking now" Greg says, "I'm writing some serious BS here." TimCadell says, "Hmm, first I've heard of the Steckler stuff. Must've missed too many meetings." irs says, "Thanks, Tim. Reading now." TimCadell says, "Sure." TimCadell chuckles. TimCadell says, "Just saw item 3. "Eeek" indeed." irs says, "For number 6, say "Local chapters will be...." rather than are." TimCadell says, "Scotty, on subject of #5: EIN is required by organizations that are for profit, or does any IRS-noticeable entity have to have one?" TimCadell says, "Sorry, that is item #6." TimCadell says, "Oh, and we're not working on that one, right?" dcarson says, "I think anyone has to have one" irs says, "EIN is required for all companies and organizations that would file taxes, pay employees, or whatnot. It's a corporate social security number." irs says, "Number 8 looks good to me, Greg, except that it needs a little proofreading." TimCadell says, "Okay on the EIN, then.l" TimCadell says, "-;l" TimCadell says, "Aw, screw it." TimCadell says, "Are we all taking items and just BSing them into existence, or are we starting from a discussion? I'm thinking of #9 since there's no text there now." Greg says, "Just thought of something: In the answer to 10a, add "a laboratory to investigate the the effects of slow-rotation spin-gravity on humans and other terrestrial life forms"" Greg says, "That's a biggie." Scottyg says, "Tim: All IRS-noticeable organizations should have an EIN." Greg says, "Proofread away, Ian. That was a very drafty first draft! :)" Greg says, "I'm working on answers to #9 right now." Greg says, "Actually, no, I'm not BSing things into existence. I'm writing from the present reality, and explaining what we will do and how we'll do it as best I can." Scottyg says, "Ok...My takes:" Scottyg says, "10 is very good. Just a bit of proofing needed." Scottyg says, "Same for 8." irs says, "I like the answers to 5/10. One comment: I want an article (or a lot of information) on the Steckler thing as soon as it's public (actually, perhaps a bit before, to match my publication schedule). This is precisely what Artemis Magazine needs." Scottyg says, "On 6, I plan to add a copy of our chapter rules." TimCadell says, "We need to go through that file, then (chptrules2.html) and get the Board to officially okay it, then archive it properly." Scottyg says, "I have already drafted a partial response on 4 that addresses the relationship in more detail. I'm struggling a bit with how to describe ASI's non-profit status." Scottyg says, "2 is just boilerplate." Scottyg says, "Same for 3." dcarson says, "3 will soak up a lot of toner/ink" Scottyg says, "7 is clarifying a statement I made. No sweat." Scottyg says, "So the remaining biggie is 5." Greg has disconnected. Scottyg says, "Tim: I think those rules WERE approved by the board." irs says, "I don't recall precisely what our exempt purpose is, but publication of the newsletter (as in, helping fund MMM) is sort of an educational thing (especially since it goes to far more people than only our members)." dcarson says, "need to think of what we are doing that falls under 5" TimCadell says, "Scotty, okay, I don't have the record in front of me. Can we verify that it was chptrules2.html?" Scottyg says, "Ian, I'm a little vague on that. The newsletter is only distributed to our members. I think the IRS is looking for a benefit to the general public." Scottyg selects 2001-03-21 from recorder -- Start log: Wednesday, March 14, 2001 9:36:10 pm ASI Meeting Server time -- TimCadell says, "I hope I picked a good name." Greg says, "Ah, the tape is now running." TimCadell says, "Can you repeat all of that, Greg?" Greg says, "OK." Greg says, "I know what I wish the Moon Society were: a large organization with lots of local chapters and conferences and publications. Activities would include star parties, lunar science, brainstorming ideas for stories, lots of social events, selling lunar kickshaw, and especially recruiting new members. The new members would get sucked into the Artemis Society and start participating in ASI activities; and some of them would become Artemis Project program participants. I'd also like to have the Moon Society able to fund and conduct some major research projects, including participating in (but not controlling) Project Leto." Greg says, "Ta da." irs says, "Nicely put. Now we have to get to that." Scottyg says, "Ok, now...Can we reduce that to some short-term goals?" Greg says, "I can't, no." Scottyg says, "Just two or three at most." Greg says, "Every time I think of short-term goals, I think of the action items required to accomplish them; and the goals vaporize." TimCadell says, "Do we have a mailing list for chapter leaders?" Scottyg says, "Where I'm going with this is...If we can identify a small number of short-term goals, then I think we can get Margo to help find staffing for them." Greg says, "Now that we have a basic business infrastructure created, I'd say the next most important thing is to write a local chapter manual. That manual needs to include sections on the rules, how to form a local chapter, lots of ideas and helps for chapter activities, recruting brochures, templates for meeting announcements, templates for agendas, templates for chapter newsletters (including web pages)." TimCadell says, "Sounds like I should take that action item." TimCadell says, "But I'll be asking for input. Maybe from Simon, he seems to have more experience than I do at that." Greg says, "Another key short-term goal is to clean up the Moon Society web site. Change it so that it can be maintained with WSD. Move everythig into WSD, and kill anybody who telnets in to change the site. (Or at least revoke that person's access to the server.)" Greg says, "Simon Rowland?" TimCadell says, "Have we had problems with files changing under WSD?" TimCadell says, "Yeah, remember he gave that talk at last July's LDC meeting about setting up meetings." Greg says, "No problems that I know of; it's just that the current web site is a confusing mess." Greg says, "PHP3 is cute, but very difficult to maintain without a guide map." TimCadell says, "I was going to say that I have used telnet to edit the Bay Area chapter's files." Scottyg says, "Yeah, theres a doc sitting in WSD (what-you-can-do.html) that I can't figure out where to put with the current site layout." Greg says, "I haven't been too enthusiastic about doing anything there myself, but I find it even more debilitating that Jim Burk hasn't done a damned thing since he first set up the site." Greg says, "Yup. I fear we need to start over with a complete redesign. I just haven't been up to it lately." Greg says, "More than anything else these days, people will judge us by our web site." Scottyg says, "Speaking of web site, one of my pet projects reached fruition today. My company's new web site went live this morning." TimCadell says, "What's the URL, Scotty?" Greg says, "Tim, to the best of my knowledge, Simon does not have any experience with setting up meetings or running organizations. So there's great risk that anything you get from him would be theoretical rather than based on actual experience. On the other hand, if he will draft stuff, at least we'd have a starting point. " Scottyg says, " http://www.stalkerradar.com" irs says, "Two points:" Greg says, "The important thing is that you should never publish Simon's work without first reviewing it very carefully." Scottyg says, "Yeah, Simon has a lot of energy and gets things done." irs says, "One: the Moon Society web site is pretty, but we have to kill the "last update date" (or whatever it says) and the "upcoming events" headers. Sure, it may not be updated very often, but we shouldn't rub the viewer's nose in it." Greg says, "The phrase "Stalker Radar" has some interesting connotations." Greg says, "Point well-taken, Ian." irs says, "Two: As much as we want to build from the ground up right, might it be a little easier to NOT set up the whole chapter infrastructure right now, but instead let them grow organically, and then, at some not-too-distant point in the future, put together a few of the local group folk to design that infrastructure for their successors?" Greg says, "Nice web site, Scotty!" TimCadell says, ""Nice fron tpage, Scotty." Greg says, "I'd recommend leaving out the dba reference, though. That information might appear in an about-the-company page if it needs to be on the web at all." Scottyg says, "Yeah, there was a LOT of debate about that trade name." Greg says, "I love this illo that says "Speed Limit 20. Your speed 65." Heh." TimCadell says, "Greg, Simon gave a talk on "Promoting a chapter". Looking at his synopsis that he gave me, it looks okay, but I'll keep that in mind." Scottyg says, "LOL. I had one other goal tonight...Work related...Wanted to tralk to Randall about WSD Lite to use to maintain it." Greg says, "OK, I've ordered 14 radars guns. Now I wonder what I'll do with them?" TimCadell says, "Greg, jburk@moonsociety.org owns the chapters-council mailing list. Is that the one I would use to start coordinating the different chapters?" Greg says, "Tim, yes." Greg says, "Let's do what's required to change it so that you're the owner of that mailing list." TimCadell says, "Okay, I can do that." Greg says, "Jim doesn't even read his email these days." Greg says, "(Not that I can talk.)" TimCadell grins. TimCadell says, "Okay, that's changed and I'll check it now." Greg says, "Wow! This is really clean HTML here, Scotty. You must not be using one of those Microsoft authoring things." TimCadell says, "By the way, we're using HTMLKit to edit web pages. Very nice interface, though at times a bit buggy. Includes ability to edit files directly over FTP. Loads them, you edit them, then it saves them back." Greg says, "We seem to have a serious CyberTeams shortage tonight." Greg says, "Tim, it's 6:55" TimCadell says, "Also has built-in HTMLTidy and lots of other features. And it's free." TimCadell says, "Yup, time for me to go. See you guys!" Greg says, "See ya!" Greg says, "(I was afraid we'd make Tim miss his bus.)" TimCadell has disconnected. Scottyg says, "We used a contractor to create the actual pages. I'm not sure what he uses, but its not Microsoft junk." irs says, "bye Tim." Greg says, "Darn, look at this employment solicitation. Makes me wish I had used the past 2 years to learn 3D CAD instead of doing what my boss told me to do." Greg says, "Well, does anybody have any other moon business that I need to do tonight?" Greg says, "I still need to spend some time cuddled up with spacejobs.com before I retire." The housekeeper arrives to cart TimCadell off to bed. irs says, "Nothing pressing at this end. Day job and magazine are pretty much swmaping me." Scottyg says, "BTW Greg..." Scottyg says, "Jennifer Day and I took the email welcome letter you did and edited it slightly to make a renewal letter." Scottyg says, "We also put both of them on a Moon Society letterhead to make a printed version." Scottyg says, "If you want to do something to replace any of those, please do. Meanwhile, we have something useable." Greg says, "Great! Duh ... I had completely forgotten about that." Greg says, "Yeah, now that the pressure is off, I'll probably think up something really creative. :)" Greg says, "Reminds me of the time I scored 100-4X in the NRA winter pistol match; in the last round, when no matter what I scored, it wouldn't matter." Scottyg says, "The email version of the renewal letter is installed in the templates on both Moon Society and ASI." Greg says, "Are we using different templates for the Moon Soiety and ASI?" Greg says, "Moon Society, too." Greg says, "Not to mention the Moon Moiety." Scottyg says, "ASI still has its own templates, but since Moon Society renewals are being recorded on ASI as the master copy, we needed the Moon Society templates on ASI." Scottyg says, "ASI is not presently sending out its own welcome or renewal letters." Scottyg says, "The Moon Society letter mentions ASI membership." Greg says, "That's reasonable." Scottyg says, "Which reminds me...I need to get Randall to refresh the Moon Society database." Greg says, "Since ASI is not very active these days; it doesn't have anything to sell members, and maintains its membership only via the Moon Society." Scottyg says, "ASI has all the updates. Moon Society gets updated from ASI." Greg says, "It seems like it should be the other way around, with the Moon Society transmitting data to ASI." Scottyg says, "It probably should, but there was the problem of LT doing the updates. They are set up on ASI but not Moon Society, and since that was temporary, I didn't want to rock the boat." Scottyg says, "If Randall can run the update, we can switch over." Greg says, "Got it. No superfluous boat-rocking required." Greg says, "This, of course, requires an increase in the local Randall density." Greg says, "They must be having a good time in Maryland." Scottyg says, "I don't think its a major effort. He's done it once before." Greg says, "On the other hand, the last time I talked to Randall he was kind of concerned about meeting payroll again. Golly." Scottyg says, "If he were here, I could make a small contribution to that." Greg says, "There's one thing that Bill Gates did that I like. His philosophy was never to expand the company until you had enough capital to meet payroll for a full year with no revenues." Greg says, "Well, there" irs says, "Well, LRC Publications seems to be doing OK. Got a story on the final Nebula ballot (mine arrived today), and we're going into another mailing with DNA Publications (though the mailing I'm putting together is on hold: the associate editor of one of the magazines I'm gonna work with died last week)." Greg says, "Well, there's always the telephone. You can reach Randall *anywhere*." Greg says, "I don't think he takes a bath with his cell phone, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he does." Scottyg says, "It wasn't that urgent from my side." Greg says, "Ian, when are SFWA dues due again?" Greg says, "Now, there's something to contemplate. Is there any advantage to having everybody's dues come due at the same time" Greg says, "?" Scottyg says, "Ummm. Not from MY point of view." Greg says, "That settles that, then, Scotty." irs says, "The advantage is simplified record-keeping and one bulk mailing. The disadvantage is one huge mailing (vs. regular mailing)." Scottyg says, "And a whole year's worth of income entries at once. Ugh." irs says, "Due date: I don't recall. I think it's summer." Greg says, "Yeah; doing it as a monthly accounting thing seems to work better if our goal is to get to the point where we have full-time paid staff." irs says, "Yeah, right, 'cause I got all the renewal money soon after taking office. Membership year is 1 July to 30 June." Scottyg says, "Oh, I have a policy question...." Greg says, "OK. I was just wondering whether I would be able to afford to renew my dues. Maybe I will by then." Greg says, "Oh goody, a policy question." Greg says, "Policy answer: No, I don't think President Bush should nuke Iraq." Greg says, "Yet." Scottyg says, "If a member's credit card is declined, what should we do? I propose to try it again in two weeks, then send him a notice if it is declined the 2nd time." Greg says, "Sounds reasonable to me. I think that's what I would want us to do if it hapened to me." Greg says, "or happened, even" Scottyg says, "If the CyberCash link-up were working, it wouldn't be an issue since it would be declined real-time and he would be aware of that." irs says, "Yeah, Scotty, that's pretty standard procedure. That's what I do with declined cards." Scottyg says, "But since I process these after-the-fact, there's no feedback to the member." Greg says, "Yeah." Greg says, "So, anything else for tonight?" Scottyg says, "Ok, I'll handle it that way. I have one to deal with at the moment." Greg says, "Darn, I wish I had some vacation time. I could go to one of these job fairs in Denver." Scottyg says, "Shall we stop the recorder?" Greg says, "Yeah." Scottyg says, "stop moon recorder" Greg says, "Did it work?" Scottyg says, "nope." Greg says, "I think Tim started it. Does that mean he has to stop it?" -- End log: Wednesday, March 14, 2001 10:23:35 pm ASI Meeting Server time -- recorder stops. TimCadell says, "MMM is distributed to a lot of people who are not members of ASI or the Moon Society." The housekeeper arrives to cart Greg off to bed. Scottyg selects 3-28-01 from recorder -- Start log: Wednesday, March 28, 2001 9:33:06 pm ASI Meeting Server time -- Scottyg says, "I had one other thought Randall. When an existing member goes to the registration system, it would be nice to let him initialize his info by putting in his member number and validating his username and password." Scottyg says, "Ian, P.O. Box 940825, Plano, TX 75094-0825" Scottyg says, "(Assuming he has a Team Director account)" irs says, "Thanks, Scotty." Severy says, "Shouldn't be a problem, Scotty, there is already a Team Director API call to retrieve member info based on a member number" Severy says, "And username and password validation can be done against the password file" Scottyg says, "I plan to restructure the registration database to match the Team Director user fields, unless you want to move the whole system into Team Director, in which case I need a number of fields related to the credit card processing." Severy says, "It might be easier to move it into Team Director" Severy says, "I've got the Account Request processing in there already, which could be cloned to provide most of the stuff needed for pending memberships" Severy says, "And the payment screens already have most of the information you need, it wouldn't be difficult to add a few fields" Scottyg says, "The only down side to moving it into Team Director is that you become the bottleneck in getting any changes made. :=)" Severy says, "True, but I'm usually more responsive than Jim has been ;-)" dcarson says, "not that hard" Severy says, "And minor changes are usually pretty easy to do quickly, what I get bogged down on is adding major new features, which tend to be put off for far too long" Severy says, "It helps that the sales account version of Team Director is becoming critical to our sales effort, and we've got a commercial installation of it managing a medical association in the Netherlands" Severy says, "If I was dependent on ASI activity as the sole incentive to work on Team Director, I'd have to admit that it would be a rather low priority most of the time :-(" Severy says, "It also doesn't hurt that the Mars Society will be starting to use Team Director in a few weeks as well...." Scottyg says, "Well, think on it for a couple of days. I'm willing to do an external interface if we go that way. I've gotten my feet wet with php over the last few days, and I can get it done. But doing it all in one system is a lot cleaner." Scottyg says, "And I can also do PERL, but I'm relatively inexperienced." Severy says, "Let me go through the outline you sent in some detail and I'll see if I see any issues that I can't figure out" Scottyg says, "Ok, I'll put any other work on hold for a few days." Scottyg says, "(Except for a few tweaks to what's already there.)" Scottyg says, "And I'll go back over my previous outline. I've had a few new ideas that I should work into it." Severy says, "Ok, I'll work on drafting up an implementation outline and run it by you for comments before I start work on it" Scottyg says, "Such as...If a member elects mail-in registration, let him fill out the form and then create a printer-friendly page with all the data filled in that he can print out and mail in." Scottyg says, "Instead of sending him to print a page with blank spaces he has to fill in by hand. That form could also bring up his existing information from the database." Severy says, "Yup, that sounds like a worthwhile thing to do" Scottyg says, "If you do this in Team Director, The presentation to the user needs to be customized for each client, so you'll need some sort of template capability." Severy says, "Let me see how I can design that in a fairly generic fashion, since I suspect the LDC registration system (another implementation of Team Director) could use that, and probably the NVALT (that medical association) as well" Scottyg says, "Or else an API to hook to." Severy says, "Yes, it would need to be template-driven" dcarson says, "can probably use most of the WSD template stuff, fill in form, click printable button and print resulting page" Severy says, "Actually, Team Director already has some pretty robust template routines, better in some ways than WSD" Severy says, "Our sales system generates several dozen e-mail messages a day to sales prospects, and they are all template-driven" Scottyg says, "Yep, thats what I was thinking. And use macro tags to place the fields." dcarson says, "idealy they should be the same tempates language, makes learning easier" Scottyg says, "Uh-huh." Scottyg says, "Ok, any more discussion on this topic?" Severy says, "Yes, they're pretty much the same template language, I don't like doing the same thing several different ways ;-)" Severy says, "I think I know what I need to do, I should have something sketched out by Saturday, if not before" Severy says, "But don't hesitate to pester me about it, Scotty, I need all of the incentive I can get ;-)" Scottyg says, "Does the template language support edit fields (FORMS)" Severy says, "It doesn't need to, those can be handled with regular HTML form fields" Severy says, "I can grab some of the code of the code from our guestbook processing for the form processing, you saw how that worked when you signed up for the license on our site" Scottyg says, "Ummmm, yeah. A little messy to code, but doable." Severy says, "I've gotten quite used to parsing HTML pages, and I've got a lot of code that does that ;-)" Scottyg says, "If the field names can be the same as the tags, its a lot easier." Scottyg says, "(template tags)" Severy says, "Yeah, that's the way we handle the guestbook forms, the field names usually match the database field names, although I use a mapping process when there isn't always a one-to-one mapping" Severy says, "I need to head out for a little while with my daughter, is it all right if I disappear for 15-30 minutes?" Scottyg says, "The other major headache is escaping the quote marks. You end up with some very wierd looking stuff in the print statements." dcarson says, "fine with me" Severy says, "Tell me about it! I think over half of the HTML parsing code I've written is just to deal with optional quote marks..." Scottyg says, "Sure. The only other topic I was gonna bring up was Greg's email about publishing MMM in pdf format." Severy says, "Ok, I'll be back as soon as I can..." dcarson says, "Scottty, had a friend of mine in the filk community want Tims email. There is a CD of space filk coming out and he wants to sel some to LT." Scottyg says, "BTW Ian, I never said thanks for putting me in touch with Nova for the credit card processing." irs says, "No problem. Glad to help (and I'm sure they're glad for the business, since I haven't yet started throwing as much at them as I thought. Soon, soon....)" Scottyg says, "They had no problem at all with handling our account." Scottyg says, "I started processing orders this month...Have done about 20 so far." Scottyg says, "Yeah Dana, Tim might be interested. No-overhead products are nice." Scottyg says, "Greg suggested starting a discussion on artemis-list about MMM. I agree, except that we need an equivalent list on Moon Society." Scottyg says, "And I don't subscribe to artemis-list, so someone else will have to kick it off." dcarson says, "when did greg send this email?" Scottyg says, "This afternoon. I don't remember who was copied on it. Let me look it up." irs will be right back. Scottyg says, "I forwarded it to you Dana." Scottyg will be right back. irs says, "back" irs says, "Greg's e-mail is in my in-box (on the other server). Haven't read it yet." irs says, "Oh, and I may be ditching this account: RCN decided to raise the rates 30%, so I may be paying Panix more for full access." irs says, "Would it take long, Dana, to redirect the lrcpubs address I have forwarded to erols to another address (when I figure it out)?" dcarson says, "a couple of minutes" dcarson says, "or we can setup a POP box and leave it on qs33 until you pick it up with your mail reader" irs says, "Good. Thanks. I'll let you know." Scottyg says, "Another topic just occurred to me....Greg is on a crusade against using php on Moon Society." irs says, "Qu'est-ce que php?" dcarson says, "Greg and new things to learn is interesting" Scottyg says, "I agree that it should not be used where there is a better alternative, such as for general static headers and footers." dcarson says, "a web language to generate pages on the fly" irs says, "ah, ok" Scottyg says, "But php is quite easy to use, and more convenient in many cases than cgi scripting." irs will be right back. Scottyg says, "So, my input is....lets convert the headers and footers to WSD templates, but continue to use php for dynamic content." dcarson says, "sounds about right to me scotty" dcarson says, "we want the news and moon phases etc dynamic" Scottyg says, "He complains about maintainability, but I think php is easier to maintain than cgi." Scottyg says, "The difference is....Someone else has always done the cgi, so Greg hasn't had to deal with it." Scottyg says, "And since php is handled by the web server, its a lower server load than loading PERL to run every script." Scottyg says, "Of course, C language cgi is efficient, but requires a system login and more knowledge of the system API." Scottyg says, "In either case, debugging the cgi without a system login can be difficult." irs says, "back" Scottyg says, "Ian, did you get Greg's message about MMM?" irs says, "I think it's waiting in my in-box. What about it?" Scottyg says, "Since I'm the one interacting with Peter, I need to know if anyone has any inputs." irs says, "Not right now." Scottyg says, "I think we will offer members two options...Receive MMM electronically at a reduced rate, or receive MMM by mail at a higher rate for domestic mail or a much higher rate for international." irs says, "I think that may not be a great idea. Even though it will make membership cheaper, people attach more value to something physical, like a paper magazine, rather than an electronic magazine (same reason people won't pay for ficiton magazines online, but will buy 'em on paper)." Scottyg says, "($2.30 to mail international copies = $27.60 higher annual costs for us. Plus the envelope)" irs says, "Again, it's the type of thing that people will say "Oh, cheaper, sure!" the first year. But when it comes time to renew, they won't remember the electronic communication, and simply won't renew." irs says, "Offer it electronically to international members, OK, but not as the first choice. For domestic members, no. Mind you, that $28 increase in dues, solely for postage, is completely in line with every other US magazine they receive (maybe it's time to start complaining to Congress about the USPS)." dcarson says, "well SJGames has a couple thousand subscribers to their online magazine now" Scottyg says, "In that case, our dues would need to be $35.00 domestic and $60.00 international for hard copy. We already offer a no-MMM option at $25.00. That could change to include web access to on-line copies at no added cost." irs says, "I think those are reasonable numbers, Scotty. And Dana, SJGame" Scottyg says, "(In a members-only area.) Plus maybe a publicly-viewable sample." irs says, "SJGames' audience is probably the most web-savvy around. We're aiming at a much wider, potentially less web-aware audience. Many of them are going to need paper newsletters. Besides, it won't cost us anything more if they take the higher paper rate." dcarson says, "true" dcarson says, "(which remindes me, I need to renew)" Scottyg says, "We may need to subsidize LRS a bit on buying Acrobat." dcarson says, "its not horrible in price" Scottyg says, "According to our bylaws, we need to nominate officers soon for the next election. Anyone remember whose terms expire this August?" irs says, "In the absence of anyone who even looks like a candidate for officer, I think it might be better if we either let it slide, or renominate everyone." dcarson says, "lets make one more call for nominees" Scottyg says, "Yep, we need a call for nominees and/or volunteers." Scottyg says, "I would especially like to see a new Vice President. Jim has only ever attended one or two of these meetings, and has virtually disappeared." dcarson says, "very true" Scottyg says, "So even a do-nothing replacement wouldn't be a loss. Nothing to lose, much to gain." irs says, "I'm not saying we shouldn't find candidates for office. Simply that I don't see any coming forward. And to be blunt, the best candidates usually come from the ranks of the most active and/or experienced volunteers. Do we have either?" Scottyg says, "Sure wish we could twist Margo's arm." Scottyg says, "She's good at keeping things moving and generating interest." dcarson says, "yep" Scottyg says, "And I understand that her career demands are easing up some." dcarson says, "Arthur Smith might be possible" Scottyg says, "I don't know Arthur." Scottyg says, "Dick Steffans might be possible too." dcarson says, "he works as for The American Physical Society " dcarson says, "has been on the MOO a bit and is going to do some of the old MMMs in electronic form" Scottyg says, "Any evidence that he keeps his commitments? That's the single most important qualification." dcarson says, "he hasn't been around long enough to be sure" Scottyg says, "Well, I was trying to wait for Randall to get back, but I haven't had supper yet and its getting late, so I need to go." irs says, "Yeah, Kit just got home (subway delays), so I should see to her, too." irs says, "goodnight?" Scottyg says, "G'night!" dcarson says, "gnight all" Scottyg says, "Dana, will you stop the recorder?" irs has disconnected. Scottyg has disconnected. -- End log: Wednesday, March 28, 2001 11:21:20 pm ASI Meeting Server time -- recorder stops. TimCadell says, "I didn't see discussion of the chapter rules ." TimCadell says, "In the second one either, Scotty." Scottyg selects 5-2-01 board from recorder -- Start log: Wednesday, May 2, 2001 10:04:00 pm ASI Meeting Server time -- dcarson says, "Scotty recap for the record?" Scottyg-1 says, "Yep. Let me get copy & paste going...." Scottyg-1 says, "You say, "Peter Kokh has communicated to me that LRS is more or less broke."" Scottyg-1 says, "You say, "Specifically, they are $50.00 short of having monet to mail international copies of MMM."" Scottyg-1 says, "I feel like that is partially our fault. They asked for some adjustment in " Scottyg-1 says, "rates several months ago, and we were slow to respond." Scottyg-1 says, "So, I propose that we retroactively adjust the MMM rate from $1.00 to $1.25, beginning last September, when Moon Society took over membership from ASI." Scottyg-1 says, "dcarson says, "in the long run we need to fix the overseas rate for membership but this needs to be done now"" Scottyg-1 says, "Yep, we can't tolerate the added cost long term, but we have about $7,000 in the bank so we can handle it until better arrangements are made." Scottyg-1 says, "Y" rhodab says, "Will that bail them out temporarily, or keep them going from now on?" Scottyg-1 says, "Meanwhile, it isn't a good thing for LRS to be scraping the bottom of the barrel." Scottyg-1 says, "I get $884.50 for a $0.25 increase for Sept thru May." Scottyg-1 says, "Ok, end of copy-paste." dcarson says, "we need to raise overseas rates longterm" Scottyg-1 says, "We have been paying them about $450.00 per month, so that is about 2 extra months. I think that will buy time to do a long term fix." rhodab says, "If we pay them this amount, then increase the rate beginning immediately. What is the motion?" rhodab says, "Are we lookin for a motion?" Scottyg-1 says, "The long term plan is...They will begin publishing an electronic version of MMM (.pdf), and we will give international members (maybe domestic too) the option of electronic delivery or an increase in dues to about $60.00." Scottyg-1 says, "The trial run on the pdf is supposed to happen this month." rhodab says, "Scotty, was your proposal a motion? :)" Scottyg-1 says, "For tonight, I need authorization to raise their rate to $1.25 retroactive to September, and to send a check for the back amount." dcarson says, "so moved" rhodab says, "I move that we raise the LRC rate to $1.25 retroactive to September, and to send them a check immediately for the back amount." dcarson says, "second" Scottyg-1 says, "All in favor say "Aye"" rhodab says, "Aye" Scottyg-1 says, "Aye" dcarson says, "aye" Severy says, "Aye" Scottyg-1 says, "Motion passes by unanimous vote." rhodab says, "Aint's life grand???" Scottyg-1 says, "I just wish they had made louder noises sooner." rhodab says, "Yep." Scottyg-1 says, "When I first took the job of ASI Treasurer, ASI was several months behind on paying them, and they didn't seem to have any problem about that. So their financial position has gone way down since then (In 1998)" rhodab says, "Too bad. Is it only the postage? Or, are there other factors?" dcarson says, "the jump in overseas cost was pretty large" Scottyg-1 says, "I think its just the postage, mostly international." Scottyg-1 says, "Well...I guess thats all I had for tonight." rhodab says, "Quick and efficiently done!" Scottyg-1 says, "And there's work stacked up to do." Scottyg-1 says, "So with that....See ya'll later!" -- End log: Wednesday, May 2, 2001 10:20:28 pm ASI Meeting Server time -- recorder stops. TimCadell says, "Should be April 26th." TimCadell says, "Ah, you're looking at board recordings." Scottyg says, "No log for the 26th Tim, unless it was discussed at a TLRC meeting. Let me check there." TimCadell says, "I think it was." irs says, "whassup?" Scottyg says, "I'm going thru TLRC meeting logs, and waiting for Greg to get #9 done." Scottyg says, "How do you trade places with a clone?" TimCadell says, "No clue." dcarson says, "@swap" Scottyg switches places with Scottyg-1 -- End log: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 10:59:28 pm ASI Meeting Server time --