🚀 go-pugleaf

In a new thread containing Nabster - my indeering term I suppose - in its 
title Marc made lip service to the TFN members regarding many things. Of 
course I have responded to him in the original thread. However, here are 
some new points that he - assumably an internet specialist at least by 
career chose to misled the membership:

IRC consumes bandwidth:

May be it would be enugh just to cite what Bruce Becker himself had 
published yesterday I believe about it:
 	..................................
	LAN, i.e. so that TFN users could talk to one another
        while online.  We are about to provide access to
        external IRC/chat/MUD sites via the tiered-access
        open telnet offering - internal IRC will become a
        tiered-access service as well (so as to be able to
        underwrite the added phone line usage that IRC would
        consume) when HW/SW is able to get to it...

Of course this only shows that Marc does not even know what I am - not to 
mention he - is talking about. I am speaking of a local version of IRC 
aimed at bringing TFN members together in chat. The program for this is 
already available and was tested by a volunteer - Laslo Orto I believe - 
who also made the program for the last elections. Laslo Orto has been 
persecuted as a volunteer as usual for any productive member with 
knowledge of system administration, except for the few 'trusted' persons.

This IRC was made active for one hour only, untill the plug was pulled by 
Bruce Becker himself during the last board's era. Now it is claimed that 
it will be part of the teired approach!!!!??? In my opinion it should 
never be. This is one of the main aims of any community net (known as 
freenets), i.e. bringing the community togther. As it does not consume 
any resources (bandwidth as Marc misleadingly stated), it should be free.

Not only are they not complying with the motions that were passed in the 
last AGM about IRC, but now they are trying to justify why they are not 
doing it. GUI - local version of it - can be applied, either through the 
Chebucto suit, or by adopting a BBS/like interface (Galactacom, which is 
currently used by the Big River freenet in Canada, of which I contacted 
the company and they actually were ready to donate a copy to the TFN, but 
of course the 'powers that be' vehemently refused it.). This does not 
mean the end of lynx as they may try to confuse you with. It however 
means a lot to advertisers without whom the TFN would not survive. 

I defy the board to release statistics about sponsored lines this year 
and those of last year and the year before. They would show increasing 
decline of number of sponsors and/or the money paid to sponsor a line. 
Advertisers need GUI. 

WWW IRC may be charged, though I suspect that everybody knows how to do 
it for free through TFN...

Marc asserts that it is an achievement that the TFN is still alife. I say 
no. The TFN has been kept alife due to three reasons:

1- The cutting of the office administrator salary due to his resignation. 
It is obvious that should he had wanted to stay, the board would have 
approved it, and the presence of volunteers - myself included - who 
showed interest in volunteering for the task.

2- The receipt of the last ONIP payment (of $63,000).

3- The contributions of the membership that was in the range of 3,000 - 
5,000/month. I use the term WAS intentionally, as I believe that this 
number - thanks to all the efforts of Bruce Becker in cutting services 
and some imaginative book-keeping, or lack of it - has come down to $2,000 
maximum.

No PRODUCTIVE effort has been made at fund-raising. All efforts were 
flimsy ones which were predicted to bring nothing to mention to the TFN 
treasury.

Nothing has been made to apply any money-making scheme, even the reired 
approach that was promised to be applied by last January still is not 
applied. 

Thanks to the current board, they have stripped it of its most
money-making features, i.e. charging for extra-time in excess of one free
hour per day. As hard as it takes to make that decision, it is a must if 
the TFN is to survive. One free hour a day is better than nothing....

Numbers do not lie. I defy the board to publish a comaparative table 
between the same period in the last year and the current one as regards:

- Number of active volunteers (which due to the current trends of the 
'powers that be' came down drastically, and now they blame every thing on 
lack of volunteers a problem which they have created themselves).

- Number of active committees.
- Number of ACTIVE volunteers in each committee as shown by attendance.
- Number of committee meetings.
- Number of legal board meetings
- number of excutive committee meetings (to my knopwledge the excutives 
has never met so far)
- Number of published final board minutes (the minutes currently stop in 
March and are all 'drafts'.
- Amount of money donated by membership.
- Amount of money raised by active fundraising (including in-kind donations).
- Number of new log-ins to TFN.

All these data are available - at least for the last board - and these 
are the true measures of 'success/failure'.

Some attribute the easy connectivity to TFN as an improvement, I beg to 
differ, it is because there is no more interest in TFN. It is due to less 
people trying to log in. I would not actually say that partly it was also 
due to Geoffrey's efforts. However, I would just mention that this is an 
integral part of the CSAS contract which Colin McGregor during his 
unemployment years has took upon himself to do and since then CSAS 
abandoned it. So, in truth, Geoffrey was volunteering for CSAS and not 
for TFN, Bruce Becker himself was paying him for his efforts/transportation.

Numbers do not lie.
-- 
---------------------------O00Oo-   -o000O----------------------------
Nabil M. El-Khodari              \ / "Men use thought to justify their 
IP, TFN                           V  injustices, and speech to conceal 
                                  |  their thoughts"        -Voltaire-