Letting people know about limitations on Grex

Mar 19 20:51 UTC 1995

   In the last week or so, I've found no less than twenty
SPARC binaries, and a dozen various flavors of MUD's that
people have been trying to compile here.

   Because of this, and the fact that staff is spending more and
more time dealing with things like really large mail files, I put
a new section into newuser, talking about limitation on Grex.

   We've talked about this a little before, but in the typical
Grexian fashion didn't do much about it.  I've taken the liberty
of adding this now, and we can talk about the specifics about it
here and make whatever modifications we deen necessary.

   Although it's beyond the scope of this item, we have what is
turning into a serious problem on Grex, namely how it's being
pulled in every direction, limit wise.

   This text is a reasonable first step I believe, but others might
want to change it.  I've kept it as short as possible, but its still
34 lines.  I don't see how we can shorten it and still make it useful,
but maybe we can.  I'm very much aware of the "overload" factor we
have in newuser now, but talking about limits has to be there, since
it is the one document that new people here have any chance of
automatically seeing.

   ...So, commants?


                     Limititations of Grex
                     (or, The Tragedy of the Electronic Commons)

   Because of the popularity of Grex, we're *swamped* with all the
traffic going over our Internet link.  This link is *one* 28.8Kbps
modem, over which people telnet in, mail flows, FTP, Lynx, and all
the other Internet applications share (or rather, fight over).  We're
sorry to have to talk about restrictions, but we need your help!

   Grex is primarily a computer conferencing system.  We ARE NOT
AN INTERNET PROVIDER.  This means that we aren't a good place to
store files, do FTPs from, etc.  Please do try out the conferences;
we have many topics ranging from the silly to the serious.

    You cannot use most Internet services (telnet, ftp, etc.) once
you've made an account here.  This is to prevent cyberslime from
using Grex as a jumping point to other systems for neferious purposes.
You must become a member in order to have access to these programs.
Bringing over your own copy of telnet/ftp/whatever, will not work.

,p

   We need your help to keep Grex's Intenet connection working at
anything close to a reasonable speed.  There are three main areas
of concern.  We'd really appreciate it if:

 - You do not subscribe to large mailing lists!  The staff of Grex
   have to spend too much time unsubscribing people from lists that
   they've forgotten, such that LARGE piles of mail sit waiting...
   Mail is an incredible resource pig on Grex.

 - You do not store, mail or FTP GIF, JPG or other data files here.
   Because of our slow Internet link, each transfer slows everything
   else down just a little more.

 - For programmers: Please don't bring over large software packages
   without talking to staff first.  Anything net related won't run
   once you've compiled it anyway.  We can't run MUDs or other such
   things here, because we just don't have the CPU or bandwidth for
   them.  Also, Grex is not a SPARC--so it's doubly useless to bring
   SPARC programs over here. ;-)

   Thanks, from all the staff at Grex!

response 2 of 102:

Mar 19 20:59 UTC 1995

The reason for disallowing outgoing internet access to non-members
is not "to prevent cyberslime from using Grex as a jumping point...",
so that sentence should be deleted.

response 6 of 102:

Mar 19 22:02 UTC 1995

Thank Goddess you put this in, steve.  I had no idea the MUD
situation has gotten so bad.  Were people telnetting into Grex
on a specific port to access these MUDs, or were they using
Grex accounts to access it?  (Assuming you know...)

I often get people asking me for help in compiling MUDs and
such here, I tend to be pretty straightforward with them about
why we can't do it.  I'm glad that everyone will get this message.
Maybe somthing should be put in the motd so all of our current
users will know about this?

response 8 of 102:

Mar 19 23:33 UTC 1995

I think we have access to the configuration files, but not the source
code.  Somebody correct me if that's wrong.

response 10 of 102:

Mar 20 05:09 UTC 1995

   Yes, it was just a change to a config file.  Last time I checked
however, I had access to the source to newuser in UM IFS space, so
access to newuser really isn't the point, its where do we put it here
until we get the disk problem fixed.
   I was really suprised to see the increase of large things here.
and thats what prompted me to write the limit blurb.

response 12 of 102:

Mar 20 07:43 UTC 1995

Actually I too was under the impression that internet access was dissallowed
 "to prevent cyberslime from using grex as a jumping point...".

However, I don't like the wording. Steve your constant use of the phrase
"cyberslime" in mail and official postings is one fo those items of
folksieness and familiarity I was complaining about. You invented that
word and you are making the (wrong) assumption that another person will
either know what it means or will be able to grok it from context. Some
people undoubtably will, but I'm also certain that it will also promote
confusion and MIS-understanding in alot of other peoples minds. Please
try to keep the use of compter slang and techspeak to a minimum, I hate to
break this too you, but most people havn't spent 20 years living in the
computer world. :-)

response 14 of 102:

Mar 20 11:37 UTC 1995

Hmm.  I thought that the main reason we limited outgoing internet
access was the link bandwidth was too small to support unlimited
access to it, and not because of "slimey" uses only.

Anyway, I thought the wording was too negative and prone to mis-
understanding, so I'm glad it's gone.

response 16 of 102:

Mar 20 15:18 UTC 1995

  3rd cut:

                     Limititations of Grex
                     (or, The Tragedy of the Electronic Commons)

   Because of the popularity of Grex, we're *swamped* with all the
traffic going over our Internet link.  This link is *one* 28.8Kbps
modem, over which people telnet in, mail flows, FTP, Lynx, and all
the other Internet applications share (or rather, fight over).  We're
sorry to have to talk about restrictions, but we need your help!

   Grex is primarily a computer conferencing system.  We ARE NOT
AN INTERNET PROVIDER.  This means that we aren't a good place to
store files, do FTPs from, etc.  Please do try out the conferences;
we have many topics ranging from the silly to the serious.

    You will not be able to use most Internet services (telnet, FTP,
etc.) once you've made an account here.  You must first become a
member in order to have access to these programs.  Bringing over your
own copy of telnet/ftp/whatever, will not work.

,p
   We need your help to keep Grex's Intenet connection working at
anything close to a reasonable speed.  There are three main areas
of concern--we'd really appreciate it if:

 - You do not subscribe to large mailing lists and then forget about
   them!  The staff of Grex spends a lot of time unsubscribing people
   from lists that aren't read.  If you decide to leave Grex, *please*
   unsubscribe yourself from the lists you are on.  Mail is now the
   single most resource intensive application on Grex.  Your help in
   curbing "mail bloat" is sincerely appreciated!  If you create a 
   ".forward" file here, do remember that all the mail you get on Grex
   will wind up having twice the impact on Grex's Internet link.

 - You do not store, mail or FTP GIF, JPG or other data files here.
   Because of our slow Internet link, each transfer slows everything
   else down just a little more.

 - For programmers: Please don't bring over large software packages
   without talking to staff first.  Anything net related won't run
   once you've compiled it anyway.  We can't run MUDs or other such
   things here, because we just don't have the CPU or net bandwidth
   for them.  Also, Grex is not a SPARC--so it's doubly useless to
   bring SPARC programs over here. ;-)

   Thanks, from all the staff at Grex!

response 18 of 102:

Mar 20 15:45 UTC 1995

Yes, I really like this statement now.  Typo: Intenet
Thanks STeve.

response 20 of 102:

Mar 20 20:47 UTC 1995

  OK, changes made: 1) fixed Intenet spelling, 2) the WE ARE NOT AN
INTERNET PROVIDER has a WE in it now, and is on its own line for clairty,
3) the comment about .forwards having twice the impact has a little more
explaination, 4) the second screen is now less than one screenfull.

response 22 of 102:

Mar 21 04:27 UTC 1995

   I understand what you're saying.  It is negative, but then again,
perhaps the negativism is a good thing?  We're *really* getting swammped
these days.  Part of me thinks that its a reasonable thing to state it
nicely, though loudly.  The other part says make it nicer.  I don't know.

response 24 of 102:

Mar 21 08:13 UTC 1995

I saw keep the tone a tad harsh. Maybe it will stick in peoples minds
that way.