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| Author |
Message |
jwp
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Red Tape
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Jun 3 09:35 UTC 1995 |
I would really like to discuss the changes I've seen in grex since I first
logged on a year and 3 months ago...It seems to me when I first logged on
this was a free system where people had thier say and where it was fairly
ran...now...I'm not saying it's not fairly run at all...but I'm saying
Grex has become so wrapped up in red tape it could rival the IRS...Now we
worry about the good of the elite few and not the many in some cases...I
could go back and state all the political double talk that happens...It's
known to exist here...and I think we really need to just address it full
out...When we start locking people out of membership because of their
fear...when we stand back and look at one side of the picture in locking
out a user...I'm not saying there shoudl be no rules...but the rules can't
lock off a persons frredom of speech...the rules can't trample on a
person...the rules can't take away what the system once stood for...this
once was a place anyone could proudly call a place on the net where they
hang out...now we're so scared of misuse and everything else that what
used to be no longer exists...I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees
this...and I truly belive we should discuss this...I mean no disrespect..
but one who never risks...never truly lives...and I'm afraid Grex has
stopped risking just so it can hide in the little nich it's made for
itself... This issue has been avoided and only eluded to for awhile...I
think it's time to talk about it...
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| 115 responses total. |
remmers
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response 1 of 115:
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Jun 3 09:45 UTC 1995 |
Could you give some examples of the kinds of things you're talking
about?
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jwp
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response 2 of 115:
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Jun 3 09:53 UTC 1995 |
Sure...I'm talking about the squabbles that go on...about accounts and
stuff...one of the things I'm Talking about sidhe's attempt at a
conference only to be told it shouldn't be done...I'm talking about what
happened to avi...granted he did act hasty...but I feel a narrow outlook
was used...I'm talking about how whenever there's a question about how
open the system is it's doubbletalked...I'd have to go back and get more
examples and direct quotes if you want...It's just sad what I see happening...
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robh
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response 3 of 115:
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Jun 3 10:07 UTC 1995 |
You've really lost me here, jwp. I know, I'm on staff now, obviously
the Elite Inner Circle of Grex (tm) has either converted me or
brainwashed me into thinking how wonderful things are here, but I
don't see that much difference from when I started. We had plenty
of problems in the early days, too, I remember losing two of my
favorite Grexers in the summer of 1992 because of similar arguments,
that the Board members changed the rules whenever they felt like
it to suit their needs. And I didn't see it then, and I still don't
see it now.
I'm not sure what every last bit of your entry refers to, but obviously
the not-trusting-someone-to-be-a-member refers to selena. Justin,
what are we *supposed* to do here? We're not allowed to let people
loose on the Internet without being able to track them down, or we're
just asking for trouble. Okay, so you say, "But you know selena,
Rob, you know she wouldn't do anything like that!" I still say,
if selena is so wonderful, and cares so much about Grex, she can
either get over her fear of one Grex person (GASP!) knowing her address,
or she can get the counseling she needs to deal with it.
(You know what I just realized, folks? jwp is asking us to do exactly
what keats and mythago accused us of those three years ago, showing
favoritism to someone and changing the rules, just because we like
them. From "you have too few real rules" to "you have too many rules"
in three years. I think I've had an epiphany...)
I think I'd like to hear more specific complaints before saying
anything more.
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jwp
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response 4 of 115:
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Jun 3 10:14 UTC 1995 |
No I only asked that each case be taken taken as just that...a seperate
case...maybe I'm living in an idealistic world...wherethings are looked at
individually and not as a block...I'm only trying to say that we can't go
to one extream or the other...too many rules or not enough...why can't we
just find a middle ground where there are just enough rules without the
redtape and the changing of the rules and double talk I've seen happen...
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robh
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response 5 of 115:
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Jun 3 10:15 UTC 1995 |
(#3 slipped in.)
Look, nobody told sidhe "You can't do a conference here, we won't let
you, go away." He was told that PicoSpan wasn't set up to do that,
and if he wanted to write his own conferencing software to do it,
he was welcome to. (That's how I remember it, please correct me
if I'm wrong.) I am getting really p*ssed off at the number of people
in cyberspace who think there's a conspiracy against them because
programmers won't graciously drop whatever they're doing in life to
spend weeks and months writing programs for them. It is *not* our
"duty" to implement these things just because someone thinks it
would be a good idea. (While we're at it, I'd like the staff to
write a program for me that runs whenever I log on, writing a haiku
that says how wonderful I am. In English *and* Japanese. Come on,
hurry up, I don't have all day! >8)
As for the "system openness", I don't know. I think it's amazing
that any site still lets users get accounts here without getting
their address, phone number, and credit card number first. The
potential for lawsuits here is pretty bad. So how "open" should
we be? Should we let users run rampant through the system and
delete the files of people they don't like? I've heard a fair
number of users say they like that idea. I wonder what they'll
think when their files are the ones missing, with the
"dont ever mess with me again fuqr" message left in their place.
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chelsea
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response 6 of 115:
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Jun 3 14:18 UTC 1995 |
Welcome to staff, robh.
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scg
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response 7 of 115:
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Jun 3 14:49 UTC 1995 |
(Rob could probably create a new database for the fortune program to
generate the haikus he wants. ;))
I keep hearing things about, "you have too many rules," or "it's not fair;
you won't let me do this," but whenever I hear something like that there's
generally a very good reason for the rule, which the person complaining
about it is generally unwilling to address. I'll take this issue far more
seriously if jwp, or somebody else, can come up both with examples of
rules or actions they don't like, and a reasonable explanation of what
could be done instead.
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steve
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response 8 of 115:
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Jun 3 16:15 UTC 1995 |
Agreed. Justin, I honestly don't see what you are taking about,
yet. You can convince me, but only if you give concrete examples.
As far as "locking out a user", that has happened only twice in
the history of Grex. I daresay that other systems would have taken
action *long* before Grex did. ...And, since Grex is an open system,
we didn't even knock them off the system--we just took away the
particular account names they'd been using. I think that both will
get their accounts back, too.
As Grex grows, we will have to have more general guidelines. An
example thats been cropping up more and more lately, is people who
create accounts on Grex, make a .forward file for their mail, and
subscribe to a mailing list. This has the effect of doubling the
load of that user, since the mail has to come into Grex, and then
go back out again, further clogging our incredibly small Internet
link pipe. Another thing seems to be people FTPing large files into
Grex. Two days ago (6/1) we had a user upload a 21M tar file, which
took 18 hours to get here. That was (so far) our most extreme example,
but we have lots of people who've uploaded 2M files. At some point,
our notices in newuser are going to have to get stronger, somehow.
So these are some examples of things that are going to rquire a
response, and I sure want to see it done in the most reasonable,
least governmental way possible.
Rob already talked about sidhe's conference, but I can't see why
you'd include that in your list of concerns--he wanted the power to
potentially be able to censor responses that no other conference had,
and we more or less talked that down. That was a argument for freedoms,
not for increased strictures against people.
One thing I'd like to know: do people really think there is an
"elite" on Grex? If so, how can we help to change that?
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remmers
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response 9 of 115:
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Jun 3 17:23 UTC 1995 |
I have a different view of sidhe's conference proposal. Although I
personally don't think it would have worked the way he felt it would,
I'd have been willing to set it up and let him try it, *if* we had
the software for it. Trouble is we don't, and it would have meant
hours, days, or weeks of somebody's (donated) time to write it.
Nobody wanted or had the time to do that. So the reason he didn't
get the conference set up the way he wanted was technical, not
philosophical.
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dam
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response 10 of 115:
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Jun 3 17:29 UTC 1995 |
jwp, I think you are over-reacting. most of the "rules" here seem to me
to be common sense. The freedom for you to swing your fist ends at the
next person's nose.
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amoco
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response 11 of 115:
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Jun 4 00:44 UTC 1995 |
Wow...I've always thought of grex as a place I go every now and then and chat
with some good friends. I always imagined a happy place where everyone was
nice and cool and everything was neat and simple and tidy. I always knew it
was there, the lock outs, the refusals, the elitests (I'm still shakey on that
part), but I never stopped to think about them. The inner skeleton of con-
troversial matters lurking in grex's realistic under belly shakes me.
Of course, we need rules, and we need (some) restrictions (maybe), but I've not
thought much of some sort of corrupt grex where people argue like lawyers.
Can't something not resemble America's problems? Am I going to take a vacation
and find my account gone? Am I going to be framed and locked off me favorite
BBS? I'm worried! I've always felt safe and secure in this happy little
town called grex. Maybe we should all calm down and restock our values, wants
and needs.
Thanks for reading me.
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janc
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response 12 of 115:
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Jun 4 00:49 UTC 1995 |
You're welcome, but I'm not sure I *am* reading you.
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amoco
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response 13 of 115:
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Jun 4 00:53 UTC 1995 |
Yes you, are trust me. And thank yu for not smoking.
Heehee
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kerouac
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response 14 of 115:
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Jun 4 00:57 UTC 1995 |
In fact I have a friend who up until recently worked at the FBI, and
she has told me the agency would love to shut open access places like
grex and mnet down. Just today, there was a story in the news about some
kid who brought a bomb to school. He learned how to make the bomb from
info on the 'net, and police being interviewed were saying things like
"who do we prosecute? the server?" and "the net is dangerous"
So I think we have to enjoy grex while we can and stop harping on the
bad things. One day staff may have to voice verify each new user and
get credit card #'s and social security #'s. Dont think it cant happen.
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amoco
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response 15 of 115:
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Jun 4 01:03 UTC 1995 |
Now I'm more worried.
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steve
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response 16 of 115:
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Jun 4 01:13 UTC 1995 |
It could happen, but I think that ultimately, we'll be able
to bypass that. ...There are those who call me overly optimistic,
but I think we as a nation will get by the coming dark days.
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janc
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response 17 of 115:
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Jun 4 03:31 UTC 1995 |
I don't believe that anyone will succeed in forcing us to do that.
We are much more capable of putting up an effective fight than those
people might think.
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rcurl
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response 18 of 115:
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Jun 4 06:12 UTC 1995 |
I've been on grex for 2.5 years and I can not say that I see any change
in "grex" not attributable to some significant changes in its
circumstances. One is the opening of a link to the internet, which has
created many new problems with dealing with a great influx of new users.
Nevertheless, although policies have been adopted, I can't think of any
that made the system less free.I definitely disagree with the statement
"Grex has become so wrapped up in red tape it could rival the IRS". The
only "red tape" that is appearing (slowly) is related to *satisfying*
the IRS - and the users never see any of it. So I also don't understand
what jwp is complaining about. It must be something, though, so I'd like
to understand what it is, so it can be fixed. What specific "fixes"
would you suggest, jwp?
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steve
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response 19 of 115:
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Jun 4 15:29 UTC 1995 |
Something to remember is that we've grown by a factor of 15 compared
to the days of Grex's pre-Internet existence. I think we've had a lot
less than a factor of 15 increase in problems.
But, the number of problems has risen. I'm just thankful (and a
little surprised) that we haven't had more problems.
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peacefrg
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response 20 of 115:
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Jun 4 16:04 UTC 1995 |
You guys have to remember that staff are just people like us.
They volunteered to work for grex. Don't badger them.
I for one appreciate everything the staff have ever done and they do *a lot*.
I've been on grex for little over a year now and I have noticed a decline
in things. However I don't attribute it to staff or the system.
It seems more like a moral problem. people's nerves have been
getting shorter lately and it seems that the littlest
things are gettting blown out of proportion and flame wars sstart from them.
Plus, with all of the new users coing on lately we are getting a lot
of different attitudes, opinions, and politeness factors integrated
within grex. Remember peoples, grex isn't an elite club.
New people will be coming on and things are bound to change. If you look at how
much grex has changed for the good in the last year, it outweighs the bad by a
lot. And if this whole thing is about ryan and avi, they brought it on
themselves. I don't want either of them to leave, but remember. It was their
choice to do what they did. everybody has to face the music eventually.
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sidhe
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response 21 of 115:
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Jun 5 02:30 UTC 1995 |
Allow me, ladies, and gentlemen, to shed light on a subject that
NO one has gotten correct yet, here.
My conference was dissallowed on virtue of software conflicts,
at first, so then I entered an item in last coop, asking if there were any
programmers willing to volunteer to help me build my own cf platform here.
Instantly it turned into the very philosophical mish-mash all of
you have been so thoroughly denying.
And, as for restricting freedoms, I ask of you this: are you not
also restricting the freedom of those who would want to use such a
safehaven as i had proposed? Or my freedom to attempt it? Remmers said
above, that he would be willing to at least let me try. Sporting of him.
You all could learn a lot from such an example.
Indeed, if all of the work and time put into said project was not
staff's, why would you object on any grounds that are NOT philisophical?
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scg
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response 22 of 115:
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Jun 5 03:47 UTC 1995 |
I agree that there were a lot of philosophical objections when you
proposed it, but I don't think anybody was refusing to let you try. What
people were refusing to do, some for time reasons, and some for
philosiphical reasons, was to do the necessary programming for you. That
you can have a lot of freedom on Grex does not mean that other Grexers are
obligated to do the necessary programing to make your ideas work.
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robh
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response 23 of 115:
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Jun 5 10:35 UTC 1995 |
Hey, people have philosophical discussions around her on the
drop of a hat. I don't think anyone was saying "No, we must never
let this conference happen", I think it was just a discussion of
what the results would be. I myself had no interest in taking part
in such a conference, or programming it, but I thought it would
be an interesting experiment, and I actually hoped that you
would pull it off.
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janc
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response 24 of 115:
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Jun 5 17:21 UTC 1995 |
I wasn't here at the time, and I don't know what it is, but when people
ask me to program stuff, I often decline on the basis of my philosophical
objections (though more often on the basis of my being too busy). That
doesn't mean I would stop anyone else from doing it.
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