Motion to Restrict Non-Members to Sending Local E-Mail Only

Jul 29 13:22 UTC 1997

        This is to discuss a motion which I want to put to a member
vote:  Restricting non-members to sending "local" e-mail only
(that is, within Grex).
        I think we need to significantly change Grex' priorities.
We started out as a conferencing system (including party) with
e-mail as an add-on.  Now, through no one's fault, we have turned
into a free world-wide e-mailer with a shrinking conferencing system
as an add-on.
        I am *really tired* of having the System flooded with people
who don't participate at all in conferencing, using Grex to e-mail
people far away.  I feel exploited--taken advantage of.  And when
it gets to the point that non-member e-mail is so large in volume
that Grex has to be shut down to process the mail, it is time for
a change.  The concept of buying a separate machine to handle all
this free e-mail shows how far gone we are.   8-)
        Anyway, if we say that non-members are perfectly free to send
e-mail, but *only* to other Grexers, two things will magically happen:
        1.  Presto!  No longer will people wait in long queues to get
in here and use us for free e-mail.  We will no longer see load
averages routinely over 20.  Members will actually be able to
*get in* and use Grex.  Strangely believe it.
        2.  Non-members who *are* conferencers will need to decide
if they want to send mail off-site.  Remember, under my proposal
they would still be able to e-mail their friends on Grex.  If
they do want off-site mail, they would become members.
        We are stuck at about 100 members now.  This is barely
enuf to pay the bills.  If we pick up 50 or so new members who
*are* members of the Grex community and would like to send off-site
e-mail, that would be great!  We wouldn't have to worry about those
occasional heart-stopping months when no money comes in.
        I would like to hear comments on my proposed motion.

response 2 of 164:

Jul 29 15:41 UTC 1997

This is premature....lets wait to see how it is with the faster connection
and with mail put off on a second machine.  The faster connection will
make grex a far more desireable email alocation though (to use grex
regularly for email now you have to be something of a masochist...most
regular users Iknow forward their mail elsewhere)    This could be
reasonable in the long run if there is no other solution though.

response 4 of 164:

Jul 29 19:51 UTC 1997

I will definitely vote against this, if it comes to a vote.  The problems
it's intended to address are serious ones, but it goes way too far.
There are quite a lot of folks who contribute to this system, in terms
of extensive participation in conferencing etc., who send and receive
a small amount of offsite email, and who aren't members.  I personally
think that's fine.  I was once one of them, with no other email access
whatever I might add.  (*That* is a lot rarer than it was back then,
but I doubt it will totally go away any time soon.)

Historically, one of the goals of this system has been to minimize the number
of things differentiated by membership.  We should keep it that way.

I think Grex would be the big loser if we did this.  We would likely gain some
members, but IMO we'd lose a *lot* more participants.  In the long run it
might well create a net loss of members.  I know I would be a lot less
likely to remain a member with every step in this direction, myself.

response 6 of 164:

Jul 29 20:13 UTC 1997

   I am absolutely against using e-mail as a "stick" to get more people
to provide money to Grex.

   M-Net is complete proof that using the stick approach does not
work, and indeed has negative consequences far beyond the original
situation that created the need for said stick.

   Grex *MAY* have to restrict email at some point in the future.
I will not say that we won't ever--but I think Grex owes it to the
concept of being a free and open system to try and come up with
some imaginitive solutions to the problem first, before implementing
a mundane solution to the problem, which will have other unseen
side-effects.

   I can't go into specifics now, but there are two different
tracks I want to see us take before we think of restricting things.

   The first is social.  We have not done a good job of explaining
things about Grex to newcomers, at newuser time.  We desperately
need to re-word the beginnings of the "Tragedy of the Commons"
screen and point people to other email solutions that are far
better than Grex is.  When I originally wrote that section of
the newuser text, places like hotmail did not exist.  Now they
do, and for people in a web-browser oriented environment, they
provide far superior mail service than we ever can.  We need to
tell people about this howevert, which we never have, at all.

   The second is technical.  The impact of email on Grex is
not nearly the bandwidth coming in as CPU impact when mail is
delivered here.  Each time mail is delivered to Grex a seperate
sendmail process must be started up to deal with it.  Over the
course of a day thousands of sendmails start up.  During peak
periods we can have 15 or more copies of sendmail running,
each handling a different piece of mail (as I type this at
3:57pm there are 6 sendmails running).  During these peak
periods Grex bogs down, simply because there are so many
instances of sendmail going.

   There is a solution, which this morning just became much
closer to reality.  There is a concept called an "MX record"
associated with a domain name (cyberspace.org) that tells
machines on the net where to rooute mail to for any domain
name.  We can create a "mail.cyberspace.org" machine and have
it collect all mails from the Internet, such that *it* takes
the continuous hits all the time, thus freeing Grex from
that task.  The mail machine can then send what is likely
to be one eternal stream of data into Grex, thus ridding
Grex of the myriad of sendmail connections.

   Last weekend during a bike ride that I helped provide
communications for, I talked to a friend who has always
approved of the concept of Grex.  When I mentioned the
concept of the MX machine, he volunteered at least part
of a 486 system.  I'm pleased to say that I got mail from
him today, indicated that we can have a 33MHz 486 system
with 16M ram, box and power supply.  To make this an MX
system we will need an ethernet card (which we have),
a monochrome video card/monitor (which I think we have
or at least we have the monitor), an EIDE controller
(I believe I have one promised to us) and an IDE disk.
I know we have a spare keyboard or two.

   With open BSD or FreeBSD on it, and Grex's sendmail,
we have a mail machine.  Besides freeing Grex up from
the never ending task of collecting mail, it provides
the ability for us to continue to receive mail when Grex
is down.  A 200M disk would give us at least two days
worth of mail holding ability, and probably more than
that.

   I will be entering more about this in the garage
conference.

   Before we take drastic measures that will change
Grex in very fundemental ways, I think we should opt
for the more creative solutions first, that benefit
all.

   Grex needs to deal with growth issues.  There is
essentially no way that we can provide everything for
all the people on Earth, but we can at least take
every step possible to extend ourselves in novel ways,
and see how far that helps us, before taking the 
more predictable and mundane "solution" of shutting
things down.

response 8 of 164:

Jul 29 21:55 UTC 1997

I totally agree with Dave's response #4.

Too, dpc, Grex was not started to be a system for
conferencing and only conferencing.  If that had been
the case Grex wouldn't be as open as it is with
access to Unix tools.  Grex is a community resource
not a club.  We may someday have to retool for lack
of volunteer staff or funding or whatever but I
hardly think we have good reason to panic at this 
point.

I don't in any way resent non-paying users.  Many
contribute in other ways besides sending in money.
And some simply use resources and don't give back.
That's okay, I'm willing to subsidize those folks
in order to keep the system open and welcoming of
all.  The way I look at it is that there are 
charitable organizations I might use from time to
time to which I don't contribute a dime.  So it
all works out.   

response 10 of 164:

Jul 29 22:24 UTC 1997

I agree with what the folks opposing this have said, and don't
really have anything to add except to say that I do agree.

response 12 of 164:

Jul 30 00:02 UTC 1997

dpc ? I am getting confused, are you M-net treasurer or Grex treasurer ?

response 14 of 164:

Jul 30 02:39 UTC 1997

  Now, now.  Dave has an entirely legimate reason to think about the
impact that mail has upon Grex.  Lots of things have impact on Grex,
and need to be thought about.  What we need to do however, it look
at *all* the options we have, and make Grex the best it can possibly
be.

response 16 of 164:

Jul 30 09:07 UTC 1997

Indeed, but using such stimulations to attempt to create some sort of
hierarchy (as it obviously occuring on mnet, much to my dismay) destroys the
feeling of community.  One of the best things about grex is the huge diversity
of people, not all of whom necessarily need to be forking money.

The more I think about it, the more I think that we really need to get a
separate machine for mail purposes, if possible to relieve normal system
resources of that role.  If it's slow, that's fine:  Mail doesn't really need
to be fast, and grex isn't a mail server anyway.  I'm willing to contribute
anything I can (which probably isn't much) to the project.

response 18 of 164:

Jul 30 20:56 UTC 1997

I appreciate the well thought out comments!  Senna, we obviously
have a hierarchy now: About 100 members are carrying the financial
burdens.  Unfortunately, we don't *presently* have the capacity to
provide e-mail to the world, and doing so is bogging down the machine.
        I'm *very* glad to hear from steve that we may be able to
have a "mail machine" in the future.  Two questions arise:
(1) How much will establishing the mail machine cost in cash?
Or is everything to be donated?  (2)  *When* will this happen?
In a few days?  A month?  Or will it be like the 670 project?
        Also, I do not believe that people who use us as a free
e-mailer and don't conference are part of our "community".  
They are simply people who are taking advantage of us.
I'm tired of it.  I'm *not* tired of non-members who conference.
        Everybody wants free stuff.  Unfortunately, providing
free e-mail is preventing us from having a functioning conferencing
system, at least right now.
        When can the "Tragedy of the Commons" screen be rewritten?

response 20 of 164:

Jul 31 00:54 UTC 1997

I hate this idea, dpc.  GREX is intended (among other things) as a 
community resource to give people access to technology they wouldn't 
otherwise have access to.

If email is a problem, then as STeve says, we need to find ways to 
manage the problem and to let newcomers know that if all they want is 
email, there are better places to get it.  

We need to keep the doors open, while letting folks know that we're 
primarily a community that they're very welcome to join rather than 
primarily a "free e-mail provider".

response 22 of 164:

Jul 31 02:29 UTC 1997

We might have a hierarchy, but we dont' flaunt in the way mnet does, assigning
any paying member it can to some authority position and having little "member
of the month" trinkets telling everybody how great certain members are.  

response 24 of 164:

Jul 31 04:02 UTC 1997

   Thats not just theory Misti, but fact, I think, because we
don't have hordes of members.  The people who do fork over money
really do believe in Grex I think.  Certainly some dontate for
much more specific reasons, but I think that overall we've done
a good job of keeping to those goals that we started with.

   Audrey, do you think that things are worse now for members
than they were in the past?