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| Author |
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| 25 new of 256 responses total. |
gerund
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response 179 of 256:
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Feb 11 08:33 UTC 1995 |
# 175 bothers me, because while it's Rane's view of what Grex is it's not
everyone's view. If you don't like what you find in party then don't
go there. Most people can handle that.
As for people who have judged Grex by party that's like judging the
United States by a visit to New York City. It's not the
fault of partiers and those that enjoy party when someone judges Grex
by what they see in one particular area of Grex that they don't
happen to like.
Some of you seem to be worried about losing users users who are put
off by party. I think you have a bigger threat of losing users who
are put off by a confusing conferencing system. Picospan is
wonderful, and as much as I like it I know plenty of people
who have come to me complaining about how different it is from other
sites and how hard it is to become used to it. I would mention the
lag problem, but that seems to be pretty much under control
at least from my perspective.
Grex is going to be what the users make of it. No one rams party
down anyone's throat. If newusers aren't aware of the other
'attractions' of Grex outside of party then perhaps the individuals
who wish them to be made aware should do something about
it.
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carson
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response 180 of 256:
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Feb 11 10:07 UTC 1995 |
<not to piss on Gerund YET AGAIN, but...>
I agree with #175, including its call for possible *discussion*, but, as
remmers reminded us earlier, this *is* the "Conference Proposals" item,
and we *really* shouldn't be drifting here, so I'll do something, i.e.,
enter item for above discussion, rather than simply talk about it and
wonder why other people aren't acting.
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carson
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response 181 of 256:
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Feb 11 10:14 UTC 1995 |
item #103 continues the above discussion.
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lilmo
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response 182 of 256:
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Feb 11 22:26 UTC 1995 |
Why do you think that newbies find Picospan daunting? I found it extremely
easy to use, especially with judicious use of the "help" command... *shrug*
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sidhe
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response 183 of 256:
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Feb 12 02:21 UTC 1995 |
To be honest with you, I don't know why. It just WAS. Carson's brought
up a good point, though, we really ought to take this to the new item.
I'll go voice my support of gerund's statement over there..
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gerund
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response 184 of 256:
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Feb 12 02:41 UTC 1995 |
ditto
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steve
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response 185 of 256:
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Feb 12 05:07 UTC 1995 |
There are many reasons for that. But one that I've seen is that these
days, more and more people have been brought into computers by a graphical
interfcace, mostly. I have seen people get confused and nervous looking
at 'command line interface' software, compared to their more familiar Macs
and Windows systems.
So a lot of people sit there, pawing at thier mice, wondering what
they should try. The familiar help system is missing, and the number of
people who haven't the foggiest idea that 'help' might show something
useful astounds me.
The general knowledge of computers has really changed in just the
last couple of years. People that write me for help now routinely have
no idea what type of terminal their software emulates, or what that phrase
even means. Many haven't the slightest idea of whats going on under the
hood. Now, I don't see this as a problem in and of itself, becuase this
one of the ways we're getting neat people here. But helping people like
that gets difficult at times, as I have to lead them through each step
of things, trying to determine what they have.
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ajax
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response 186 of 256:
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Feb 12 06:55 UTC 1995 |
Any good command-line conferencing system takes some learning, because
there are a number of commands and options. There may only be five
commands you need, but if you don't know that, or you don't what they are,
it's confusing! Help screens sometimes list *all* a program's commands.
For text conferencing systems, maybe a menu interface to conferences would
simplify things for new users. (Though pico pros would sure hate it!!!)
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srw
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response 187 of 256:
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Feb 12 07:15 UTC 1995 |
Indeed, I think this might make an interesting Visual Basic or
Hypercard/Supercard project. Front-end for Picospan.
This has been suggested before. It still seems like a good idea to me.
What it needs is a good programmer who's interested in the idea, and who
has lots of time on his/her hands. This is the rub.
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ajax
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response 188 of 256:
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Feb 12 08:51 UTC 1995 |
That'd be much cooler even; I was just talking about a text menuing system.
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danr
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response 189 of 256:
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Feb 12 14:45 UTC 1995 |
Mark Conger and I have talked about this a little. I think that this
could even be done with the scripting language that comes with most
Windows terminal software. If anyone's interested in doing the pro-
gramming, I could resurrect my notes.
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popcorn
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response 190 of 256:
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Feb 12 15:44 UTC 1995 |
Re 185: A lot of the people who won't look at the help screens are the
same people who refuse to ask for directions when they're out driving and
they're lost. :)
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sidhe
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response 191 of 256:
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Feb 12 17:16 UTC 1995 |
No, alot of these people are used to microsoft-style help, which is
worhtless. Windows isn't a good thing to lock into.. *I* don't run windows,
and neither did the southfield public library terminal I used to get
used to grex with. If the front-end was windows based, you'd be neglecting
a lot of folks.
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eldrich
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response 192 of 256:
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Feb 12 19:25 UTC 1995 |
re #152 Sorry 'bout that, just joking around with a quote from ziggy, no hard
fealings meant!
Eld
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danr
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response 193 of 256:
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Feb 12 21:45 UTC 1995 |
re #191: Windows Help is only as good as the information that the
software vendor provides. Some of the Windos programs I use have great
on-line help; other programs have very poor help. I think the help
engine that Windows provides is pretty good, in general.
Yes, we would leave some people behind if the visual interface ran
only under Windows, but it would be nearly impossible to write such a
program that would run just as well under both DOS and Windows.
Targeting a program for Windows makes sense because a Windows program
will be easier to write *and* satisfy a lot of users.
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sidhe
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response 194 of 256:
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Feb 12 22:43 UTC 1995 |
Well, not this user. My good freind jwp also uses a dos-based terminal
program, as does all of the metronet stations at Southfield, f-hills, farm-
ington, W. Bloomfield, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Rochester hills, etc.
You guys get "perused" by first timers through these connections enough
that I would advise against a windows-based help program for PicoSpan.
I would honestly say that the hypertext format would be a far
better choice, as any decent comm program can handle it.
Including all the ones I just mentioned.
By the way, I was referring to newbies being used to the kind of
rancid help you find nowadays in MS products.. very poor. This may turn
them off to the entire idea of ever using help anywhere.. that's what I
meant with that statement.
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popcorn
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response 195 of 256:
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Feb 13 13:56 UTC 1995 |
Hm. I don't think Dan is talking about setting things up so that the
only way to get into Grex is through windows. Rather, he's talking about
adding a new additional way to use the system.
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srw
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response 196 of 256:
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Feb 13 15:56 UTC 1995 |
Exactly. It makes sense to do a good job for some platform, and it makes
sense to pick a well-used platform. The choice of windows is pretty much
unassailable from that pov. No one is saying that a *Dos* front-end program
or a hypercard stack are bad ideas.
In the absence of such a front end, picospan would be just as accessible
as it is today, in line mode.
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danr
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response 197 of 256:
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Feb 13 17:10 UTC 1995 |
re #195: Absolutely right! The visual interface running under Windows
would be only one way to get to Grex. All those folks currently using
terminal emulators under DOS could still connect just as they are
doing now.
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helmke
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response 198 of 256:
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Feb 13 17:14 UTC 1995 |
Basically just a menu system that calls obscure commands. No personal
memorization needed.
I can still use Compuserve from a terminal program.
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sidhe
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response 199 of 256:
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Feb 13 17:37 UTC 1995 |
Yes, yes, yes.. What I'm saying is this bright shiny new thing won't
be of any additional help to many of the people who need it most, seeing
as many terminal programs are NOT windows based. I'm stating that to
make this additional help available only via windows will exclude a
good amount of newbies, whom it is mostly being targetted at.
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helmke
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response 200 of 256:
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Feb 13 22:03 UTC 1995 |
And I guess the next logical question is that "if they don't know about
Grex, it's their first time in, how are they going to have this program?"
I hadn't thought of that before.
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eldrich
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response 201 of 256:
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Feb 14 00:30 UTC 1995 |
Sorry to interupt your conversation but I have a .cf to propose. Face it the
music .cf is just too big (152 items and counting)! So I propose this:
Alternative the place for chat about Alternative music (or whatever you like to
call it), grunge and all the stuff that goes with it. I can volenteer to FW it
if it flys
Eldrich
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carson
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response 202 of 256:
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Feb 14 03:21 UTC 1995 |
echo #166. ;)
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popcorn
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response 203 of 256:
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Feb 14 04:04 UTC 1995 |
Re 201: Hm. I've heard complaints that the music conference is too
*quiet*. It's one of the oldest conferences on Grex, and it's never
been re-started. Some options you might want to explore:
1) Join the conference and type "fix". This marks all the items in
the conference as if you had already read them. Then type
"read since 2/1/95" (or some other date) to see how much actual activity
the music conference has had in the last few weeks. You might find
that only a few of the items are getting responses.
2) Another option would be to ask the music conference fair witnesses
if they think it's time for the conference to be re-started.
Depending on what's already in the music conference, this might be
a good or a bad idea. For example, if the conference is full of
people talking about very topical issues that quickly become outdated,
there would be no reason to keep those items around for people to
look back at. On the other hand, if the conference is full of
long archival discussions that would be useful for someone to later
look back at, it might make sense to keep the old items around
(and maybe delete some of the topical items that aren't relevant
anymore) and simply start new items to discuss new topics.
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