response 18 of 45:

Feb 25 03:08 UTC 2003

Re #16:  Only the Hindi-only users and wabbits (the latter have mostly
disappeared).  There's something wrong when people telnet halfway
around the world to have a conversation in a language not spoken in
their "destination" country except by people from their own.

Mostly, I hate having Grex slowed down or even stopped to process
the huge quantities of mail that these people think it's their right
to move through here; if the crush of their mail is causing problems
for people trying to use BBS, we should cut the amount of CPU and
bandwidth they use.  You'll notice that I think they SHOULD use
Grex's services to interact with the rest of Grex's user community;
that's what Grex is for.  Free-email people should be sent elsewhere
so long as our resources are constrained.

Re #17:  Returning old users would have to make a special request to
get e-mail access, same as new users.  That was in my previous proposal.

response 20 of 45:

Feb 25 14:46 UTC 2003

Re 18> Couple of points. I'm sure there are a few old users who have email
access and do not use party or BBS. What about them? Are yo saying that they
can't use email? What about new users who use BBS and party? Should they not
have email? 

You may not agree, but I think that a large chunk of people that are
introduced to grex do so because of the email service. Especially when you
work in a company that has no http access, but allows you to access telnet,
grex, and mnet are heave-send. That's the reason I came to GREX in 1997. I
stayed for totally different reasons. Of course you have to provide a
compelling case for someone to stay and become part of the community. But
saying that you're a new user, you will not be given free email will not
attract any new users to GREX and into the community. However, if you want
it that way, that no one else should be allowed into the grex community, come
out and say it. Don't hide under this email issue.

And don't limit the ban to just Hindi speaking people. I've seen people come
into party and hold conversations in Spansih and Polish. singling out
Hindi-speakers just smacks of racism, and is totally unbecoming for a GREX
user. (And the only time I've really seen Hindi speakers come into party and
try to hold a conversation in Hindi is at 3:00 am and later, when there are
no othe rEnglish speakers in party anyways. However, I've seen Spansih and
Polish speakers at the peak "English" speaking times>

response 22 of 45:

Feb 25 22:15 UTC 2003

Maybe we need a proposal to make English the Official Language of Grex, and
ban anyone who tries to speak anything else!

response 24 of 45:

Feb 25 22:28 UTC 2003

Je n'aime pas cette id e. Je ne pourrais pas  tre une personne 
d sagr able si cela se produisait. Je ne pourrais pas aller aux 
poissons de Babel obtenir de mauvaises traductions pour entrer. Je ne 
pourrais pas  tre fran ais alors. AUCUN NO. de non! 

response 26 of 45:

Feb 26 00:13 UTC 2003

(greycell, I don't think your proposal for a web interface to mail
is gonna fly....  ;-)

response 28 of 45:

Feb 26 00:24 UTC 2003

(somehow this is starting to remind me of the Simpsons episode where Mayor
Quimby starts a crusade against illegal aliens.  :(  )

response 30 of 45:

Feb 26 02:51 UTC 2003

Re #20:  I haven't seen a horde of Polish-speakers descend on party
and exclude all the English-speakers.  Hindi speakers are another matter.
(Apparently they don't know how to switch channels either, which is a
point for my argument against 'bots.)

response 32 of 45:

Feb 26 04:53 UTC 2003

Grex's ID policy does not make it harder for foreign users to send in ID -
where did you get that idea, gull?  Checking the records, I see that Grex
has received money from Australia, Canada, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, The
Netherlands, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland,
Trinadad, and the UK.  So Russ is simply wrong to suggest that no one
outside the US supports Grex.

response 34 of 45:

Feb 26 13:58 UTC 2003

Re #32: Sorry, then.  I thought that had come up as a problem during the
last debate about ID requirements.

Russ seems to have it in for Indians specifically, which I'll admit
makes me a bit uneasy about his motives.

response 36 of 45:

Feb 26 22:21 UTC 2003

Re #31:  I don't see how DNS would create problems between Grex
and Grex's terminal server.  OTOH, I have seen Grex running at
a crawl on many occasions.

response 38 of 45:

Feb 27 02:42 UTC 2003

Re #34:  Nah, the ones I really have it in for are those Scottish
scum whose idea of fun was to pretend to rape anyone female who
wandered into party.  (But after I messed with their minds when I
found them them in party, they decided they didn't like it here.)

response 40 of 45:

Mar 10 03:57 UTC 2003

I feel like there has been very little replying to greycell's questions. 
Most of the discussion has been on other topics. Jan gave a good answer 
in resp:1

I would like to reinforce that by saying that we offer mail (in part) as 
an inducement to get new users to log in and then use other features of 
the system, like conferencing (BBS) . If we let them use web mail, we'd 
be trying to enter hotmail's niche. We can't provide that kind of 
service. Mail is not the main purpose of Grex, anyway. 

OTOH

Perhaps Grex is just afraid to make things too convenient, for fear of 
being overwhelmed by demand -- somethign admittedly the internet can 
easily so if you provide a cool enough service for free. But in 
fact you could promote BBS and Party on web mail pages if we did web 
mail.

response 42 of 45:

Mar 14 13:54 UTC 2003

Hmm...interesting idea.

Actually, I'd find IMAP access for members more useful, but I suppose
there are probably security implications to that.