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Grex > Coop11 > #47: Banning a site from Grex; a discussion of when to do this | |
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| 25 new of 264 responses total. |
rcurl
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response 219 of 264:
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Jan 9 19:48 UTC 1999 |
One can also think of the e-mail users as the background population from
which come members. Individuals from that population become members for a
variety of reasons, such as that given by cmcgee, but perhaps more would
join if they were reminded that there are other things on Grex besides
e-mail, or even why and how to become a member. Grex does too little, in
my opinion, in 'promoting' users to become members - and to join into
conferencing. [If this sounds familiar, it is because others have also
been saying this, but nothing seems to be done about it. Perhaps someone
should be assigned the task of making it happen, rather than just leaving
it as an idea that everyone seems to approve of but for which no one wants
to take independent responsibility.]
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jiffer
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response 220 of 264:
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Jan 10 03:07 UTC 1999 |
I came to grex for the people, and party. I am an m-net convert. =P
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mary
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response 221 of 264:
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Jan 10 11:42 UTC 1999 |
I tend to think of conferencing in broader terms than Rane. It's online
discussion, whether that be in time-delayed public conversation (Agora,
cooking), between two or more people in private conversation (mail),
people in private real-time conversation (chat), or in public real-time
party. I would sure hope our mission is wider than simply Agora, cooking
and ing.
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rcurl
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response 222 of 264:
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Jan 10 21:57 UTC 1999 |
Are those the only cfs you follow, Mary? 8^}
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mary
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response 223 of 264:
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Jan 10 22:27 UTC 1999 |
I've been to coop once or twice. ;-)
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senna
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response 224 of 264:
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Jan 11 17:37 UTC 1999 |
I think limiting email in any way other than the 1 meg limit (which I am, once
again, flirting with, pardon my mental note to do some housecleaning later
today) would be innappropriate, but I think we should find a way to better
encourage people to participate who get on here for a faster email connection
and never socialize with a single other person on grex. There must be
something.
At least it's not a problem yet. Grex's inability to read certain types of
email might be able to keep it from ever being a problem.
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steve
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response 225 of 264:
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Jan 11 18:13 UTC 1999 |
Actaully, you're right about that--the fact that we aren't a good
place for mime stuff is a good limiter, as well as not offering pop
service.
The question about getting more people involved in the conferences
is: how?
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cmcgee
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response 226 of 264:
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Jan 12 01:33 UTC 1999 |
The question about getting more people involved in the conferences is: why?
Why should very busy people add conferencing to their lives. Why would
someone want to conference with us? Why would anyone want to get involved
with a group like Grex?
"Try it, you'll like it" is not a very powerful slogan. Until we can explain
_why_ conferencing is a worthwhile activity, we will not be very persuasive..
Most people have more than enough demands on their time, and adding another
time-expense to their limited time-budget is not a high priority.
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other
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response 227 of 264:
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Jan 12 03:29 UTC 1999 |
my main interest in conferencing is that it is a means for me to be
exposed to ideas and information i might not otherwise encounter. the
other people who participate in this activity each bring their own
interests into it, and through that, i get to see a broader slice of the
world than i otherwise would. and i especially like it because it comes
from individual people, not from organized bodies such as television
studios and corporate interests. there's no agenda, even if some
individuals have one or more. just random.
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dpc
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response 228 of 264:
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Jan 12 21:25 UTC 1999 |
Rane has a point about the articles of incorporation. "Computer
conferencing" meant the use of programs like PicoSpan when those articles
were written, and that's what it means now. Conferencing is not e-mail.
I'm afraid we've let the tail wag the dog with e-mail.
We've also lost sight of our corporate purpose. I don't think this
is a big deal legally, but it is something we need to correct.
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mta
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response 229 of 264:
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Jan 14 18:47 UTC 1999 |
We should reconsider our articles of incorporation to make sure they actually
convey what they were meant to convey...
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rcurl
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response 230 of 264:
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Jan 14 18:51 UTC 1999 |
Or what you want them to convey now? Well, it is useful now and then to
revisit one's purposes. However I suspect there are some strong differences
of opinion on whether it is a purpose of Grex to provide free e-mail to
the world in a mostly unconstrained fashion. People can get free e-mail
elsewhere.
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aruba
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response 231 of 264:
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Jan 14 20:03 UTC 1999 |
Well, just because they can get it elsewhere doesn't mean we don't want them
to come here for it. It's possible that if we did stop offering free e-mail,
we might lose our main source of new conferencers.
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rcurl
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response 232 of 264:
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Jan 15 00:11 UTC 1999 |
That's one of the arguments. Do we need an item to debate the issue,
and maybe even move toward amending the Articles to make it more evident
that we want to provide free e-mail on an open basis? Since doing this
would be a *change* in the Articles, those proposing to include our
current practice (which isn't clearly consistent with the Articles) should
propose the amendment. It should take just a few words.
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steve
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response 233 of 264:
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Jan 15 03:46 UTC 1999 |
I'm not sure we need to amend our articles. Do they need to include
everything we do? I don't see why.
In addition, we're an organization involved with a rapidly changing
technology. Things change, such that what is commonplace today was just
about unheard of a few years ago (consider where the WWW was when Grex
was started in 1991).
Because of this I don't think we should be changing them too often.
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rcurl
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response 234 of 264:
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Jan 15 05:16 UTC 1999 |
That is why it is difficult to change Articles of a MI corporation. I
raised the issue, but I have the impression that there aren't many here
that care that Grex just chooses to do things that are not consistent with
the Articles. (The change required could just broaden the purposes to
include electronic communications in genera, with one example being
conferencing. This could include all future forms of electronic
communications. Thereby Grex could just say its purpose is providing
electronic communications of any kind to the public, and drop its
identification as a specific conferencing system, which after all is a
very minor use.)
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cmcgee
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response 235 of 264:
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Jan 15 14:07 UTC 1999 |
I don't want to change our articles. I _like_ our purpose being conferencing.
The fact that auxilary services are used more than our main, purposeful
service does not mean that we should change our purpose.
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rcurl
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response 236 of 264:
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Jan 15 16:06 UTC 1999 |
Do you think that auxilary services *should* be used more than our
purpseful service and, if not, what should we do about that? After all,
e-mail is also using a very large share of processing power, investment in
equipment, staff time, and other rare resources, which are coming from the
donations largely of users that make heavy use of the conferences. In
effect, a hundred or so conferencers are subsidizing 20,000 or so e-mail
accounts.
Personally, I'd like to shift that balance a bit.
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steve
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response 237 of 264:
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Jan 15 16:54 UTC 1999 |
Thats true, 100 people are in fact subsisting all the other users.
But that was equally true back in 1991 when a smaller group of people,
like around 30 supported all the rest of Grex's user base. It was a
smaller general user base back then without the net but the effect was
still the same: a small number of people decided to support the system
and the majority don't.
Can you explain how you'd shift the balance? I don't understand
that, I don't think.
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rcurl
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response 238 of 264:
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Jan 15 17:11 UTC 1999 |
Several suggestions have been made. Something is better than nothing.
What has been suggested is to subject the non-supporters to a low level
and intermittant but consistent 'drumbeat' of reasons to support Grex
with donations or becoming a member. Are there any reasons not to do
this?
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steve
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response 239 of 264:
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Jan 15 17:33 UTC 1999 |
Hmm. I need to go back and reread 60 or so responses. No, offhand
I can't think of a reason to not ask for money *provided we don't go
overboard* as has been noted before. I'll have more to say in a bit.
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remmers
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response 240 of 264:
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Jan 15 20:36 UTC 1999 |
With #238 the issue seems to have strangely shifted from users
activity (bbs vs. mail) to money. Are you saying it's all right
for users to do whatever they want, even if it's inconsistent
with the articles of incorporation, as long as they pay? In any
case, I don't see how having a higher percentage of paying users
would address the issue of what the users are doing.
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rcurl
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response 241 of 264:
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Jan 15 21:39 UTC 1999 |
I meant to include in the drumbeat encouragment to use conferencing.
But you are right - there are (at least) two issues here. It is easier
to think of ways to encourage more income than it is to think of ways
to redress the balance between bbs and mail. For the latter purpose I
can only immediately think of making e-mail on Grex less desirable,
by limits on something - time, or bytes, or whatever. That would not,
however redress the balance by increasing bbs - only by decreasing mail.
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devnull
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response 242 of 264:
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Jan 16 00:55 UTC 1999 |
Re #241: I currently am a paying member. There is a good chance that I would
choose to not renew my membership next fall if grex decided to try to restrict
email beyond the current restrictions just because someone feels that
changing the email to bbs ratio is important, just for the sake of changing
it, and is going to reduce existing services based on the theory that doing
so will help grex to carry out its main mission.
Of course, if grex really can't withstand the current email load, and something
needs to be done to reduce mail, and the staff does that, I won't complain,
but I will be very unhappy if grex restricts its services for arbitrary
policy reasons.
I have been very impressed by how grex manages to offer a lot of services,
and decided I thought grex was doing good things and I wanted to contribute
a little bit. If grex stops trying to offer the world as much as it
possibly can given hardware, bandwidth, and staff time limitations, it
will have changed in a way that I don't like.
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steve
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response 243 of 264:
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Jan 16 01:05 UTC 1999 |
Heh. It will have changed in a way that I wouldn't like, either.
I think that, given a world of cheaper hardware we can continue to do
the things we're doing. Creativity, imagination and a modicum of
insanity will take us a long way. I don't ever want to stop pushing
the envelope on what a system like this can offer.
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