response 26 of 48:

Oct 9 09:28 UTC 2002

I am polytarp!

response 28 of 48:

Oct 9 17:00 UTC 2002

(SIgh) .. in #25: s/with/without and s/a/and. It must have been the hour...

response 30 of 48:

Oct 9 18:00 UTC 2002

Bummer, personal subjects don't come over from one conference to 
another.  Oh, well, I was just curious on that one anyway.

Hey, Jan, would it be possible to list the conference(s) to which an 
item is linked?  Also, how about an option to read an item in all of 
the conferences to which it's linked, or just in one (or some) of those 
conferences?

How about a way to jump from one conference in which you're reading an 
item, to another one?  Someone could choose to cruise over to the 
sports conference from agora when reading this item, for example.  That 
might help to bring some users from agora to the specialty 
conferences.  (Hypertext for Grex.)

This item is currently (and temporarily) linked from Autumn 2002 Agora 
#3 to sports #123, just for a test.  I doubt sports needs a system 
announcements item but it's the only conference to which I can link.

response 32 of 48:

Oct 10 02:38 UTC 2002

Coulnd't a line be added in the item file for Backtalk for each 
conference to which the item is linked?  That would seem simpler than 
an item search.  It could be updated when the item is created or linked 
or unlinked, and it could include all of the pseudonynms for the 
conference name, if desired.  If Jan is creating whole separate copies 
of items for purposes of displaying HTML, this doesn't seem like much 
overhead.

response 34 of 48:

Oct 10 10:08 UTC 2002

Re #32:  For a scheme like that to work, Picospan would have to
cooperate.

response 36 of 48:

Oct 10 18:45 UTC 2002

Yup.  There are lots of reasons it would be nice to be able to quickly
find all conferences to which an item is linked.  Fairly simple
extensions to the item file format would handle this (at least simple
for Backtalk, which, unlike Picospan, isn't shy about size-altering
edits of item files).  But if a link is made from Picospan, Backtalk
would have to detect the fact that a link was made and search for it's
other end.  The search isn't really all that expensive, and having done
it once you'd save the result in the file.  But there are a lot of
complexities in the code. There isn't even a clean "list of all
conferences" to search.  You'd also have to do the search again if the
item was linked to three places and killed in one.  

This will probably get implemented someday, but not too soon.  It's yet
another situation where having participation files and conference sum
files in an SQL database would be very nice.

You can say "This item is linked to conf:sports" or if it happens to be
sports item 54 (which it probably isn't) "This item is being linked from
item:agora,3 to item:sports,54".

I think some other systems have things like "favorites".  It isn't
modeled on anything in particular though.  Just a feature I've always
wanted.

I'm probably going to install the new Backtalk as the default very soon
now.  It seems to be working right.

response 38 of 48:

Oct 13 02:11 UTC 2002

Backtalk 1.2.3 is now the default Backtalk.

response 40 of 48:

Dec 1 14:11 UTC 2002

The polls are open now through December 15 for the 2002 Grex Board of
Directors election.  There are six candidates for three open positions:

  Mark Conger (aruba)
  Sylvia Copeland (bhelliom)
  Carson Rizor (carson)
  Joe Gelinas (gelinas)
  Anne Perry (mooncat)
  Sapna Mahboobani (mynxcat)

For more information or to cast a ballot, type "vote" from a Unix shell
prompt, "!vote" from just about any other prompt, or on the web go to
http://cyberspace.org/cgi-bin/pw/voting-booth .  Anybody can vote, but
only the votes of members in good standing will be counted to determine
the election outcome.

If you cast a vote and change your mind later, you can re-vote as many
times as you want.  Your most recent ballot will replace any earlier one.

The vote program will display a brief "campaign statement" from each
candidate who prepares one.  I've emailed all the candidates instructions
on how to prepare their statements.  Since I did this recently, not all
the candidates have prepared statements yet; more statements may show up
over the next few days.

response 42 of 48:

Dec 5 00:15 UTC 2002

Did backtalk 1.2.5 crash the system today?

response 44 of 48:

Dec 5 12:54 UTC 2002

Not quite.  Maybe version 1.2.6 will be able to do that.

response 46 of 48:

Dec 5 19:56 UTC 2002

Or a cherry pie?

response 48 of 48:

Dec 16 13:04 UTC 2002

Winners of the 2002 Grex Board of Directors election are Mark Conger
(aruba), Anne Perry (mooncat), and Joe Gelinas (gelinas).  See Coop
item 138 (item:coop,138) for detailed election results.