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Grex > Oldcoop > #197: Is it time for Grex to stop offering e-mail? | |
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| 22 new of 71 responses total. |
twenex
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response 50 of 71:
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Nov 23 13:02 UTC 2004 |
Re: #46. Running X applications would be the other way around: the client
(say, xman) would run on GREX and connect to the user's local display server
(the thing that makes nice pictures on a monitor). Whether it would be "useful
to only a small set of users" depends on where most of our users come from
and whether that country has a lot of broadband take up. In the UK people are
taking up broadband like there's no tomorrow.
Having said that, I think that a webmail email client would be way better than
the ability to run an X client. There are so many different things that might
be run at a time that GREX might well crawl to a halt even if just using a
few clients was relatively fast (remember that even today's standard wired
ethernet connection is only just under twice as fast as what in the UK at
least is standard domestic broadband Internet service - and that's about 5
times as fast as the networks X was originally designed to run over, (10BaseT
Ethernet).
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pfv
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response 51 of 71:
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Nov 23 15:30 UTC 2004 |
re 47:
Back to that "does that count" (pop3) issue, though.
However, I was unaware Backtalk counted anyway. Interesting.
I'd rethink the 'perk' part for pop3/imap and I'd have to wonder
if the vast number or email foo-foo would benefit from a webside
interface. These issues have been around awhile.
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dpc
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response 52 of 71:
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Nov 23 15:45 UTC 2004 |
I like the idea of a web-based e-mail client on Grex! And I think
it's time to change the philosophy of offering only crippled e-mail
in the hope that people will go elsewhere for it.
Remember - the number of our members seems to be declining. We
should *not* want to send them elsewhere for anything we can reasonably
provide.
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slynne
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response 53 of 71:
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Nov 24 00:56 UTC 2004 |
I have to agree with dpc on this. If we can, it would be nice to have
decent email. Web based would be good.
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lowclass
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response 54 of 71:
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Nov 24 01:08 UTC 2004 |
And staff can, will, and has the time to do such? Let's not overload
our volunteers, okay?
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slynne
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response 55 of 71:
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Nov 24 01:10 UTC 2004 |
Yeah. I guess I was figuring that would fall under "if we can"
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keesan
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response 56 of 71:
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Nov 24 02:50 UTC 2004 |
The thing I like best about grex is that you can use pine, mutt, or mail,
instead of wasting large amounts of time ploughing through webmail. D to
delete instead of clicking on all the mails you want ot delete, then clicking
ot confirm that and waiting 30 seconds. A friend just called asking for help
figuring out how to delete his webmail. He says grex is much easier - D, Q,
Y, and you are out.
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other
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response 57 of 71:
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Nov 25 15:17 UTC 2004 |
Sindi, can't you simply accept that some people PREFER the GUI
interface?
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twenex
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response 58 of 71:
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Nov 25 15:37 UTC 2004 |
Re: #56. Or MH.
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remmers
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response 59 of 71:
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Nov 28 12:24 UTC 2004 |
GUI interfaces are wonderful for a lot of things, but for some they're
just not optimal. Which is probably why I do 95+% of my conferencing
on Grex using Picospan, not Backtalk. And I don't think it's just
because Backtalk is slower. A big part of it is that when I'm logged
in via the TTY interface, I can switch back and forth between reading
conferences, conversing in party, managing files, etc. An integrated
environment.
Not that I'm knocking Backtalk. It's a wonderful program. But a TTY
interface can do some things that the web just isn't very good at.
When it was founded back in 1991, Grex got into the email business
(and, for a while, usenet as well) because we wanted an online community
that provided free access to computer services that, at the time, were
difficult to come by. Who had internet access in 1991? Not many.
Nowadays, everybody has internet access. Email services abound, many
of which are free. So why are we still in the email business? I guess
because many members of the Grex community like using Grex for email.
I guess because the tight integration of email into the Grex online
environment offers value that commercial services like hotmail and yahoo
don't have. If you "do" email while logged in, it's part of an integrated
community environment that includes conversation, both time-shifted (bbs)
and real-time (party). You don't get that with hotmail.
We should definitely keep email. A web interface to email, integrated
with Backtalk, would be a nice addition. As pointed out above, it could
simplify such things as viewing attachments and serve as an attraction to
new users who are uncomfortable (or perhaps totally unfamiliar) with a
TTY style of interface. Keep in mind that somebody on staff would have
to implement it, though. And we don't pay our staffers very well.
I'd be opposed to offering POP or IMAP. It doesn't encourage
community-building.
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ryan
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response 60 of 71:
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Nov 30 01:21 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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mfp
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response 61 of 71:
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Nov 30 02:19 UTC 2004 |
Why would you set up a procmail filter to do that, when it's easier just to
forward it to /dev/null?
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tod
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response 62 of 71:
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Nov 30 20:48 UTC 2004 |
What's wrong with squirrelmail running IMAP locally?
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prp
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response 63 of 71:
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Dec 11 02:00 UTC 2004 |
For anyone with an ISP, and thus an email address, Grex sort of offers POP
service. You just have to use a .forward file. I checked a while back and
most staff members do this. Didn't check the board.
I do this so I don't give out my ISP mail address; it changes every time I
change ISP's.
Still it would be nice to be able to POP or IMAP Grex directly. Now that
janc is an expert on NextGrex passwords, it might not be too hard to set
it up so that POP and IMAP access didn't count toward keeping your id alive.
This would discourage people from just using Grex for email. Of course there
is and will be no way to prevent that.
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keesan
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response 64 of 71:
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Dec 17 03:36 UTC 2004 |
What is wrong with using grex just for email? We have two friends who still
use it that way. One even pays membership dues.
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dpc
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response 65 of 71:
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Dec 17 14:32 UTC 2004 |
Excellent point, Sindi!
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remmers
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response 66 of 71:
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Dec 17 16:27 UTC 2004 |
Nothing wrong with using Grex just for email. But given our limited
resources and our stated mission, we have to be careful about attracting
too much of such usage, which is what I'm afraid POP and IMAP support
would do.
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marcvh
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response 67 of 71:
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Dec 17 17:00 UTC 2004 |
Indeed; using Grex just for email doesn't really coincide with the idea
of a community. It would be like inviting someone to a party who will
ignore all the other guests and talk on a cell phone the whole time.
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tod
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response 68 of 71:
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Dec 17 18:01 UTC 2004 |
re #67
Don't invite people if you want to control how they interact.
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albaugh
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response 69 of 71:
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Dec 17 19:30 UTC 2004 |
Re: #67 - The analogy is more like the bank of courtesy or pay phones you have
in your location.
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keesan
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response 70 of 71:
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Dec 20 03:29 UTC 2004 |
Our two friends use pine for email because they don't like POP mail (chance
of viruses) or webmail (slow and hard to understand). One of them also has
an ISP account and the other dropped hers. She is looking forward to using
the newer PINE which lets you view URLs.
I signed up with sdf.lonestar.org and looked briefly at their bboard
(conferences) and went back to using just the mail, browsers (links2 is there,
with javascript, which I hope to use soon at grex), and various other useful
things like antiword and catdoc.
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jesuit
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response 71 of 71:
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May 17 02:15 UTC 2006 |
TROGG IS DAVID BLAINE
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