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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 123 responses total. |
mary
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response 50 of 123:
| 
Jun 18 12:26 UTC 2000 |
I very much agree with John's #48.
It seems like folks want Grex to offer the privacy of a small
invitation-only club yet they complain about how the discussions
are predictable with the same folks rehashing the same topics.
I'd like to see all of Grex indexed and searchable on the Web.
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srw
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response 51 of 123:
|
Jun 18 18:30 UTC 2000 |
While I wholeheartedly agree with the Remmerses logic and point of view
(certainly such indexing would have no chilling effect upon me), I am
concerned that so many others feel differently. I wouldn't want to see
Grex enact anything that would have as chilling an effect on its
conferences as it appears that this proposal would have.
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krj
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response 52 of 123:
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Jun 18 19:18 UTC 2000 |
This proposal has potentially interesting interactions with the arguments
over the "scribble" command, in that Grex conference responses which are
potential torts would be much more widely distributed, and much more
likely to be acted upon; and the most immediate demand in such an action
is going to be for the material to be removed from Grex.
Let's take a particular recent example. If the current Agora gets indexed,
anyone who *ever* searches for the name of a certain grocery store chain
is going to turn up the allegation of unfair labor practices in this
Agora conference.
The store could quite reasonably conclude that this is an ongoing
libel and demand that the material be removed, and they have the resources
to file a lawsuit about it.
Here's another recent example. We had a short-lived participant in the
music conference who entered a long list of MP3 files he was offering
to trade. I waffled on removing the item -- after all, whether the exchange
of such information as a directory of files is illegal is one of the key
issues in the Napster lawsuit. And then the item spawned the best discussion
in the music conference in ages, about the legal, ethical and business
implications of the MP3 scene.
I figure that the initial list of Mp3 files probably does little to no
harm: I'm not even sure the guy who posted it left any way for anyone to
find him. But I'm sure the music industry cruises the web looking for
people trading MP3 files; if we index this item, I would expect to hear
from their lawyers demanding the removal of this text.
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jmsaul
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response 53 of 123:
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Jun 18 20:02 UTC 2000 |
I wouldn't allow indexing of text that was already here before the decision
to index, that's for sure.
It's one thing to know that your posts could be read by anyone who happens
to wander into an obscure old-style BBS. It's another to know that potential
employers will turn them up if they run an AltaVista search on your name
(which some are doing).
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goroke
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response 54 of 123:
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Jun 18 20:28 UTC 2000 |
Joe is right on this. Any decision to index items on this system should be
strictly limited to items entered after a clearly and publicy-announced date,
and notice of this indexing should appear as permanent part of either the MOTD
or on BBS startup.
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slynne
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response 55 of 123:
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Jun 18 21:46 UTC 2000 |
I agree that if this policy is implemented, current conferences and
posts shouldn't be indexed. Allow people to change their names so that a
search on their name wont turn up anything
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mwg
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response 56 of 123:
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Jun 29 01:00 UTC 2000 |
I always held the whole idea of a web interface to be asking for trouble,
so you can guess my opinion here.
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remmers
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response 57 of 123:
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Jun 29 13:10 UTC 2000 |
Opinion noted, but disagreed with. Web access is a key to survival
of systems like Grex in this day and age.
From the discussion so far, there appears to be a rough concensus
that it's okay to index conferences if people have advance warning.
Okay, I'm about to propose a new conference, and part of the
proposal will be that it be web-searchable. Look for the
proposal in a day or two.
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scg
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response 58 of 123:
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Jul 2 08:37 UTC 2000 |
I suppose, before there is thought to be a concensus, I should say that I
don't agree with that position, for reasons that I think I've already
explained earlier in this item. I'm not sure whether anybody else agrees with
me on this, though.
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aruba
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response 59 of 123:
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Jul 2 14:55 UTC 2000 |
I'm not thrilled with the idea either, but I haven't really made up my mind
yet. I wouldn't want to see anything smaller than whole items indexed in
any case.
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cmcgee
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response 60 of 123:
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Jul 3 20:41 UTC 2000 |
I'm with aruba. I don't want any current conference indexed; I don't want
my individual responses indexed. I probably would not participate at all in
a conference where someone could search for any version of my name and find
all my responses under that name-form.
This is not simple paranoia; there has already be a cyber-stalker case where
someone put together and incredibly detailed picture of a person's life just
by searching out all his posts in a series of newsgroups.
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jp2
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response 61 of 123:
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Jul 3 21:24 UTC 2000 |
This response has been erased.
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jmsaul
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response 62 of 123:
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Jul 4 04:54 UTC 2000 |
Sure, but that won't show up on an AltaVista search. Allowing spiders to
index your conferences opens up a whole new level of exposure, because people
no longer have to know about Grex to find your Grex postings.
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jp2
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response 63 of 123:
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Jul 4 15:15 UTC 2000 |
This response has been erased.
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jmsaul
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response 64 of 123:
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Jul 4 16:38 UTC 2000 |
These might not be the same people -- the vote on closing /bbs/censored
was very close.
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i
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response 65 of 123:
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Jul 4 18:53 UTC 2000 |
My recollection is that, back when the conferences were opened up to
the web, the fw of the sex conference effectively erased & restarted
her cf because she couldn't see any other way to cover the butts of
folks who might not even be around anymore to decide whether they
wanted what they'd said in the sex cf to be available on the web....
this got some of the users in that cf extremely angry...
My current thought would be to make web-indexing of cf's a feature
available ONLY in new cf's (rolled cf's count as new), require that
a warning appear at the end of the cf's login screen, and make sure
that linked items aren't a backdoor...then see how it works out from
there.
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remmers
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response 66 of 123:
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Jul 5 14:17 UTC 2000 |
(The conference proposal I mentioned earlier is on hold, for
reasons not having to do with the web indexing issue. In the
meantime, you may continue debating that issue to your
hearts' contents.)
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janc
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response 67 of 123:
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Jul 6 12:56 UTC 2000 |
(If anyone does decide to open an indexed conference, then there may be
additional delays in getting it started while I figure out exactly how
to make it work.)
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remmers
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response 68 of 123:
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Jul 6 16:20 UTC 2000 |
(Understood. If that's the case, I would put an announcement
in the conference login file to the the effect that "This
conference may be indexed and searchable on the world wide
web", even if it isn't yet.)
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pfv
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response 69 of 123:
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Jul 6 17:49 UTC 2000 |
"And, what you post is stored forever."
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jmsaul
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response 70 of 123:
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Jul 6 18:06 UTC 2000 |
"Even though you never licensed us -- so if you ever want something removed,
take us to court and bankrupt us, you evil, dishonest bastards."
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scott
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response 71 of 123:
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Jul 6 18:24 UTC 2000 |
"and if that wasn't enough, people just here while there other system is down
will spend much of your time trying to convince you that this is all a big
deal, even though their version got voted down."
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jmsaul
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response 72 of 123:
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Jul 6 19:29 UTC 2000 |
"And other people here will try to convince you that only M-Netters care
about the issue, despite how close the vote was."
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scott
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response 73 of 123:
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Jul 6 20:27 UTC 2000 |
"And yet others will cling to the issue like spilled crude oil on baby seals"
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robh
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response 74 of 123:
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Jul 6 21:58 UTC 2000 |
"And others will forget the item and get on with their lives."
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