response 52 of 79:

Mar 5 12:10 UTC 1999

Keesan, like anything else around here, newuser will be simplified when our
overworked volunteer staff gets around to it.  

Why do you have to write a script to get them into pine?  At the shell prompt,
all they have to do is type "pine".  The motd <return> pause was added for
a specific reason, to get _everyone_ to read the motd.  Are you by-passing
that?  Everything else can be handled with the login file.  

Why not put them directly into menu, which was meant to help new users?  They
are much more likely to explore grex if they can see choices, and if when the
get out of a choice, they are automatically back at the menu, not left needing
to type in a Unix command at a shell prompt.  

response 54 of 79:

Mar 5 22:20 UTC 1999

Showing a soggy-behind-the-ears newbie too much new stuff 
at once may scare 'em off.

response 56 of 79:

Mar 7 02:05 UTC 1999

For our new users, who have never even used a computer before, the menu is
scary.  It confused me.  Jim is offering support to all these people, and if
they are ready we teach them to look at a few websites, and then email them
instructions about how to read a conference item.  I personally like to have
a grex prompt when i login, and decide whether to read mail or do other
things, but they are put off by too many choices.
        Nobody has yet called our Freebie ads.  After three tries we may give
up, unless Misti wants to run something on the TV ad telling them to call us
for a $25 system to run grex on, and support if they pay for one month.

response 58 of 79:

Mar 10 18:51 UTC 1999

That's a good idea, scott.  After all, the widespread nature of the 
Evil Empire *makes* their products "standard" enuf that we should
adapt to them.

response 60 of 79:

Mar 12 12:04 UTC 1999

Does this mean we should have kerberos support (which AFAIK is only useful
for unix clients)?

response 62 of 79:

Mar 12 19:07 UTC 1999

(Even if it's only a term, you should spell it right.  ;-)

response 64 of 79:

Mar 15 03:37 UTC 1999

Someone may stop by Kiwanis tomorrow for a demonstration of how to use grex.
He does not have a computer and was asking about the differences between the
$50 386 with mono VGA and the $25 Tandy with printer.  This is the first
person to answer three ads for email computers, I hope he has friends.  I
promised to sign him up as a newuser if he joined for one month, as computer
novices are really put off by the newuser program.  What is the goal of grex
- to get more experienced computer users to join the conferences, or to get
more beginners familiar with using computers online?  Or both?  If both, have
a choice of newuser programs, beginner or advanced.

response 66 of 79:

Mar 15 10:52 UTC 1999

I think the goal is to build a "virtual" community here on grex.  So, a
parade of "beginners" marching through is not (*in itself*) worthwhile,
but having beginners who stick around and get interested in grex is.
Also, "more experienced" computer users sometimes have very set notions
about how computers should behave, and what they want to do with
computers; it is very often the case that these people aren't interested
in what goes on here on grex, and therefore don't have the patience to
deal with the fact that grex isn't windows, or usenet, or whatever it is
that they have become accustomed to using.  Jerry Pournelle was an
almost classical example of such a user when he was on m-net.  The sort
of people that I think we should be looking for on grex are flexible
intelligent people, who like to read, think, and write.  Someone who
doesn't have the patience to read through newuser, figure out the keys,
remember their password, and write answers to the silly questions, is
probably not an ideal candidate to use and enjoy grex, at least as a
participant in a "virtual community".  They may be wonderful intelligent
caring people, and might even have a use for free e-mail or web surfing,
but the odds are very much against their getting interested in using
PicoSpan.

My personal approach to actually getting someone else on grex is very
simple: I *may* bother to figure out how to get their telephone or
computer or whatever to dial out.  I'll encourage the person to take
notes on how to do this -- which should mean they'll also be ready to
write down their selected loginid, password, and any other useful notes
although I don't usually bother to mention that.  Once I've got it to
the login: prompt on grex, I have the person sit down, I'll tell them to
type "newuser" and I'll find a good book, sit well back, and read the
book.  People don't like to look stupid in front of other people, so if
I'm well back, they can make mistakes and not have to worry so much
about what I might think.  If I'm talking to the person, I'm distracting
them from reading what's on the screen.  If I'm reading a book, so am
otherwise absorbed, it's much easier for them to read what's on the
screen, and figure things out directly, rather than "bothering" me.  Of
course, if they do get stuck, I have the chance to learn something
interesting; and I often learn something quite surprising about newuser,
their computer, or how other people think.  It consistently amazes me
how often ^C turns out to be a bad choice for the interrupt key, for
instance.  I find most people do just fine getting through newuser
without much if any assistance however, and that whether they stick
around on grex after that depends much more on the person and whether
they find anything of interest on grex, than on any particular
difficulty using newuser.

Usually, the next question I hear after I've convinced the person I'm
serious about letting them figure things out on their own in a
non-pressured way, the next question I hear is "I got to the "ok"
prompt, now what do I do?" The two things I think *should* be happening
at this point, is that the person needs to learn how to learn to use
PicoSpan, and needs to acquire an interest in using PicoSpan, by
discovering that there are interesting conversations actually happening
on grex.  So, at this point, the *best* answer ought to be to teach them
about the "help" command, which ought to fairly quickly point them to
"browse", "read", "help intro", etc.  Once they learn "help", they can
learn about most anything they want about PicoSpan, whenever they want
(and I wouldn't expect them to remember much of anything about PicoSpan
until after several visits to grex.) "browse" and "read" mean they can
find interesting conversations on grex.  One of the reasons I think it's
important to put new people directly into an active conference is to
ensure that there *is* interesting stuff there to read.  "help intro"
tells them how PicoSpan is structured - important abstract information
to know.  I think some of the current default way we have PicoSpan set
up for new people is actually very bad for this kind of educational
paradigm.  What actually happens is that the agora bulletin gets dumped
on the user, followed by the default welcome message, followed by the
menu, followed by the ok prompt.  That means before the user even gets
to the ok prompt, they've already seen over 100 lines of text - and
they're probably already braindead from all the stuff we have to dump on
them in newuser.  Since all this stuff got dumped on them, they don't
get used to the idea of typing "help" to get help - instead, if we're
*real* lucky, they remembered to write down "d bull".  There's good
information in "d bull", but it's all in one body - so it's necessarily
too big, and not detailed enough, all at once.  [ Gosh.  We're still
telling newbies to "mail carl" if they have any questions.  Fortunately,
probably not too many of them make it to that point.  ] Since they
didn't have to type anything to make this information appear, it's a
cinch they won't remember any of it when they log on grex next time -
and *don't* see "d bull".  The menu that we do show, *every* time, takes
up screen space.  With a 24 line screen, that means we're throwing away
like 5 lines on the screen.  That has interesting implications when
using programs like "more".  At least we tell them "help" in the menu,
right before mentioning pine.  Maybe a few brave people type "help"
instead of "pine".  Because that menu comes up every prompt, though,
anything that's not in the menu has a much smaller chance of being
found.  People regularly ask how to do a "read since", because they
never figured out how to do "help read".  Essentially, we're giving them
a mental crutch, so they never learn how to walk free of a crutch.

It's really easy, when designing this sort of thing, to lose sight of
the actual goal of the exercise, and to design something that has
everything but the kitchen sink in it.  But there is also such a thing
as too much of a good thing, and it's extremely difficult to find that
magic middle spot of just enough, but not too much.

response 68 of 79:

Mar 15 17:52 UTC 1999

Jim would like to make grex available to people who have never been online
before and really need to start with just a few simple things, such as email.
He thinks this was part of the grex mission, to educate people on how to use
computers.  In addition they have to be able to email him for help.  If people
are only supposed to be using grex if they participate in the conferences,
should we dump anyone using it just for email (all of India?).  We have taught
three people how to use email on grex, they are still asking questions.  I
spent a half a year learning to use email, then lynx, and only then did I feel
prepared to look at a conference.
        We would therefore like to give people a simpler newuser program, or
a choice of basic or advanced signup.  The sort of beginners we have been
dealing with would give up immediately if asked to choose and interrupt
character, it is simply too much new vocabulary at one time.  They are capable
of choosing a loginid and password.  One of these new users is now a paying
member and really enjoys using the 'new' (PC) computer and is trying to learn
lynx now.  And teaching friends to use grex.  We are hoping to sign up other
members of the Dexter senior citizens' computer class on grex, who would never
get through newuser unaided.  
        Marcus is understandably proud of PicoSpan, but the conferences are
not all that grex has to offer users.  We would like to see newuser made
easier for total beginners, whether or not they ever join a conference.  And
to see grex made more accessible for local dial-in users who have never used
the internet before and cannot therefore use backtalk.  Grex's newuser program
as it stands is not friendly to beginners.
        You cannot make people use the conferences, but you can offer them what
they are interested in using, and in a few cases you may get a paying member
out of it, and/or a conference participator.  (We became both, eventually).
I think it is wonderful that grex is making it possible for people to
communicate by email, whether or not they pay or use PicoSpan or Backtalk,
and that potential email users (local dialins) should not be discouraged by
a newuser program aimed at people who have previous computer knowledge.  One
of our potential new users had never seen a computer keyboard close up and
was having trouble remembering what the enter key was.  Jim says he does not
even use the conferences, he uses the Unix shell to learn Unix, and email.
He and one other member (paying) do not use the conferences - grex is
different things to different people.  There are probably other people in Ann
Arbor who would like to pay to join grex but not to use the conferences, and
need things kept simple to help them join.  Start slow.
        I would like to point out that these people are not contributing in
this conference, so you are not getting their point of view.  Jim is one of
them, he knows others, he wants to work with beginners.  Is there some
objection to having people use grex for lynx, pine and unix only? If not,
please (soon) offer a beginner's newuser program that assigns defaults to the
erase character and assumes VT-100 terminal.

response 70 of 79:

Mar 15 18:07 UTC 1999

regarding earlier comments by devnull and pfv, kerberos is now supported 
by the free Mac telnet client "better telnet". and ssh is supported by 
the free windows telnet client "Tera Term." Both as free plug-ins. 
See our newly updated telnet info page for details
http://www.cyberspace.org/telnet.html

response 72 of 79:

Mar 16 12:59 UTC 1999

Re #70: People around MIT who seem to know what they're talking about
claim that the ssh plugin for teraterm is probalby illegal to use in the
US, because teraterm does not use the rsaref library, and apparently
one must either use rsaref or else pay a licensing fee if one is using
rsa, to avoid patent infringement.

However, last I heard, kerberos isn't suppored at all on grex, and ssh only
works when there's no telnet queue, so neither of these options is all
that useful for grex at this point.

response 74 of 79:

Mar 16 15:51 UTC 1999

Someone stopped by Kiwanis last night to look at our range of email computers,
and he would also like a little website that people could email him about.
Any objection to that?  I showed him how to look at websites and send email.
He will think about whether to get a Tandy with a CGA monitor or a Mac SE.
I told him that he could get music on his website by putting it onto a
friend's site and linking to it, is that correct?  He likes music.  He would
like to learn more than we know.  People have all sorts of reasons to use
grex, it is educational in many ways.