response 61 of 624:

Dec 26 21:38 UTC 1996

I agree.  Let's just have a vote.  Both sides have a pertinent argument, 
so now I guess it isn't a matter of "which choice is better," but rather 
how many people prefer each choice.

response 63 of 624:

Dec 27 02:31 UTC 1996

$18 gets anyone the right to vote, even on current ballot proposals.

brighn - My statement about "let's just vote on this" was rhetorical,
the by-laws specify that at least two weeks must pass between the proposal
of the amendment and the beginning of the voting period.  Once the two
weeks is up, I'm sure that a final version will go to a vote, whether
I like it or not.

response 65 of 624:

Dec 27 07:41 UTC 1996

> If we ran a gun production company that had two basic models, a pistol
 > and a machine gun, and the pistol currently had a design flaw that  >
caused the pistol to occasionally blow up in the users hand, would the 
> sale of said pistol justify incorporating the same design flaw into  >
the machine gun? >  > I think people who tell me that my argumentation
is trivial because we  > already allow anonymous reads at the telnet and
dialin levels fail to  > remember that I consider anonymous reads *at
any level* to be a  > problem. Just because we have them doesn't justify
expanding them. > 

Considering what I know about you, Brighn, I don't think I understand
what you are saying here.  What you say above seems to indicate that 
you think Selena shouldn't be able to read the conferences, which seems
very out of character for you.  Although Selena is completely anonymous 
to this community, Grex has benefited greatly by allowing her to read
the conferences, since she eventually decided the join the community by 
posting very colorful responses.  

I view our present system of allowing completely anonymous access to 
our conferences as a resounding success.  

> My problems regard quntity and quality. 
> 

Quality?  Do you think that the quality of our items will lessen if 
read by people who don't have Grex accounts?  By what mechanism can 
that happen?  

And quantity?  Haven't we been trying for years to tilt the balance
of Grex back towards the conferences?  Isn't it our goal to get as 
many people as possible involved in online conferencing here, since
online conferencing is such a good thing?  Or perhaps, Brighn, you 
would like to see the conferences on Grex restricted to just your 
friends?  

> A different sort of user Websurfs than Netsurfs. A different sort of 
> user who Websurfs would use anonymous reads than hnadle-based reads. 
> 

Yeah?  What is a Websurfer like?  How are Websurfers different than 
Netsurfers?  Are websurfers harmful in some way that netsurfers are 
not?  Do you think that some websurfers may harm you if they can read
items on Grex without having accounts?  Or perhaps some websurfers 
may hurt Grex if they read items without having accounts?  In what 
way do you think they will accomplish this?

> And at any rate many, many, many, many more users Websurf than 
> Netsurf.
> 

Exactly.  In fact, we may be able to significantly increase our 
conferencing community by showing people what we are about before 
they take the time to create an account.  If you and I are correct, 
Brighn, then we may end up with many more members, too, since a 
rather high percentage of conference-goers become members at some 
time or another.  

> We have a malfunctioning pistol and a functional machine gun. Just 
> because we refuse to fix the pistol doesn't mean we should break the 
> machine gun.
> 

Are you saying that instead of allowing anonymous reads with Backtalk, 
we should start verifying all of our users before they can use the 
conferences?  I like it that people can join our community to the 
extent that they desire, and at the rate they desire.  I just hope 
that we can accomidate a more gradual initiation.  

> Chaging the way the things i put here cnbe accessed it 
> questionably copyrioght violation. I either want ALL of my items
> deleted (and YOU to give me a disk with them downloaded onto it)
> as well as all items I've ever responded to, or 10$ for
> each item i've respoonded or entered as a publication fee.
>  

Nah . . . *you* put those responses there for everyone to access, 
and *you* are free to remove those responses at any time, using 
the scribble command, although that will make Grex's heritage just 
a little bit poorer.  And of course no one on Grex will copy all 
of your responses to disk and send them to you, just because you 
say you want it done.  That's your responsibility.  Of course, I 
would be more than willing to do that for 10$ per item.  8^)

I guess this is the way I see it:

Grex is like a bulletin board.  People tack little messages on 
the bulletin board because they want many others to see them.  If
access to that bulletin board is suddently changed so that many 
people can see the messages on it, few would ever be upset, as 
people posted their messages so that the public could view them.  
The more people view their messages, the better!  And people who 
didn't like having such a public exposure to their messages would 
never ask the owner of the bulletin board to remove the messages 
for them, or to restrict access to the bulletin board.  And they 
certainly wouldn't threaten to sue the owner of the bulletin 
board for copyright infringement.  They would simply remove their 
messages if they didn't want them to be seen.  Maybe, if they only 
wanted a small group of people to see their messages, they would 
send their messages out in private mailings, or something similar 
so that they could better control access to their messages, for it 
is impossible to control who views messages posted to a bulletin 
board.  

response 67 of 624:

Dec 27 15:27 UTC 1996

Bullshit, Mary. I choose to post them to Grex, not the whole
Internet, not the whole Web. I thought I made that PERFECTLY clear. Nobody
coerrced me, you're right. But things were different then...
I want people who care enough about Grex to put in the extremely
small amount of effort required to make a login. And if I have to delete
everything, I will, when you do this. I'm perfectly happy with it being
on Grex, as Grex now stands.

response 69 of 624:

Dec 27 15:51 UTC 1996

I tried to abort that response, because it essentially
said nothing new, but entered it instead.

So you get to read part of it anyhow.  What a treat. ;-)

response 71 of 624:

Dec 27 17:17 UTC 1996

Without meaning to suggest in the slightest that they aren't or that I don't
want to hear their arguments here, I'd like to point out that if Jenna and
others would be interested in a system where they would fall nearer the
mainstream of thought, they should check out "river.org".  It charges a
monthly fee, but is a smaller and more controled community.  Seems like about
half the users there are writers.

Of course, I'd much rather that see you find yourself comfortable enough to
stay here, since your imput is valued.

I guess there are two schools of thought here.  This discussion has been
confused by the word "anonymity" which really isn't the issue at all.  It
has almost nothing to do with "anonymity."  I think the two stances are like
this:

  - An on-line community requires a degree of closure  to thrive.  You can't
    have a community in the aisle of a shopping mall.  Some kind of barriers,
    of in Marcus's terminology, "people filters," are needed to keep the
    sense of community from being trampled by mobs of idle passers-by.  In
    Grex's case, this has historically been done by having a rather involved
    newuser program and a generally obtuse and obscure interface.  In the
    case of a place like "The River" it is done by charging a fee.  Grex
    shouldn't knock all its walls down, because it will then just disappear
    into the buzz of the internet.

  - We want Grex to be as open and accessible to all sorts of people with all
    sorts of viewpoints and modes of thought.  "People filters" are only good
    if they filter out people we really don't want to have here (e.g., those
    people whose only idea of fun is seeing how much they can disrupt any and
    all constructive activity).  Lots of fascinating and intelligent people
    who would be great to have here are filtered out by having a slow and
    obtuse computer system.  Our goal should be to make Grex easier to use
    for a more diverse set of people.  Diversity is the greatest possible
    strength for an on-line commuity, though it can be a source of stress.
    Conferencing will always have a basic "people filter" that party does
    not have -- to participate in a conference takes a dedicated daily effort
    over many days to follow the conversations and get to know the people.
    That is all the filter you need.  Conferences are ultimately boring if
    you don't invest your time and self in them.

I personally believe strongly in pushing for greater and greater ease of use.
That's why I wrote webnewuser and backtalk.  I'd really rather see as many
user-interface barriers to using Grex fall as possible.

response 73 of 624:

Dec 27 17:35 UTC 1996

With all due respect Mary, I'm totally with Jenna about the poetry thing. I
write poetry myself, and post a lot of it here on grex in the poetry conf.
There are a lot of greedy ppl out there who would love to find un-copywrited
poetry on the net and publish it as their own work. Maybe you don't fully
understand what our poetry means to us. It comes from out heart and our soul,
it is who we are, and if someone copies it and publishes it under their name,
they have not only claimed our words, but our feelings as well. They have
violated our soul, crazy as that sounds.

Sure, we can't be assured that ppl who have logins on grex won't do this, but
ppl who use grex are only a small slice of teh internet community. We are now,
with this motion, opening in up to teh entire PLANET in one swipe. do this,
and we would either have to delete every item of our poetry, and never enter
again, or get a copy-right for every poem we write to assure they wont' be
copied. Surely you can't expect us to do this. I and Jenna speak not only for
ourselves, but the many others who have poured their heart and soul into that
conference over the last cojple years...and also to those who are no longer
here to deffend their work....

response 75 of 624:

Dec 27 19:59 UTC 1996

I've been posting my original writing in open conferences on
Grex for the last five years and before that on M-Net for the
previous seven. Both systems have always had an open newuser
I've entered a number of things in the poetry conference,
which has been accessible from the entire internet via telnet
during its entire existence. My stuff and everybody else's
in that conference has been sitting there for the taking the
whole time. Has anybody had a problem with their stuff being
stolen? I have not.

If a poetry thief finds out that there's a lot of good stuff
sitting around Grex for the taking, a little thing like running
through newuser isn't going to stop him or her. I think that
excluding read-only access via the web is a false protection
and that people are exaggerating the dangers here. I just don't
believe that all those supposed literary predators are really
out there.

Regarding copyrights: Did you know that under current copyright
law, everything you write is copyrighted, by you, from the
instant you create it? You don't have to put a copyright notice
on it or go through some registration procedure to enjoy copy-
right protection. In particular that applies to every original
work that's sitting in the poetry conference right now. If
somebody steals your work, you do have recourse.

response 77 of 624:

Dec 27 20:50 UTC 1996

Umm... Mary, correct me if i'm wrong, but you're telling me
it would be wrong of me to expect Grex to change for me?
Actually, I was asking Grex to NOT change for me, and
everybody else.
--To amend my origional statement:
--If the idea is to attract more and different people,
why not take a cue from the advertising industry. Take movies
for example. Promotional trailers are shown in other movies and onTV,
The movie companies aren;'t stupid enough to think that if they show
the whole movie on TV people will STILL buy tickets to see it at the theatre.
I think making a conference like INTRO accesible through the Web is a great
idea (as long as the people who's items have been linked to intro are ok with
it). I think it would leave the conferences the way the are mostly, but allow
curious people to get a floavor for all of grex.
Intro serves this purpose already on the BBS proper.
Sensitive material, such as in Poetry, Writing, Sexuality II
would be reserved for people who were interested in Grex and came here,
and Intro a great teaser. Very few people have Netscape and not telnet.
(oops,, Netscape or another Webbropwser).
This would solve my legality problem, Selena's confidentiality
problem, somebody's bandwith problem (it would take up less energy
to do one conference instead of all of tehem).
I would even go so far as to say Agora and Coop, by their very nature
might give curious websurfers a taste of Grex, even more than the Newuser
pprogram does.
--
CN there be a compromise here? I'm not the only one against general web
access, and I don't see why we can't all come to some kind of peace.

response 79 of 624:

Dec 27 21:51 UTC 1996

Well, I've said my piece, and it obviously made no difference. I apologize
for wasting your time and valuable disk space. I won't be commenting
again.

response 81 of 624:

Dec 27 22:53 UTC 1996

Jan C said it very well about a dozen posts back.
LEt's multiply the analogies. John, if you told me that a thief would steal
your car if he really wanted to, and a little thing like a lock wouldn't stop
him, I would hardly take that as an argument to leave the cars on the driver's
seat. That's silly.
And Nephi, read Jan's comments re: anonymity. He said it a lot better than
I can in my current mood. Selena isn't anonymous in the sense that bothers
me.
Truth is, I don't care all that much about my poetry getting stolen, I just
couldn't put my finger on what *was* bothering me. What's bothering me is that
anonymous (guest) reads feel too impersonal. Grex is about community.
Community is people talking together. Community is *NOT NOT NOT* people
snooping in the windows. Freekman is not anonymous... Freekman is Freekman.
The fact that there happens to be one or two or three corresponding humans
IRL is irrelevant. When I log on, I'm an internet being, not a human one.

Question 1: How many people are genuinely going to get accounts based on guest
accounts? That's a serious question. How many current telnet users of Grex
used Guest before creating an account, and what proportion of people using
the Guest account ultimately create accounts?

Question 2: What is the purpose of Guest reading? If it's advertising, then
this is a piss-poor way to advertise. Better to create a long but feasible
advertisement containing bits and pieces of all the conferences. I'll edit
the text. I will, if we drop this. You want advertisement, give me the
go-ahead and drop this issue until I've generated sufficient text, and I'll
outdo anything as pacific as Guest accounts.

The problem, in my view, with the conferences is that new entrants into
conferences are so overwhelmed with old discussions that they can't find an
entree. Making people daunted by the admitted cliquishness before they've even
bothered to create an account is just going to scare them off more. Instead,
we should be working on finding ways to make the conferences *more* welcoming,
not less. 

If newuser takes too long to use, then make newuser easier. Guest reading does
NOT make newuser any easier to use, it just puts off the agony.

response 83 of 624:

Dec 28 01:41 UTC 1996

I'm sure there's no "legality problem" since all of jenna's stuff has
been freely accessible here through telnet.
        As to anonymous reading of Backtalk-created stuff, there are
excellent arguments on both sides.  I haven't made up my mind yet.
        *But* I don't think that there is this tremendous pent-up
demand to read Grex postings through that route anyway.

response 85 of 624:

Dec 28 03:11 UTC 1996

Nit:  I don't believe there is a guest login for telnet.  (At least, noone
ever told me about one, and when I treied to log in as guest, it prompted for
a password...)

Sorry, but people are yelling about it.