response 74 of 127:

Mar 27 05:13 UTC 1999

Richard's proposal bothers me because it seems somewhat beaurocratic, and
I think one of the cool things about grex is how it avoids beaurocracy fairly
well.  Also, grex is about electronic communication, and I don't think bulk
dead tree mailings are something we're interested in.

response 76 of 127:

Mar 27 20:42 UTC 1999

Interesting.  The most talkative people in Coop appear to be steve,
aruba, janc, rcurl, mdw, keesan, remmers and scg (in that order), all of
whom have typed more than 10,000 words into coop.  Of those keesan is
the least likely to say "should" and I'm the most likely.  I say three
shoulds for every one keesan says.  I should have really been in the top
20 list, since I'm tied with "jep" for shoulds, and he was number 20.

I've decided that I'm not the least bit embarrassed by this.  Coop
exists to talk about what we should do, so I should think that any who
doesn't say "should" very much should be embarrassed that they are not
keeping to the topic, and should work on shoulding some more.

response 78 of 127:

Mar 28 01:59 UTC 1999

I have seen most of the 'shoulders' at board meetings deciding on policy. 
Marcus is staff (I think), and Rane likes Rules.  Makes sense to me.
(Keesan wastes words instead of paper.)

response 80 of 127:

Mar 28 03:33 UTC 1999

To do a search, run the program ~aruba/bin/wordcount, and pass it two
parameters.  The first is the word to look for, and the second is the
conference to look in.  So to get the "should" list above, run
        ~aruba/bin/wordcount should coop11
Sorry, it's not smart enough to translate "coop" into "coop11", so you have 
to know the real name of the conference you want to search.

response 82 of 127:

Mar 29 06:38 UTC 1999

Aruba "should" have started a new item.  Or maybe he was trying to
change the subject.  Does Picospan have any way to split one item
into two?  Now there would be a way to establish order without rules.

response 84 of 127:

Mar 29 17:37 UTC 1999

(However, if you type "enter" at the "Respond or pass" prompt, Picospan 
will start a new item for you, then put you back at the "Respond or 
pass" prompt of the old item...)

response 86 of 127:

Mar 30 23:25 UTC 1999

You <i>should</i> be <b>curious</b>!  :-)

response 88 of 127:

Apr 1 00:10 UTC 1999

grex gets a "contract" from each user when they run newuser.  they have
to send in something to validate anyway, so asking them to printout
some short online contract and sign it isnt that big deal.  It just
protects grex legally if someone granted outbound internet and ftp causes
havoc and his/her access has to be taken away. I dont think it creates
much extra paperwork at all.

And the snail mail idea is predicated on the assumption that since grex
would no longer be requiring automatic contributions for membership, it
will need to directly remind members more often that they can contribute.
People will be more likely to contribute ifyou send them an envelope in
the mail once a year than simply be on an honor system to renew their
memberships once a year.   Under my idea, grex could say,
in the letters "you validate and want to be part of grex, you'll be a
member for life...you'll always be part of the grex community, so please
consider contributing so we can maintain ourselves" .etc

How wonderful and inclusive is that?  Instead of being threatened with
dis-membership if they dont write a check, grex would be saying we want
you and we will always want you as part of us.  It will give members a
warm and fuzzy feeling and you will raise more money.  They will
contribute because they want to, notbecause theyhave to.  
 

response 90 of 127:

Apr 1 00:45 UTC 1999

You took the words out of my mouth, Colleen.

response 92 of 127:

Apr 1 23:06 UTC 1999

richard is *always* pushing the envelope, so to speak.  ;-)

response 94 of 127:

Apr 2 23:41 UTC 1999

What is an effective throughput?  I find my 14.4 modem to run grex several
times faster than my 2400 bps modem.

response 96 of 127:

Apr 3 14:25 UTC 1999

I don't think so, Paul (the 4800 baud bottleneck).  You connected at 19200
to the terminal server; from there it's ethernet, and the baud rate shown on
Grex itself is meaningless.

response 98 of 127:

Apr 6 19:38 UTC 1999

re resp:92 I thought it was aruba who was frequently pushing recycled,
self-made envelopes.

back on topic:  In general, I would like to support more open access.
However, I do not wish to become an anonymizer service, so I would support
blocks to any inbound/outbound use of the same protocol.  I do not see a
legitimate use for even paying members to telnet in, then back out again.
Considering that we have such limited storage space, FTP use by a remote
telnet user, would result in a second FTP session to send it back out, So I
think that we should encourage people who have the capability to FTP directly
to their own machine, and not be relaying thru us.  It is ONLY the dial-in
users who have a legitimate reason to use ANY outgoing TCP/IP service.  By
definition, if you can make a TCP/IP connection to grex, you can run your own
TCP/IP clients.

What would it take to change our kernel blocks so that internet access,
including http, be available only to those connected thru our terminal
server, or directly connected to our local ethernet, regardless of membership
status?  This is the proposal that I can support.  This will focus our
resources on our mission: to provide an open-access conferencing system, and
to provide computer and internet experience and education to members of the
local community who cannot afford it elsewhere.