Grex Agora Conference

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Grex Agora Item 23: A new text based conferncing system.
Entered by mijk on Sat Jun 10 18:44:47 UTC 2017:

As it has been said a new system is on the cards, it seems timely to talk
about what would be the best
things to include in a new system. Here is a newuser's perspective:

Text based systems like Grex, and others - are in decline, or have been
overlooked for GUI based web systems.
But why is this so? As a new generation discovers the UNIX toolchest/vault
of commands, especially the 
Linux userbase, it seems a text based system is very useful, even to normal
joe public, aswell as IT 
professionals/system admins.

A couple of ideas for any new system, or any text base conferencing system
in general:

So why are text based systems so little used? My first thoughts as a new user,
is they take a long while to
picture in your mind, to get you bearings. So one idea, i think would be
useful - is an easy accessable 'map'
of the text based system. Something you can look at and see on one screen of
a terminal window, or one screen
at a time for meaningful areas of the system; maybe like a table of contents,
or an actual map of some kind.

Another idea along with picturing the map of the system, is a common set of
commands taken from text based 
systems that have been developed - a comparison of the command sets of the
best systems and maybe using the 
best of each? All this with a view to internationalization/easy translation
into other languages.

I had, in my head a quote from the lead lawyer for the Free Software
Foundation in my mind, when he said something along the 
lines of: "when we use commands to drive our computers, we use a language the
computer can understand, it is also
elegant and resource friendly. When we use a GUI to communicate with the
computer, the langauge we use ia akin to
'poiniting and grunting'." 
And so with the language of a conferencing system, i supose?
And so the rationale for using text based systems in the 21stCentury i
imagine?

5 responses total.

#1 of 5 by papa on Sat Jun 10 22:56:07 2017:

A lot of good thoughts, mijk.

Making all the areas of the system as visible and accessible as possible is
important. All-conference search and web interface are important elements,
too.

#2 of 5 by mijk on Sun Jun 11 05:49:22 2017:

for a web interface see the CIX system, i just joined, after putting it off
for ages. They have the best web forum interface i have ever used, and they
still have a text interface/system you can use to access all the conferences
(the CoSy conferencing system - well used back in the day) well worth a look.
Infact a great place, just look at the "justjoined" conference, i amthe same
username as on mono.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIX
sign up for a free account if you are interested: 
http://www.cixonline.com/forums.asp
btw the more i use bbs, the more i like the system, the commands are logical
and easy to navigate the whole discussion lists, and i am/was a big fan of
the menu based system like mono has before - i like both now.

#3 of 5 by lar on Sat Mar 14 01:04:12 2020:

BRING BACK GOPHER..

In all seriousness, I think a revamped version of gopher with some sort
of  super-veronica would be cool for a text based research database. No 
distractions

#4 of 5 by papa on Sun Mar 15 02:25:50 2020:

resp:3 Judging from recent activing on the Gopher mailing list interest in
the Gopher protocol is increasing, and there are several proposals for
improved versions. Some of the efforts are being led by active Grexers, who
will perhaps post some details here.

#5 of 5 by tfurrows on Mon Mar 16 15:24:45 2020:

3 and 4: There has been some work in Gopher space recently, and in related
spaces (see Project Gemini of Circumluar Space). Some folks are adding TLS
to gopher, others are making their own protocols. I haven't seen any serious
work on a new search engine, but there has been some chatter.

The lack of distractions is a huge selling point for Gopher, in my opinion.
I realize that the protocol itself is dated. It's probably not a Good Idea
in general. But it doesn't matter. What matters, in the end, is what humans
are willing to use, and what they do end up using.

As far as research tools and databases... I'm not sure Gopher is the right
approach. Unless you're talking about researching existing Gopher content?

Bottom line is, if you want to do it, do it. Gopherspace will most likely
rally to support you.

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