Have you ever wondered how people volunteered to help
other users on Grex answer their questions, about things
like using mail and running Unix?

Have you ever said to yourself, "Hey, I'd really like to
help other new users find their way around Grex!"

If you want to turn your helper-flag on, which will tell
Grex to send help-seekers your way, just enter the following
at the Ok prompt:

        !mesg -h y

Then, any time someone asks for help, Grex will select one
of the helpers who is on, and send the write request through.
If you see a message saying:

        Message from help-seeker notlob on ttype...

That's someone who's been assigned to you.  Just answer it
as you would a normal write request.

That's it!  With that, you will help other users, and make
Grex a friendlier place to be.

19 responses total.

Interesting, I didn't know that.  Out of curiosity, if I did a
"mesg n", then "mesg -h y", could I accept writes for help, but
exclude other writes?  Also, what happens when several people
have their help flags on at once...do they all get the help
request?

(a) "mesg n" takes precedence over "mesg -h y", i.e.
you wouldn't get any messages at all.

(b) Only one helper per request.  I believe the one
is chosen randomly.

I think I'll try that and see if I can help.
I hope the newusers dont have extraordinarily hard answers.
Where do I send them If I can't answer them? Just ask them
to write help again and hope it doesn't randomly choose me?

I wouldn't want to totally screw anyone up but I actually did help
uli in party the other day with some easy stuff...

 I usually send them to a root user, such as Valerie, or John Remmers if
I cannot answer something to my satisfaction, and if they don't know
how to contact the root user in question, I'll send mail on their behalf.

 You don't have to know a lot about Unix to be a helper, all you need
is what you know, and a willingness to help.

agreed. I've never put a help flag on, but I've usually known enough to
help the errant new users I find, or at least enough to tell them where
to find the information they want and how.

Hi madfan! Welcome to Grex!

This response has been erased.

Yes, I use to point people toward various root-folks, until
the root-folks mentioned how very much they disliked this...  >8)
These days, if folks need root help, I tell them to mail
help.

This response has been erased.

   Mail sent to help goes to a number of folk, one of whom will (usually)
respond and help out.  If mail is sent to me instead, I'll eventually
answer it, but it might be far enough in the future so as to be useless.
This is one case where a committee definately works out better than a
single person does.

35
20
q
quit

dir

Welcome to Grex, ropemo!  It gets easier from here.  Try "." (no quotes)
to get back to a Respond or pass? prompt, then type QUIT if you wish
to exit.  You may also ask for HELP at the various prompts.

(Wow!  My first welcome to a new user!!! :-) :-) :-)  )

This response has been erased.

exit

quit

 
dispbull
quit

Welcome to Grex Robert Matz (traffic)!  Hope you enjoy it here!

Hi Robert!  Welcome to Grex!

(gee, the helpers sure are getting a workout here! kinda takes a
load off the poets, though...)

<insert generic welcome here!>

Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss