This item is for system announcements (new computer equipment on Grex, 
system upgrades, Grex meetings, etc.).  Personal announcements should go 
back in item 2; Grex system *problems* belong in the next item (#4). 

156 responses total.

Walter, considering the nature of this conf., would it be prudent to 
make it a read-only area for the regular users?  Just a thought.

Yeah, then we wouldn't have to put up with responses like #1.  :)

Re #1:  Not sure what you mean by "read-only for  the regular users" Greg.
I'm happy with the way these first few  items have worked in the past.

I think he means a place where staffish types can post announcements but
which is read-only for others. Such a place already exists -- the motd
-- so I think it's nice to have an open one in addition (this item).

Hmmm, upon relection (gotta get rid of those mirrors), I can see where 
various responses might be useful.  Forget I said anything.

There will be a Grex potluck at my place this Friday - see item 47 for
details.

Hmm.  Since this is item #76 (in helpers), & 47 showed no new activity, I can
only suppose that you mean agora item 47?

Yes, Winter '99 agora item 47.  (Sorry I didn't notice this item was linked.)

   Grex was off the net for about 1.5 hours on Monday January 4th from about
12.15am to 1.45am.

Request to all:  To help keep track of what response goes with which 
msg., please try to remember to put the original msg. # in your 
response.  Some of these confs. have a rapid turnover, which means it's 
possible to come into a conf and read msgs. that have no apparent 
meaning, unless you know which msg. was the origin.

Those that are already doing this, it's appreciated.

Request to all:  Please don't paste inane repetitive messages like spam 
all over agora.

Woohoo, boy.  I think sarcasm is dripping all over my keyboard, it'll 
take forever to clean up.  Sorry :)

You might want to post that in all the conferences......

Re. 11:  Since not everyone reads all the confs., it seemed logical to post
it this way.  If there's an alternative that accomplishes the same goal, I'd
like to know.

sure there is...walk up to everyone you see and pee on their
shoe...it'll be just about as annoying

No, create an item announcing the "refer to response item # please" request,
then link that item to every other conference!  :-)

Honestly, Greg, I don't really understand what response 10 means, becasue I
don't know what you mean by "message number" - do you mean for people to
refer to the response # they are replying to (so I should have said "Re #14"
at the beginning of this), or do you mean I should put the item number (in
this case, 3) in each response?

Re. 17:  Response #.  Sorry for the confusion.

It might have been better if this idea had been posted not as an
identical (somewhat unclear) response in many conference, but as
a specific comment in a conference about a particular response (which
had not identified the response to which it was responding). After
all, many responders do Re# in their responses. 

It might have been better just to use the "only" command to figure out what
messages they were referring to.  Occasionally I miss the message someone's
referring to.  I either ignore it or I scroll back and find out what they're
talking about or I use my deductive skills to get into the line of
conversation.

Yeah, if in my judgement what someone is saying is worth reading, it's usually
worth figuring out what they're talking about.  For instance, in item 2 of
Agora I saw this response:

#87 of 92: by Greg (gregb) on Tue, Jan  5, 1999 (23:51):
 I heard Leonard Nimoy read the whole thing on one of his albums some
 years ago.  The album (whose name escapes me) called it something
 else.  I had thought it was his LN's work.

And frankly, was quite confused about what gregb was talking about.  Since
things about Leonard Nimoy tend to interest me I scrolled back about 5
responses and found a reference to the Desiderata, and guessed that that was
what "the whole thing" was referring to.

Re. 20, 21:  "scrolling back" isn't as easy as you make it sound in Picospan,
unless there's a command I don't know about.  And why put more work on the
reader when it's much simpler if the author simply puts a msg. ref. in their
msg.  As for the Nimoy ref.: You'll notice that I included a source ref. at
the beginning, which eliminates any confusion.

Oh, right, hadn't noticed that part, oh great behavioral manager of agora.

Re 22:  Most people who telnet or dial in can scroll back in their terminal
program.  PicoSpan lets you enter a responce number at the "Respond or Pass"
prompt, or you can try a negative number for the number of responses from the
end to display.

Re #22:  Huh?  What source reference?  As I said, I had to work to figure out
what you were talking about.  (Not that that bothers me.)

Re 2 responses back: Right. For example, entering "-5" at the "Respond
or Pass" shows you the last 5 responses.

Whilst PicoSpan supports such retrieval functionality of messages, I agree
with Greg.  It is more considerate and helpful to note a reference number.
That way you can scrollback through your terminal software, or retrieve the
referenced message by typing the reference number at the prompt.

This response has been erased.

Hey, that sounds interesting.

Re. 24:  Your assuming, of course, that everybody's coming in using a PC. 
At work, I'm using a dumb terminal, so I don't have scrollback.  Moral: Never
assume a user's capabilities.

Re. 25:  Same place you put yours.

Re. 26:  Thanks, mic

Re. 28:  6'1".  What's your theory?

Well, you lost me.  If the response I quoted in #21 is OK with you, I really
don't understand what you're objecting to, Greg.

I find the referring to response numbers rather confusing, and would prefer
more context to the most recent responses.  It is difficult to keep all four
comments and all four numbers in my head and then go back and look at the four
previous responses and try to remember evertying at once.

Re resp:30 re resp:24 - No, Scott isn't assuming that "everybody's 
coming in using a PC." He explicitly said *most* people who telnet in 
have scrollback capability, not everybody. I imagine that's true. And 
as Scott also pointed out, you can always use Picospan's internal 
"scrollback" capability (by entering a negative number at the "Respond 
or pass"), even on a dumb terminal.

If I'm on a dumb terminal, I find it handy to have a bit of scratch
paper to write down notes like response #'s & the like.  If I have X, of
course, I can usually get by with another xterm window or the like
(sometimes I'll even type stuff out at the command line even though it's
not even vaguelly a real command.)

Re. 32:  Keesan makes an interesting point.  If your reading a series of
msgs. in Picospan, and you dont't have scrollback capabilities, it can be hard
to remember what msg. # your referring to, which makes mdw's suggestion of
using scratch paper the best course of action.  If your using Backtalk it's
a little easier.

Greg, would you type "only 21;only 31" at the next prompt and then answer the
(implicit) question in #31?  Because I really don't get it.

   Grex was down for about 6 hours early Wednesday (4a - 10a) because
of a vandal.

Re. 36:  Don't worry about it.  It's pretty much a dead issue.  I've decided
to take my concerns to one of the board members in the future.

The board doesn't regulate users' responses in the conferences.

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