I've been playing about with various ideas on how to increase membership, and
therefore revenue.  I guess before I mention the ideas, I should mention a
little theory.

Grex has been at the $6 level since its beginning.  It's odd to find something
in the computer world that remains the same like that.  I'd guess that Grex
is in much better shape than it was maybe 4 years ago.  That speaks a bit
about the dropping cost of hardware, but basically Grex remains about the same
perceived level of hardware with roughly the same cost and same numnber of
members as it has for a while.  There was the big Sun3-Sun4 change, marked
by horrible service at the end of the Sun3 and then incredible speed and
reliablility when the Sun4 became Grex, but I think that it would average out
the same over the life of both machines.  What has changed is the number of
users.  More users is both good and bad.  I've said before that Grex grows
to cope with growth, but there are advantages to growth.  We've got a more
interesting and diverse community.  The first Grexstock wouldn't have happened
(at least not when it did) were it not for the Internet link, which at the
time was hotly debated over.  Grexstock II was also a result of essentially
uncontrolled growth.  So growth is good, since we meet more people that way.

Growth also brings problems.  We have a lot of users who we don't really even
know about, since there are too many every day for anybody to really keep
track of.  Some appear and then never come back, some just live in the
background using mail, etc.  Others find their way into the conferences and
join the community, and often become members.

So Grex is in the position of having a lot of users, a decent amount of
members, and a usually OK budget.  The purpose of this conference is to
increase membership, which is (eventually!  ;) ) what this item is about.

I'd like to talk about some of my ideas to increase membership.  Jim (omni)
has talked a bit about using different price structures to attract membership.
This item is about combining my long-held ideas with the idea of different
price structures.

For instance, we "give away" a lot.  E-mail, party channels, Web pages, etc.
It's been discussed often whether or not to restrict certain services to
members, as a way of either increasing membership or else reducing load (or
both).  It's the biggest abusers of Grex that are the least likely to be
members.  I personally still like the idea of free e-mail, since I consider
that to be the *real* universal application of the Internet.  It's not as
immediate as party, or as useful a reference as conferencing, but it *works*,
it's in a convenient, easy to comprehend format, etc.  So that leaves party
channels and the Web pages.  Party channels I'm a bit ambivalent about.  They
don't really cost anything, and they correspond to conferences nicely.  I
consider conference FWship to be something I would't want to restrict to
members.  Still, as a way to increase *membership* there might be a use...
Web pages I think should be members-only, with the (long awaited!) caveat
that...

Some of these services we restrict to people who are members or else HAVE BEEN
MEMBERS "RECENTLY".  That's my new idea, one I subjected you to several
kerouacs worth of text to reveal.  Anyway, what if you could have a Web page
if you had been a member at least for a month in the last 6 months?  Or a
party channel if you'd been a member in the last year?  We'd need to keep it
reasonable, since we don't want to load down partyadm or webmaster with such
details, but if we can sucker another $6 out of somebody now and then, and
*perhaps* put them on the path to being a more regular member (by means of
educating them about how Grex really runs).

So what do you think?  (If you just skipped to the end, reread the last
paragraph since it contains 98% of what you really need to know to respond
meaningfully).

79 responses total.

  Regarding your first paragraphs, I agree with pretty much everything.
In general, prices for computer stuff falls over time.  With Grex, the
price has remained the same, but more has generally been offered over
time (like Internet access, web pages, and more people to party/write/
conference with online).  Modem-based online services also drop less
in price because the cost of operating phone lines doesn't necessarily
drop over time.
 
  Regarding your proposal at the end, interesting idea.  It's one I
haven't seen before, so it scores points for originality :-).  My first
impression is a bit luke warm, but part of that is because I'm luke
warm to charging for these things at all, not just in the way you suggest.
Charging for these is a controversial point for a lot of Grexers no matter
how you do it, and I think in co-op and on the board, there's a slight
majority of people who are against such added fees.  From the member
opinion survey I did earlier, it seems the majority of members also
favor leaving things as they are.
 
>14. Grex members have few capabilities that non-members have
>    (primarily voting, and being able to telnet *from* Grex).
>    Do you feel Grex should...
>      A) allow even non-members to telnet from Grex.
>      B) leave this as it is.
>      C) consider limiting some minor capabilities of non-members
>         (e.g., only members could add party noises)
>      D) consider limiting some major capabilities of non-members
>         (e.g., deny e-mail, or make some phone lines "members only")
>
>  A   1   (2.6%)
>  B  23  (60.5%)
>  C   9  (23.7%)
>  D   5  (13.1%)
>
>  There were a *lot* of comments on this.  Several people put B or C,
>  except "make phone lines members-only."  Asking about specific
>  restrictions may have been a better question.  See the outtakes to
>  see what people wrote.
 
  A drawback of your specific proposal is that it adds more things for
the treasurer to track.  We view a treasurer's time as "free," but it
seems like a fair amount of added record-keeping to get $6 once every
six or twelve months.  Now the treasurer just sends out a reminder or
two when the membership expires.  With the proposal above, they should
send membership reminders, then after six months send out a web page
expiration reminder, then after twelve months send out a party channel
expiration reminder, and update access privileges on-line the three
different times that things can expire.

Right, I mentioned the added complexity.  It could be useful not as an
iron-clad schedule, but as a "spring cleaning" sort of thing.  Webmaster
starts seeing a whole lot of hits on user xxx's page, and if user xxx hasn't
been a member recently enough...

It would be a real shame to take a system that took a big chance by going
online as a place to support because you liked the idea of an open system
without perks, and then BECAUSE THE CONCEPT WORKED SO WELL and the system
grew, paid it's bills, and collected a wonderful community of diverse
users, then, in an attempt to make it bigger and better you change it to a
"you get what you pay for" deal.  (I should have taken a breath in there.)  

I my humble opinion - you guys really don't get what Grex is about.

We aren't broke.  We've a whole slew of low-key fundraisers yet to be
tried.  Yet folks are itching to charge more (elsewhere) and tie it to
perks (here). 

I'll also admit I think this is a losing battle.  The more we foster
the concept of service and perks the more we'll appeal to those
looking for cheap service.  I can see a time within not too long
when those of us who supported the original concept will be not much
more than a romantic minority.   And you folks will be free to
develop into a mediocre ISP.  

"you" folks?  Well, not being a founding member, I do have a different
perspective.  I'm not necessarily "itching" to make changes, either.

Mary, I could make a snide comment about "lost in the past", but I agree with
you on a lot of topics and don't consider that to be a fair (or polite) thing
to say.  I'm not looking to change Grex, I'm looking for ways to reduce
periperhal users who put a big strain on resources.  OK, we don't really
*need* to be dropping ballast, since Grex is in pretty good shape, but I would
like to have some basic ideas in place in case we do.  Web pages are an
example.  Most of our members have reasonable Web pages, and most of the users
that have Web pages have perfectly reasonable (for Grex's resources) pages
also.  Then there are the abusers, who just see Grex as more free space they
can use.  Even if we don't make any real money off such users, I think it
would be good to either discourage them slightly or make them more cognizant
about where all that "free" stuff on the Internet actually comes from.

(I also find it pretty disturbing that I've goaded Mary into making a
statement like "you guys really don't get what Grex is about".)

  I'm a bit irked if I'm supposed to be among those "guys" too (I'm
the only other guy in this item who'd responded yet, but I'm not sure
where that was directed).  That's a rather insulting in any case.
 
  Historically, did all of Grex's founders favor never offering any
extra services, other than voting, to members?  If so, it surprises
me that it wasn't reflected explicitly in Grex's bylaws or "declaration
of principles."  (I'm not saying original intent should necessarily be
obeyed anyway; policies are democratically controlled by *current*
members, and that *was* the original intent).
 
  Refresher "declaration" excerpt: "This is an open-access system; the
public is welcome.  However, regular users are encouraged to become
members and help support the system financially.  Voting on system
policy matters is restricted to members."

I just found this item and read it rather cursorily -- I'll read
and respond more carefully when I've more time. I'd suggest that
it be linked to Coop, since it's got definite policy implications.
When I endorsed the idea of a "membership" conference, I thought
it was primarily to be a place for the membership chair and his
committee to discuss fundraising strategies. Seems to have expanded
its scope. Maybe that was inevitable.

(One thing that the founders *did* have a concensus on, as best I
can recall, is that there should be *one* conference to discuss
running the system, and I think it's a concept worth preserving.
I realize that Coop tends to get large -- and that can be a problem
-- but it would also be a problem for users to have to guess where
significant policy discussions are taking place. We've already had
fragmentation with the Move and now the Membership conference; I
hope we can get back to the idea that there's one forum for
discussing how to run the system.)

Scott -- since this is your item -- would you be amenable to having
this linked to Coop and requesting that TS do so?

I hate to derail an actual conversation about something - but
remmers, did you post that last response from Backtalk?  I ask
because my pager is blanking out the line at the bottom of each
screen when I try reading it, and I've seen this in a few other
responses today too.  In my experience, this happens when someone
uploads a text file from their PC without stripping line feeds,
but it seems bizarre that so many people would have started uploading
small responses...

The "you guys" was directed at anyone who feels growing the
system and bringing in more money is as important or more
important than keeping Grex available as a community service
without turning into a tiered access club.  If you find that
offensive, so be it.  

The "no perks" concept seemed to be shared by a whole lot
of the founders but I'm not sure it was consensus or how
dedicated some were to the idea.  It was the primary
reason I was part of it all.  It wasn't hard-wired into
the Bylaws because things like perks were going to have
to be decided by the members.  The founders simply 
jump-started the thing - it was always the intention
the users decide how Grex should be structured.

But it has worked so well.  It has made Grex a jewel of 
a conferencing system.  And, I'll be real honest here,
I think it bugs some people to death to see others 
using the system "for free".  It's like they feel personally
used or taken advantage of that they pay their share and
others don't.  What nerve!  I don't know what to say to
these individuals.  We are from different planets. 

 Speaking as one who has not been in a position to pay, I have felt extreme
guilt at using Grex when I know that there are others who do pay for the
privilege, But I am extremly grateful that Grex has tolerated my not paying
for so long. I only hope that in the future that I will be in more fluid
situation with regard to donations.

(Re #7: Yes, I did enter that response from Backtalk, but I
typed it directly into Netscape's text collector, not a local
file. You're the second person to mention this problem in
reading responses that I'd entered in Backtalk, so maybe it's
a problem either with Netscape or with Backtalk. (This response
is being entered in the "old" way, so hopefully you won't have
the problem...)

(Re 10 - Yep, that one looks just fine.)

Linking to Coop would be fine with me.

Mary, I'm not looking to change Grex into a tiered access system over just
keeping it running.  Sorry if I gave the impression otherwise.

It does bug me to see some people using Grex for free, but please recheck my
comments on Web pages.  Most non-member pages are OK, I'm bugged by the "as
large as I can get away with" pages some people are just looking for free
places to house.  I'd like to see ways of getting more peripheral users into
the community.  So I don't think your "you guys" hits me either.

  Mary, I don't think there's a single view of "what Grex is
about," so I disagree with your opinion about who does and doesn't
"get" that view.  We've had tiered access for a while now, so
I think it's strange to make that a part of "what Grex is about."
 
  I don't think a web page incentive will do much to encourage
memberships.  If you want to curb abuse of web pages, I think
that's better handled as a separate matter.  I haven't noticed
much problem with that, and I've browsed web usage stats in
the past.  But if you think it is a problem, I think a better
approach is to educate people about why not to suck up tons of
bandwidth on Grex.  You could add some info on this in the
mkhomepage menu, for example, and list other places that can
provide better free web page hosting there.

According to the vote that initiated outbound telnet for members only -
that was based on our limited bandwidth.  As soon as bandwidth allows that
restriction should be removed or re-voted as a membership perk. 

I've always felt (and argued the point) that rationing resources based on
who pays and who doesn't wasn't the way Grex should go.  If the size of
Web pages are a problem there should be limits placed on all Web pages,
not just on those who aren't members.

If we start treating those who pay to a different level of service then
they will have every right to expect service for their dollar.  Also,
don't kid yourself, when you entice people to become members to get extra
service you are no longer able to say you are a donation based open-access
community service. 

We should focus on getting members who want to be part of
deciding how Grex goes and thanking anyone who sends in money
for their generous *donation*.  We don't want to encourage a
lot of the "what's in it for me" types.  They have AOL.

  (Aside: is it "perk," "perq," or "perque?"  I think it's considered slang,
derived from "perquisite," but my aging dictionaries don't list the term).
 
  Bandwidth shortage is a reason against opening telnet up to everyone.
It is not a reason in support of opening it up to members.  In fact, it's
a reason against such a policy.  So I view the current policy as an
incentive/reward for membership.  You suggest what would happen if we
started to offer a different level of service to members; to me, that
ignores the fact that we already do!
 
  Also, something to think about: almost half the members who responded to
the survey I did recently said that outbound telnet access was a factor in
their initially becoming members.

Rob, outbound telent was rationed and the members were
the group allowed to use the limited resource.  I'd be
curious to see how you see this as an intended membership
incentive after reading the proposal vote.  It's in
/usr/local/grexdoc/archives/prvote.  Not sure which of
the votes it was but I believe there are only three to
check-out.

Also, I'm not saying I don't think Grex will go the way of tiered access,
membership perks, extra services, maybe even rewarding those who pay with
access to a closed conference or members-only get togethers, all of which
would make lots of people feel special and anxious to be part of The
group.  Gawd, can you imagine how much money Grex would be raking in?

It will happen.  I just think it's a shame.

I'll even wager a bet (dinner out at the restaurant of your
choice) that within two years we'll have additional lines
and mail perks for members only.  Anyone think it won't happen?

Thought so.

I'm on vacation, starting today, for 2 weeks.  Which is why
I've got all this extra time to spend whining about Grex.

Won't you be glad when I go back to work. ;-)

re 17
   It will happen only if we let it. 

You won't have any control over it.  It will be up to the 
membership.  If there is any one factor that must
be carefully guided it is the kind of member we
attract.  We need donors not clients to avoid such
changes.

"If there is any one factor that must be carfully guided it is the kind of
member we attract".

Talking about "us vs. them" attitudes...

This response has been erased.

 Out of context and without the next sentence that sounds
 nasty.  Is it still nasty in context?

 And I've been thinking about ajax's response back there.
 It was wrong to say something like "you guys just don't
 get what Grex is about".  It is indeed my concept of
 Grex that is losing ground.  I'm afraid this may
 very much be my crusade and not supported by many
 others.  I apologize for being rude and emotional
 about this issue.  But I reserve the right to say
 "I told you so".  ;-)

Well, in context it isn't too bad.  It *still* caught my eye, though.
I think this is turning into a tempest in a teapot.

I'm concerned about the future also.  But it's still really hard to balance
these things out.  I'd still consider it important to do something about
participation.  The only way to stop growing now is to turn off newuser.

I would not characterize this discussion as a tempest in a teapot.  There
are strongly held but clearly different opinions as to whether this system
should reward those who send in money by granting them enchanced
membership access and services.  How this goes will most certainly shape
Grex's future.

And you can indeed slow Grex's growth without shutting off newuser.
We do it all the time without even intending to by simply not
pumping up service.  Which is why I'm fairly pleased we don't
have money to burn. 

This discussion really belongs in Co-op.  I've mailed tsty
asking for a link.

(looks like it got linked ...)
There are indeed carriage-returns in the item in resp#6.  It doesn't bother
me with what I'm using at the moment, but it's a real problem for some
terminals or emulators.  (Jan, could backtalk strip such out before posting?)

Membership cf? I'd like all discussions about Grex policy and manaement to
appear here in coop - so thanks for linking over this item. Are there any
others going on in "membership" that all members (and interested persons) 
should know about? You say, I should add membership to my .cflist? Why,
when coop is the right place? 

I'm not sure I fully understand the proposal. Is it that now any user can
have a web page, but if we require some (small) level of membership to
have a web page, it would increase membership? I would like to suggest a
different perspective. 

If we view web pages on Grex to be a means for informing the world about
the interests and activities of Grex members, this would be a public
service - not a "perq" of membership. We have often discussed that Grex
has to keep personal information about members because of state law. We
don't make that information public, but we have no reason why the
*members* should not make whatever information about themselves they want,
public. Web pages could be the vehicle for doing that. 

Therefore I propose that the opportunity to have a web page be offered
only to members, as a means to provide to the world more information about
those persons that are members, and "run" this organiztion, but on a
voluntary basis. 

Getting back to the email question...I have said before and will restate
that conferencing should be grex's function, not email.  Grex should 
onlybe providing free email for the purposes of its users being able to
communicate with each other.  If grex does not allow conferencing to
or with the outside world (usenet), it is inconsistent philosophically
to be offering free unrestricted email.  If you want to use email
on grex as a primary email box to the outside world, that should be a member
perk.  Sooner or later grexis going to get swallowed up by email processing.
It slows grex down and negatively affects its primary purpose (confing)

That being said, I also think grex needs to be consistent in the services
it provides.  It is wrong to allow more perks to those accessing grex in
one way than in another.  Any grex user should be able to email any other
grex user, within the grex community.  This means that that at least on a
limited basis, grex needs to be offering pop email to those users who are
going to start confing through backtalk on the web page.  I know tha tit
is impractical to offer free unrestricted pop, but were ALL free email
restricted to grex (and ability to send other destination email a member
perk), it could work.  

Grex needs to be consistent in what if offers.  Restricting email would
boost memberships. .  Another way to boost memberships is to restrict
party, set it up so that more than two hours a day of party access is
disallowed unless you are a member.   

   I sincerely doubt that restricting email to members would boost
membership much,  and would block out access to a very real segment
of Grex users who have no other access to email, and can't easily
pay for it--like a bunch of kids in Ann Arbor who use Grex for various 
things.

   I disagree with Mary that we'll have members-only phone lines
in two years: I'll certainly lobby as hard as I can to thwart any
such attempt to get that by the membership.

   I do however very much agree with Mary that there are all sorts
of ways to raise funds that are humane and low-key, and that we
haven't tried them yet.

   I also really hope that we do not come up with different 
membership rates, nor that we raise the current amount for
a membership.  We're paying bills right now, and we're as
"flat" an organization as we can be, I think.

   Anything we do to restrict access to things is going to
cost staff time, even doing it once or twice a year.  Given
how thinly staff time is spread out over things now, I
would rather not see anything more to do accounting wise.

Sentimentally, I tend to agree with Mary's viewpoint of Grex
as a community service organization.  When Grex was set up,
it was clear who our community was, geographically.
 
But the Internet changes a lot.   I don't mind that my Grex membership
underwrites free services for people.   I would hope that those people 
are part of my community through conferencing, but I won't demand
that they all be.
 
I will complain, however, when the *number* of people who use
the free services, yet aren't involved with conferencing, start
to seriously get in the way of *my* conferencing activity.
This has already started to happen; system response has been 
slowing since the speedy days after the Sun 4 upgrade.
 
I guess what it boils down to is that I'm not willing to 
underwrite free free e-mail for unlimited thousands of users;
and when that free e-mail jams up the Internet link to a certain
point, I'll probably go away again.
 
I think Grex needs to think about what community it is trying to 
serve, and which services it wants to offer.
 
(horribloe typing due to net lag.  :)   )

Whether grex restricting email increases memberships is besides the
pointanyway.  Sooner or later the email load is going to kill grex.

And restricting party to two hours in a 24hour period for n on-members,
is reasonable because grex provides access for conferencing.  There
are too many people on Party who will never conference.  Party is
really popular with our India users, and they arenice people, but they
arent by and large going to conference, so limit Party use to two
hours a day (reasonable I think) unless they want to be members.

Actually, e-mail is our most popular feature with users from India.
(Big surprise.)  I know that when you're in party, especially between
midnight and noon-ish, it seems that there are lots of users from
India.  What you're forgetting is that we have many hundreds of Indian
users, of which maybe a few hundred use party at all.  In fact, when
I'm home after work at 3 AM, I generally get more write requests from
Indian users than there are users in party.

   Richard, you seem to forget than in an open system like Grex, you 
*can't* say "party is limited to two hours per person/day" and have
it work.  Those who wanted to would just take out another account
and continue on that way.  Considering that party is not account
oriented like email is, people could move from account to account
and never hit the two-hour rule.  I won't bother going into discussion
about the programming effort it would take to do that, and maintenance
of it all.

   Ken's comments worry me, because he is right: we do have a problem,
and one that isn't easy to solve.

        Excuse my (becoming traditional) Kibitz, but have you folks been
        using HVCN or Mnut as any sorta' comparison?

        Yes, I agree, the confs here are a helluva' lot more enjoyable
        than even _trying_ to communicate via yapp on mnut, but that seems
        to be more a function of the users than the systems-admin..
        (although I could be WAYY off on that guesstimate.)

        Local-only mail for nonmembers certainly seems a viable idea, but
        then.. We've noted on mnut that mail seems to avoid the "quota's"
        that scripts and such must adhere to.

        Web-pages are another hog, if some conversations I've followed are
        an indicator. GIF's are a pain.. Do those pages count toward
        'quota'? Are they _personal_, or business-related?

        Personally, I'm still a bit confused as to why *anyone* needs to
        Telnet OUT, unless they are calling in on a dialin. And, since the 
        dialin is *certainly* a "community service", and the members are
        assuredly subsidizing the ability, the sense of this is obvious.

        Anyone, lemme get outta' the way and allow the Donneybrook to 
        carry on ;-)

email> People outside of the Ann Arbor area presumably have telnet access by
virtue of some email account or other.  That's certainly true in Michigan,
although certainly people are hopping in on friend's accounts.  So charging
for open-access email would only hurt the direct-dial-ins.  That wouldn't
increase the member pool considerably (IMHO), but it *would* alienate a lot
of potential future members (i.e., all them high schoolers).  So I'd be
against charging for email.
  
WEB> Web page access seems like a less common perk of having the sort of
access that gives one telnet access. Web pages are in demand and use
resources, and (IMHO) create a splinter faction.  Charging for Web pages seems
like a reasonable idea.  Grex was created, in my view, as a community
get-together sort of thing, and too many Grexers seem to (currently) find Web
access difficult or undesirable.
  
Party channels> This seems like an odd thing to charge for.  So I pay $6 and
get my very own party channel, and then when I'm not around, anybody can use
it?  *That* doesn't seem fair.  If you're going to charge for party channels,
or offer them as a perk of membership, then modify party channels so they can
only be accessed (when empty) by the owner.  It's possible, currently, that
I could be locked out of my own channel -- it's happened, due to crashes. 
I could see somebody on a vendetta against an ex-friend locking themselves
in ex-friend's $6 party channel out of spite.  Then baff has to come in and
settle it?  Nope, nope, nope.
  
Conferences> Charge $1/screen for posting.  then Grex could pay all it's bill
off of kerouac's posts.  =}  <-- joke, joke, joke!
(btw, how many spams are there in a kerouac, scott?)

paul/#35/first para: that was my argument somewhere around here, 
but marcus refuted it pretty well. In particular, the asian users
don't generally have access to e-mail for personal purposes, 
mdw says.

I think restricting acces to some things to no-members is a great idea...
except for one problem.... rumors are the only thing in the universe that
spread faster then light, so if word gets out that we're restricting access,
people are going to get pissed, even if we send out an official notice of WHY..
people may eventually accpet it, but many will not...

I think it's a given that if we restrict anything at all, more than
we already have, people will be pissed for a while.

Janc's position statement:

  I think we need to get more members.  I do not believe that we should
  restrict any guest access in order to try to prod more guests into 
  becoming members.  Grex should continue to strive to give as much to
  as many for as little as we can.

  I see two major thrusts for raising memberships.  

  (1)  Do a better job of explaining to people what Grex really is.
       Grex is doing an unbelievable public service.  This is a great
       organization.  We need to do a better job of publicizing just
       how amazing and generous we are.  (As opposed to starting to
       be less generous.)  If we start doing a better job of telling our
       story, more people will want to support us, for the right reasons,
       not for perks.

  (2)  I think we can find creative new ways to give modest perks to
       members without taking anything away from our guests.  For 
       example:

       - The idea of finding an ISP that will give discounts to Grex 
         that I mentioned in another item.

       - Start a permanent "Grex store" where people can buy nicely designed
         Grex t-shirts and mugs and mouse-pads and such-like stuff.  Offer
         modest discounts to members.

       I think lots of similar things could be done to make members feel
       "appreciated" without undermining our goal of treating people
       equally.

  I think there are lots of other good fund-raising things that can be
  done that will strngthen, rather than weaken, Grex's culture.  The
  idea of a Grex Garage Sale once a year was a good one.  Lots of people
  had STUFF they wanted to donate.  We were really only missing a place to
  do it.  These kinds of things bring our users together, rather than
  dividing them up.

  I think we may have to come up with some restrictions on E-mail, not
  for fund-raising, but to discourage certain classes of users that
  our exploiting our charity.  For instance, people who want a
  snazzier-looking E-mail address to put on their business cards, or
  want a more stable address than their ISPs.  These people aren't
  evil, but I don't think our members donate money and our staff member
  donate time so such people can have a nice mail forwarder.  We would
  like to offer free E-mail service, but really only (1) as an adjunct
  to conferencing, and (2) to people who can't get E-mail otherwise 
  (especially local people), and maybe to people who are new to E-mail or
  only send one message a week, and aren't quite ready for commercial service.

  I don't have a plan for how that would work.  I'm not sure yet that a
  plan would be needed.  A few ideas that would almost work, if we 
  decided to restrict E-Mail would be:

  - Require users to sign and snail-mail in a printed-out form before
    their accounts get authorized for E-mail.  The form would say
    something like:

       I recognize that Grex is a non-profit charitable organization
       whose major mission is blah blah blah, and that its free
       E-mail services are meant for people who blah blah blah.

       I understand that Grex's Email is free, however a modest donation
       would be a great help to Grex and would better help Grex serve
       those who most need its services.

       I understand that Grex is working on a cool stamp collection,
       and would appreciate it if I stick a neat stamp on the
       envelope.

       I would like Grex to enable login _______ for Email.

       Signed: _____________

    Every request would be granted.  I'd be tempted to drop the small
    request for $$ in the second paragraph.  The main idea here is not
    to hit people for money, but to make sure they understand who they
    are dealing with when they accept a free account from Grex.  Well,
    I also think it would be a good way to get a really neat stamp
    collection.

  - Accept only mail that is addressed to:

      login@bpddpqppdbd.0IO10lOl.grex.cyberspace.org

    Anyone who would be willing to have *that* E-mail address would have
    to be *truely* needy.

  Well, OK, neither of these suggestions are 100% serious, but I like both
  of them better than restricting E-mail only to members.  The *last*
  thing we should think of doing is providing services only to people who
  can afford to pay for them.  If we decide that E-mail must be restricted,
  we need to be more creative and less mercenary than that.

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