Hello! May I please have a real explanation of why graphics and sound files are prohibited on GREX websites? The only explanation I have found at the GREX website was a vague, unsatisfactory allusion to "severely limited bandwidth". That just doesn't seem to pass the common senses test. After all, doesn't my 1 Mb .txt rant about the 1953 Lower Ethiopian tiddlywinks championship quarter finals consume more disk space (and bandwidth, when accessed) than my 30 Kb .jpg picture of my son? My intution tells me that that there is a real reason or reasons that are not being mentioned, and that the bandwidth reference is just a "placeholder" to avoid stating the real reaason or reasons. Please state them. The prohibition on multimedia files is no small matter. It is indeed profoundly crippling and very severely limits the usefulness of user websites. Indeed, this late in history, it makes them almost pointless. And certainly doesn't help make GREX seem very inviting to potential users. Thank you for your response. Additional note: I am not happy (understatement of the year) about having spent hours of my scarce, precious time trying to get this message to you. I ssh'd into my account, got into Pine carefully crafted a thoughtful message, and tried to send it to "staff@cyberspace.org", only to have it not sent, and checking the inbox folder (where are the other folders, btw?), found a snotty system message saying that I am not worthy to send "mail to external sites". WTF? Why is staff@cyberspace.org an "external site" and not local to GREX? And why did I have to spend a LOT of time tracking the (possible) answer down to several obscure old posts in the forums? And why did I have to resort to this way of contacting you? And of what use whatsoever is GREX email if you can't email?! That certainly doesn't make me feel very welcome. Community? Hah! BTW, if it seems like I'm mad, It's because I am. I would ask for a email back but, oh, I forgot - the email doesn't work, does it?15 responses total.
Originally the prohibition on images and other "rich media" in web pages WAS due to a severely bandwidth-limited connection. As the years have gone by and connectivity has gotten cheaper we probably could have relaxed that a little bit but unfortunately during the same era another very serious problem has arisen -- phishers. They're also, by the way, the reason that your e-mail didn't work; we've had to disable outgoing e-mail from new users to protect the ability of existing users to send e-mail because phishing scammers were swarming to Grex for the free shell accounts and then overwhelming Grex's e-mail capabilities with hundreds of thousands of fraud attempts. Ultimately we reached a situation where our e-mail was getting backed up so badly and so many sites were starting to blacklist e-mail from Grex that we took this rather extreme measure to protect our (at the time) existing users. The e-mail block was always intended to be a temporary countermeasure but we're unable to remove it until we can figure out a less intrusive way to protect our e-mail. You're right that it's not the welcome we would like to extend to new users, and we're sorry to be put in that position by a legion of selfish, destructive scam artists, but that's the situation we find ourselves in. One other thing you're dead right on is that everybody, new user or not, should be able to send mail to staff to report system problems. Staff mail is sent through another machine so that people can still reach the staff by mail when Grex is down (which it hasn't been lately, but which has happened with regrettable frequency in periods within recent memory.) But the block which disallows outgoing mail from new accounts should be superseded by a rule which allows anyone to mail staff. I'll make sure your message reaches the whole staff list so we can discuss that.
Mike, Thank you for your explanatory reply to my query. It clearly explains the reasoning behind the email policy. I assume that means that I can forget about ever using GREX as for email. But I do not see what multimedia files have to do with email "abuse". As "a byte is a byte is a byte", I still don't see if someone can have 1 Mb of text, why they shouldn't be able to have 1 Mb of sound and/or graphics instead. As stated before, that limits user websites to almost complete no-usefulness (this IS 2006, and text-only just doesn't make it any more)... A response specific to this issue would be appreciated. Thanks.
When the no multimedia files was put into effect, we also had limited disk space and text files were also somewhat limited. We need to readdress the whole issue. But as a rebuttal: Some of us really do prefer a text only site. Quite a few of us either telnet, ssh, or dial in and do not use the html/web side of Grex. I have a graphic intensive, personal website. I do not have it here. I will have a link to it here once I get around to asking the webmaster to install the link. I have never thought of Grex as being a website, and probably never will. As for the outgoing email, once you have been around a while and proven that you are a reasonable person you can ask a staff person to add you to the group that is allowed to use outgoing email. Entering items like this go a long way to being that proof. Welcome, I hope that you stick around and look into the conferences.
There is also another problem with multi-media files: they tend not to be used by only one person. If we allow *one* person to put up graphics or music, then we have to allow others. Such sites tend to attract viewers, which *would* overwhelm our available bandwith. As you note, text-only just isn't as attractive. BTW, glenda, it wouldn't be *that* hard to include a link to your other site on your current page. I just added a picture of myself to my own page here, just to show that it can be done.
The explanation someone gave once for no photos was that grex had to protect itself from accusations of porn. Perhaps there could be a single staff-censored site for posting maybe 100K of images per member somewhere at grex? To get outgoing email, all you have to do is become a member for a month for $6, which will help keep grex alive. Monthly expenses are posted monthly and run $100 for colocation/web access, another $40 or so for dialup access, and various smaller expenses, and we are down to only about 45 paying members, who also donate periodically for new equipment. If you have nothing to communicate that can be said in words, your website is not likely to be worth visiting anyway. You can post photos at a large selection of free sites elsewhere, such as geocities or sdf.lonestar.org (which also provides email, for $1 one-time signup fee), and link to them from a grex website.
> To get outgoing email, all you have to do is become a member for > a month for $6, which will help keep grex alive. It's nice to get more members, but the block on e-mail for new users is *NOT* a gimmick to get people to contribute money to Grex and I strongly object to tying the two issues together.
This response has been erased.
>If you have nothing to communicate that can be said in words, your >website is not likely to be worth visiting anyway. This is an EXTREME view, and reflects extraordinary narrow- (or closed-) mindedness, and frankly, as an avid supporter of the visual and performing arts, I find it offensive.
Go Eric!
Regarding #3; It was supposed to be the case that anyone who asked to be added to the outgoing mail group was going to be allowed to do so. Since when did it become restricted to those who have "proven" themselves responsible? Regarding #4; I don't buy that image files will make grex run out of bandwidth any time soon. I can see your argument, Joe, but I don't buy it at the moment. I think we'd have to see some numbers to make a more definitive statement. Regarding #5; Regarding your second to last paragraph, I'd hope you'd finish that last sentence as, ``is not likely to be worth visiting anyway, at least by me.'' You know, a picture is worth a thousand words, and what exactly is the guy supposed to do, describe his son in words? Shesh. You know, if someone shows up and is new, I doubt that they'll feel particularly motivated to donate to "help keep grex going" or care if we're only down to 45 paying members if the system is utterly useless to them when they first join. Would you pay any amount of money to help support something that didn't do you any good at all? That doesn't pass the laugh test. I think the real answer here is that grex made a policy a long time ago when it really did have real constraints, and just never decided to do away with it. Eventually, it got sufficiently entrenched, and grex is so resistant to change and new ideas that, like changing most things around here, it's going to take significant time and energy to get people to buy into it, and unless the inner-cabal decide to do it, it just ain't going to happen.
This response has been erased.
I visit plenty of websites of friends which are just photoalbums with zero text content and it is worth every second of the long time it takes for the images to load. Why do I keep finding cases of "personal opinion" being marketed as "universal truths" in here these days ..
unlucky
Seems like every ISP account provides 5 to 20 MB of personal web page space allowing every kind of content. I frequenltly post images in fora that do not allow image posting by making the <img src> tag point to another site that will host the image. As to file size. I once got in quite a bit of trouble here on grex for posting a large text file in my personal web page here. I totally killed the system. I was very embarrassed to have caused a problem. But that was back when the Grex Internet connection was a 28kbaud modem. That's all. Things are a bit different now. I think the only thing we could reasonably fear of images hosted here would be porn. Given the anonymous/free access nature of Grex we can't just make people v-sign an acceptable use policy statement. And policing the images would quickly become impossible. I'd like to see the current policy change. I just don't believe that it can.
Sure it can. There's no reason a `verified' class of users can't put images on their web pages, any more than there's not reason a `verified' class of users can't send and receive email.
You have several choices: