I am a member in good standing, and this is a member initative. Members of Cyberspacce Commmunications, Inc., will be allowed to host images in their webspace on Grex. If a member of staff determines, at their discretion, that any image is using too much of Grex's resources, they may take action to limit that use, including deleting the image. If staff determines that a member has persistently or egregiously abused their privilege to host images, that member's ability to host images may be restricted.182 responses total.
According to Steve', this would be an inducement to potential members. I endorse taking this proposal to vote.
Gosh, I'm flattered that anything I say about how to help Grex gets you to propose it. Hmmm-- I think it would help Grex if you were quiet.
> I think it would help Grex if you were quiet. I think you should check that attitude.
I did. Same thought.
re 2 So GreX can be a quiet little system with its tiny userbase that's segregated from the rest of the Internet? Oh yeah; that's a good attitude. If that's what you want, get off the boat and make your own private system.
I am glad that scholar is making all these proposals - it's been a long time since we talked much about how to make Grex better. One big problem we have avoided by not allowing images on Grex web pages, is becoming a source for porn. I don't want Grex to be a source for serving up porn, and I'm afraid that allowing images would turn us into that. What do you propose, David, to keep that from happening?
I'm not concerned with the content of the pictures Grex hosts so long as it is legal. Why do you see pornographic pictures as being a negative? If it's because of Grex being associated with that which is widely viewed as being seedy, I don't think that's much of a concern as the web addresses people use to access the pictures would make it clear that the images were being published by an individual user, and not by Grex. I think this is similar to the way reasonable people don't call libraries pornographers, even if they allow access to pornographic content. Do you think there's a problem with pornographic images having a tendency to use up too many resources? I'm not sure if this would be true, but if Grex does allow members to host images, I think Grex's staff should be sure to monitor how many times images are being accessed and how much bandwidth is being used to host them, and if appropriate, removing the image from Grex. I don't think pornographic images ought to be treated any differently.
Does 2257 compliance mean anything to you, scholar? If it doesn't go read up on it. Also, go ask ISP's if they allow "adult" sites--most of them do not, because they are an incredible bandwidth hog. Even places like pair.com don't want to deal with it.
Regarding #6; I'm not sure that would happen automatically. Besides, there's lots of written porn that could already been on grex in text format. What about that? Finally, users can create "porn" sites on grex that link to images hosted on other sites. Hmm. Where does that fall? Regarding #3; No, seriously, that was just uncalled for and childish. Like I said, David may be a pain in the ass, but he's actually making good suggestions here. Why not at least evaluate his ideas on the merits of the ideas themselves, instead of who wrote them?
I don't want Grex to be a source for porn. That's my opinion. I would not feel good about volunteering for an organization that devoted a lot of its resources to delivering porn to people. There *is* some text porn on Grex now. It's not a big deal. I'm not proposing censoring that, but neither do I want Grex to become known as a place where you can post porn pictures you want everyone to see. Maybe I'm worng, but I really think that might happen if we allowed pictures on web sites. What do other free web hosting sites do to avoid this problem?
Why is a free speech blue ribbon endorsing site concerned with whether users have porn in their webpages?
I'm just stating my opinions, not Grex's.
re. 8: I'm familiar with 2257 and it seems to apply only to producers of pornographic material, not to people who host it, Steve'. Do you have any reason to believe otherwise, Steve'?
Regarding #10; I don't know; has there ever been any attempt to set up a porn site on grex before? Despite blocking network access via the kernel, numerous people try and circumvent that, downloading psybnc, eggdrop, etc, and compiling and running same, despite the fact that they don't get anywhere doing so. I imagine the people interested in setting up porn sites on grex would have done the same. But one thing I've noticed about Internet porn is that the people producing and distributing it, really *really* seem to want you to *pay* for it, which requires CGI or something akin to it. Since grex doesn't provide access to THAT, then it would seem that providing images alone wouldn't be enough to host an effective porn site.
I'm less worried about producers of porn (who, I agree, would want a more professional platform than Grex) than kids who just want to put up pictures for their friends. I don't know - I may be wrong; this may not be a real worry. Maybe we ought to try allowing images below a certain size, and then revisit the decision after we see what happens. If scholar adds a line that allows the staff to set a limit on the size of image files, I will endorse bringing this to a vote.
Members of Cyberspacce Commmunications, Inc., will be allowed to host images in their webspace on Grex. If a member of staff determines, at their discretion, that any image is using too much of Grex's resources, including by being too large, they may take action to limit that use, including deleting the image. If staff determines that a member has persistently or egregiously abused their privilege to host images, that member's ability to host images may be restricted. ---- That good enough, Mark?
I think that is a sound proposal.
I would like to see a line that says, "The staff may also set a limit on the size of images, which will apply to all users."
right here : "If a member of staff determines, at their discretion, that any image is using too much of Grex's resources, including by being too large, they may take action to limit that use, including deleting the image. " That's in resp:16, mark.
Yeah, I'm not really sure what Mark's talking about, but the official proposal now includes his line appended to the ende.
If I were in favor of this proposal -- I'm not -- I would want a line allowing Grex (staff, probably, with user recourse to the board to prevent abuse) to remove images in violation of Grex's other policies or of the law.
Oh, okay. Good point! Append the following line: Staff may remove any image that violates Grex's policies or the laws under which Cyberspace Communications, Inc. operates.
Here's why I don't like the idea of hosting images: I would like to keep the people who keep Grex running out of the content evaluation business. By having a content-neutral policy banning all images, staff doesn't get put in the position of making personal decisions for themselves which images are acceptable and which are not.
So if its ascii art then you're okay with it but if its photographic art then you aren't? Is that the divining rod of censorship which prompts a "lack of human resources" claim? I didn't want the folks who run Grex in the content evaluation business either...whether that be textual expression or otherwise. I don't see a huge difference, really. True, if there's a complain of kiddie porn or credit card #'s on a webpage then the staff should react but there is no difference in their legality even though one is text and one is imagery.
Exactly what tod said. There can be appropriate content consisting of images, and totally inappropriate content consisting of text. GreX staffers really shouldn't be in the "content evaluation business", unless it involves something illegal or hogs system resources. Both exceptions are covered in scholar's proposal.
re #24, 25: I'm not pretending that images are the only format where one has to make decisions about legality but I honestly believe that in practice with images the "grey area" is substantially larger, calling for a substantially higher number of subjective judgments.
I'd agree with that. Allowing even one more image will mean a higher number of subjective judgments.
Scholar, could we see the whole proposal in one response?
Sure: Members of Cyberspacce Commmunications, Inc., will be allowed to host images in their webspace on Grex. If a member of staff determines, at their discretion, that any image is using too much of Grex's resources, including by being too large, they may take action to limit that use, including deleting the image. If staff determines that a member has persistently or egregiously abused their privilege to host images, that member's ability to host images may be restricted. The staff may set a limit on the on the size of images, which will apply to all users. The staff may also remove any image which violates Cyberspace Communication's policies or violates the laws under which it operates.
OK, I'll endorse bringing that to a vote. I haven't decided if I'll vote for it or not. I don't like member-only perks, because Grex is not a fee-for-service organization. But I'm interested to find out how the rest of the membership feels about it.
GreX is a fee-for-what organisation, then, Mark ?
Well, supposedly when you become a member you are doing so to support Grex's mission (whatever that is). Its like, you don't become a member of the Humane Society to get free dog care.
Speaking of dog car, I took my son to the Ringling Bros circus last night and there were filthy hippy picketers outside with mangled animal photos on their picket signs. Quicker than you can say "The kid from Detroit called the pigs on you", the boys in blue came out in force and made them hide their signs and stand out of the way so we could go inside to watch the tortured and abused dogs/cats run around on their hindlegs for treats.
Ruff ruff.
The point I was getting at was that porn is not the only type of image people might take offense at.
steve, as useless you are and as smart as scholar is you should just fess up to your wrong doing with a gmail account of his, crawl under some rock, and fuck off. you are an annoying fat pig with an attitude that just won't die all for no reason. :(
Wow. Reading #36 is like a peek into bizarro-world.
Amein.
The problem with this is how to implement it, time wise.
Just edit the apache config file and permit images.
Well sure, but I'm talking about how to implement the watching of usage. If someone has a perfectly legitimate and neat site on Grex that starts consuming 300M a day, we'd need to throttle that back. Yeah, it isn't likely that we'll have something like that here, but it could be, if it got slashdotted or something.
Here's another reason why I don't think image hosting is a good idea for Grex: common carrier status. Right now, at least according to my limited understanding of the hazy world of computer and internet law, Cyberspace Communications is not legally responsible for things that are posted on Grex because we exercise no content-specific editorial discretion (i.e. permitting some things, forbidding others.) As an open system where people can post what they want (subject to whatever *content-neutral* rules we impose) we are afforded a certain measure of protection under the law as a "common carrier." If we start changing the rules from "no images" to "no offensive images" we lose (or at the very least jeopardize) that common carrier protection. It would be better, therefore, if the image policy is changed to allow people to host whatever images they want (subject, again, to whatever *content-neutral* rules we impose regarding size, total download bandwidth, etc..) And in the end I think that a policy like that is going to wind up attracting a bunch of people who will use a lot of our bandwidth to serve stuff that I personally would find creepy. Consequently I'm not very fond of the idea and would rather not get into that sort of service to start with. But if people are determined that we should do it, we should do it in as open a manner as possible and one that protects the Grex organization according to our best understanding of the law. The legal aspects, in fact, might be important enough that it'd be worth paying a lawyer to provide a professional opinion on the matter. Anyway, that's my two cents..
Yeah, I think thats right.
There are so many other places where people can post images for free that I see no real need to add them here. People have images that they want seen, post them on one of the multitudes of free image sites out there and post a link here if they like. We don't need the headache or possible legal nightmare.
There's no NEED, but people WANT it. Why not? Other sites do it without the amount of worrying that grex does, and don't seem to have big problems. As for how to monitor usage, just write a script that looks at the logs; there are plenty of them out there already, even. I'm sure the apache config file can be configured to limit the size of image files.
The problem isn't just with Apache, its the problem that once people hear of Grex allowing graphical images, they will be shoveling file in, thinking its OK.
You think so? That hasn't appeared to happen to other sites, necessarily.
Dan, people already use Grex to a) share graphic files, b) get graphica file and ship them home, c) put web sites up that use them (it doesn't work but still costs us the bandwidth to get them here). I see this every day. So yes, I believe what I said.
re 45 You'd have to get valerie back if you want any scripts written around here.
What percentage of users does that represent, and how many GB/month of bandwidth would they use?
Since we try to stomp on people when they're caught doing that, probably not too much. But in the last two months I've found two repositories of jpgs that were renamed in an attempt to hide them, each 200M+ in size. I find people who wget data and them FTP it from Grex quite frequently. I know that there are people who continue to use Grex as a waystation, and if they thought it was OK to do it, things would ramp up. From conversations with some reluctant folks caught doing this, I got statements that getting pictures from Grex masked the site that they were getting them from, trying to get around rules about not visiting porn sites from company/university sites. For a while I thought the practice was getting bettter (lesser) but I think its ramping back up.
Perhaps. But then, with the small-ish disk quotas most users have, I'm not sure they could upload much porn. I'm astonished that you found someone with 200MB of data, and I wonder how that happened....
It was on several accounts if I remember.
Someone is clearly motivated.
Does Steve' have any proof of his allegations?
It's what we've been dealing with since we were on the net.
Using locate to find jpg, JPG, gif, GIF, png, PNG, pdf and PDF files of those extensions, there are just under 10,000 of them. Note that this does not include tar and zip files holding them.
Any idea how many gigabytes per month we would use if we allowed images?
Nope, and thats what I'm afraid of, a huge ramping up over a coulple of months.
Other systems that allow personal web pages with images don't seem to have this problem. What does mnet do?
M-Net allows images. It doesn't seem to be an issue.
Todd, as far as your are aware, are there any restrictions on size, etc?
I couldn't answer to that but I can say that I've not had any problems with any images in my webpages there.
What does it matter what happens on other systems? We aren't talking about other systems, we're talking about Grex. I *know* from personal experience that a lot of people, an amazing number of people forn whatever reason use Grex to get graphical files and then ship them elsewhere, either by ftp or mail. I sent so many mails out at one point when I was watching every day that I had a little scorecard where I counted how many I was doing a day. I think the record was around 20 people in a day.
You make it sound is if images are inherently bad. Yeah, you *know* that lots of people try to put them on grex. I'm asking (a) whether that is bad, and (b) if it is, why?
Sadly, a huge amount of the images I've seen people passing through Grex are porn. Now, I don't have an objection to that itself--I say let people do what they want. But when they use Grex resources in the process of doing this, thats a problem. We have FAR more CPU and net bandwith than we did before, but also fewer places on the net exist to allow people to cover their tracks. I've had several people admit to me that they were using Grex so as to not make an obvious impression in FTP logs at their site just what was going on. On the heels of this debate are other forms of audio/visual stuff like mp3's, mpgeg's and PDFs. Image files have the special problem of being a political item when it comes to some kinds of porn, ala child pictures. We've had a few cases of this that I know of, and hope we don't have more. Looking from higher above this gets into what we want Grex to be.
Then how come other public access Unix systems don't have the same problems? This is what I'm trying to get at.... We're not unique in the world.
I honestly don't know. I know that a lot of people come here to try and break things, and that a lot of people come here because of the freedoms we offer. Quite possibly the massive number of Indian users we had a one point changed people's perceptions of Grex, in terms of what could be done on it. No Grex isn't unique, but look at the number of dwindling systems like us. M-Net got rid of email. Most or all of the FreeNet systems are gone. Nether.net still around, I think. But how many other places are there like Grex now?
I don't know. But places that offer hosting space (some even free) for images and the like are a dime a dozen. M-Net got rid of email due to the spam problem, which affects everyone pretty much the same way. Besides, the number of public-access Unix systems was never particularly large (though in an ever-expanding set of computers connected to the Internet, the percentage of computers like grex relative to the whole continues to shrink).
(But that brings up another point - in a world where the potential pool of users who *want* to use a system like grex is shrinking relative to the whole, it makes sense to offer services that would attrack users to the system. Hosting images is something that people have long asked for. Other systems do it successfully; we won't know if we can or not until we try, measure, and respond to those measurements.)
re #67: > Then how come other public access Unix systems don't have the same > problems? There are two types of problems here. One sort is immediate and practical -- how much space will users use and how much bandwidth will be consumed if we make this change. The other sort is not immediate, but represents what is probably a fairly low level of risk (much less than 10%, though how low is hard to guess) but a substantially bad outcome -- entanglement in civil or criminal penalties, possibly substantial ones, if Grex is found to be serving the "wrong" kind of content and someone decides to make an example of us. I can even see potential risk to some people who have been supporters of Grex -- I hope such a thing would never happen but what if polygon were running for election against an opponent who was saying things like "my opponent serves on the board of a computer system that's known for hosting child pornography"? I explained earlier that I think there is a substantial risk to Grex if it allows images but attempts to control the content of the images. I think there is also a risk to Grex if it allows images but tries to maintain a content-neutral image policy. And I think when you ask "why is this not a problem for other public-access Unix systems" I don't think it's safe to assume that in fact it ISN'T a problem for those systems. It may just be that it's a problem they've decided to ignore in the hopes it never becomes an issue.
Actually Dan, I think that there are a lot of people who think using Grex will offer them anonymity. I think a lot of people have come here for that.
Regarding #71; It is a risk. The question is, is it large enough of a risk to be worth worrying about? Other systems don't think so, and perhaps we should wonder why that is. Regarding #72; The same is certainly true of M-Net, and yet it doesn't appear to have been an issue for them yet.
As I've said before, so what. M-Net isn't Grex.
It's perfectly valid to compare M-Net to Grex, though. They both provide basically the same services, and quite frankly, M-Net does a better job of it.
Regarding #74; So there's nothing to gain by looking at mnet as an example, considering that they've already done what is being proposed for grex? As scholar says, it is perfectly valid to compare the two. Indeed, I think it could be particularly constructive.
Why is it important to host the images on Grex, as opposed to Flickr, or some other image hosting site?
Not sure... I find it exceptionally puzzling that we still offer email, and don't agree that it is worth the pain.
I'm not sure that anything that grex does is "important." But it's been requested over and over through the years, and the traditional arguments are starting to fall flat (because if nothing else, things like Flickr and photobucket do exist). But, I also think grex is mired in resistance to change; a lot of our justifications are, "we've never done it that way." Or, "what's wrong with the way we do it now?" Then strawman arguments are put up to justify current policy and, eventually, the debate just dies down because no one is interested in arguing it over and over. But hey, mabye that's why grex's membership levels have halved in the past few years.
I don't hear people objecting to this on the basis of "we've never done it that way". Rather, they are presenting some pretty compelling reasons for keeping our current policy. And I think it's unfair to say aruba, steve, glenda, mcnally and others who have spoken up are simply resistant to change. They have brought up some valid points here. Aruba doesn't really want to see Grex hosting porn. sTeve wonders how we will go about the censorship issues that will arise. mcnally points out how allowing some images but not others might jeopardize our common carrier status. And glenda brings up how other sites are already doing a great job at hosting images and do we really want the added legal and administrative burden involved. I'm highlighting just a few of those who have brought thoughful questions to the discussion. I haven't found any of the answers to these concerns compelling enough to truck ahead, changing our policy. But the discussion has been interesting.
Regarding #80; No one said those aren't valid points. But you know what? There's this BIG counterpoint to each one: M-Net, an organization that does largely the same thing as grex and is under many of the same constraints, allows images and it hasn't been a problem for them. I think it's perfectly valid, for each of the points raised, to ask why that hasn't been a problem for M-Net. As for resistance to change, that you "haven't found any of the answers to these concerns compelling enough to truck ahead, changing our policy" is being pretty resistant to change. Of course, each of the compelling concerns you raise could equally be applied to, say, offering email. Why not remove email access, as well? How is that substantially different? Substitute UCE for porn (well, really, they're largely the same thing now days - that and pharmacuticals are what most of the spam I get concerns). That we don't allow images for the reasons cited, but do allow email is inconsistent.
I don't think there would be a big overhead of censorship unless that is what Grex is all about for certain staff people.
Re# 81: There is one reason, and it is monumentally significant. M-Net is run autocratically. If you come up against a sysadmin on an issue, you might as well just leave, because unless you can convince the person to even spend the time listening to/reading why you think they're wrong, you have no chance of winning the argument. The difference between that and the way Grex is run makes M-Net in no way whatever a reasonable measure of what might happen on Grex. There cannot possibly be a reasonable use of M-Net's example for any predictive value on Grex.
re #83 So what you're saying is that Grex staff is a bunch of beauracratic bologna? Wow, I agree for once.
Grex staff is anything but beaurcratic.
Dan, Mary is not resistent to change per se. She said that she has been listening to the issues and doesn't see it as a reason to change. I think thats perfectly valid. She is listening, but doesn't agree. Thats a lot different from being resistend. Again I will say that what M-Net does is what M-Net does. What they choose to do is just about irrevelant to what we do. The cultures are different, and thats that. Your argument about removing email access if you substitute that for porn doesn't make sene to me; the two are completely different.
Maybe we can handle this the same way we handled the idle daemon issue. Allow images for a month or so and see what happens.
Regarding #83; What does the autocratic nature of M-Net system administration have to do with the fact that both M-Net and Grex are 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporations, both have an open-access model for newusers, and both face many of the same potential legal problems with respect to images? In regards to the issues that have been raised in this discussion, I don't see how you can so easily discount M-Net's experience in this matter. Regarding #85; Heh. Regarding #86; I disagree. I think, at the core of it, that this was proposed by polytarp and therefore immediately got on the bad side of nearly everyone. I wonder how the discussion would have evolved had it been proposed by someone else? Yes, M-Net and grex are different. But with respect to the issues raised regarding this proposal, there is much that grex can learn from M-Net. In particular, M-Net did not become a haven for porn sites once it started to allow images, it did not lose its nonprofit status, and it does not appear that it has been the victim of legal action relating the images its users put in their personal web space. Moreover, it is a convenience for its users. Why wouldn't grex look at that? How does the response, "M-Net isn't grex" invalidate their prior example with respect to things that are exactly analogous between the systems? These aren't cultural issues, they're organizational issues, and at that level, the two systems share much in common. And my argument wasn't that porn is analogous to email, but rather that email and hosting images are (nearly) isomorphic, where porn maps to UCE. That is, email access and image access have many of the same risks, and in particular, nearly all that have been raised in this thread. (Of course, grex did turn off outbound email for newusers as a result of this, but there are hordes of users grandfathered in.) Saying, "I've read the discussion, and conclude that the risks sufficiently outweigh the benefits that I am not swayed in favor of the proposal" gives one pause for thought when the same line of reasoning can be applied to email, as well.
Basing a technical argument on the "different cultures" of m-net and grex is intellectually weak, at best, and dishonest at worst. If the arguments were over cultural issues, the point would be relevant. When it's used to rebut a perfectly technical argument that m-net can handle images and grex's capacity is not that dissimilar, it has zero persuasive power. Unless of course someone is suggesting more grexers would post porn here than m-netters would there. Hmmmm. Twinkie's "Dirt Pig" stories are pretty vile, but maybe there's an underlying fear that some grexer somewhere could do worst . . . .
Hmmm. I thought this was a discussion about image files in general, not just technical. Am I wrong here? Whats weak about it? I don't see why, because M-net does something that we should or should not do whatever.
Had someone else have proposed this Dan, my thoughts would be the same. And, actually this was a reasonable thing to put up for discussion.
Dan - it doesn't appear that more than a handful of Grex members support this proposal; otherwise there would be enough to force a vote on the issue. So your beef is not with the board and staff, but with the (vast majority of the) membership. I say, if you really feel this is a good proposal, you should make it your goal to convince a couple more members to endorse bringing it to a vote.
Regarding #90; It is a discussion, but the points are mostly technical in nature, for sufficient definitions of what technical mean. In this case, this involves legality among other things, not just the gearhead computer aspects of it (which I would expect to be uninteresting to most except you, myself, and perhaps a few others). I don't think anyone is saying, "M-Net does this, therefore grex should." I think what they *are* saying is that, "because M-Net does this, it does not follow that grex cannot, or that the potential problems are insurmountable." I know that that's what I'm saying, at the very least. Regarding #91; I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one, Steve, because that's what you say, even though your dislike for the proposer is well known (and was aluded to in one of these threads - of course, his antagonism toward you is well-known as well). Is that true for everyone who's chimed in here? Regarding #92; With all due respect, Mark, I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of the membership is completely unaware that this discussion is taking place at all. Part of that has to do with who started it. Part of it has also to do with where it's being discussed (how many members venture outside of agora on a regular basis?). For the record, I do think it's a good proposal that would benefit grex, but unfortunately, these posts in and of themselves take enough of my already taxed time that I cannot do more cheerleading for it. I would suggest that scholar post a notice in agora that this discussion is going on, or request the agora FW to link this item there to give it more exposure. I would also like to point out that the grex membership is a very, very small percentage of the total number of users. I'm not sure that really matters all that much, but in general, the membership is not at all representative of the overall userbase.
I'm not sure about that Dan. Grex members do all sorts of things on the system, just like the entire population. Except of course, they care enough to send in money. I will point out that I haven't heard a large number of Grex's members asking for this. That I can remember, this is the first such proposal in a while. I don't think its that big an issue here. I mean, if it were, I would think that we'd be seeing more comments here. As it is, there aren't enough people to support this to go up for a vote, are there?
I'm not sure; I haven't been keeping track of that. But then, if it's not a big issue, is there a reason *not* to do it? I think Nate had a good idea: try it for a month and see what happens. Leave in a provision that it can be turned off at any time if the flood gates open and it looks like the dam is about to burst. Would a test-run be bad? And again, I'm not sure most of the membership even knows this is being discussed....
i think most of the membership is asleep right now, cross.
Quite possibly.
Quick question - if we hosted erotic images that were visible to anyone, would be be obligated to somehow put them behind a click-though where viewers stipulated they were 18 or over? Would we need to comply with laws stating all models were 18 or older? Can we get around any liablity of facilitating a minors access to these photos simply by stating we don't censor anything our users want to upload? And as to our modeling ourselves after other systems, well. it's always useful to see how it goes when others do it differently, but we need to think it through, for ourselves, and first and foremost do what works for Grex.
IANAL, but I think the common-carrier status that Mcnally talked about would say that Grex does not need to put click-throughs for the images because basically the content would be owned by and the responsibility of the user. So, the two only choices is either allow all legal graphics with zero censorship, or none at all.
I suspect that a lot of members who read Coop are not even commenting on this thread. If a member wants this to die a natural death, the best way to do it is 1) not endorse the proposal; and 2) not contribute to the arguments on either side.
why can you make it so that users have to put a warning to images, ie: you can't have them on your homepage and any links that will lead to an image must have a warning that sex is on them? If a user fails to do so then his account is locked until the issue can be resolved -- IE: the agree to the rules or all images are taken down?
Mentioning how M-Net gets things done around here is like telling Kirk how Klingons get things done. You're not going to make friends nor impress anyone. Pity.
Well, one problem is that so far in the history of Grex being on the net, people a) don't read anything that newuser says, b) often ignore notice files put in their home dirs telling them to stop importing eggdrop or whatever, and frequently ignore FTP sessions that get killed and start doing whatever all over again. Given this, I think we'd be in for a lot of work.
Regarding #98; I too am not a lawyer, but I think Nate is right: it'd be up to the individual user. You just need to say, "don't do anything illegal." Regarding #100; I think it's a shame if a member does that. I suspect a lot of it is that they saw that Polytarp did the initial post, said, "eh, he's a pain in the ass...." and forgot the item. If they read coop at all. Regarding #102; Right. Regarding #103; (did you notice I skipped every other post in my replies up until this one?) Still, putting it in newuser and having a positive acknowledgement of system policies as part of the account registration process is a legal butt-covereing measure. After stating a policy, you just wash your hands of the matter. Like Pilate.
Hmmm. Except that we then have to deal with stuff, meaning that the disk starts to get more full and someone has to deal with it.
Regarding #105; Is there any evidence that this is going to happen? On grex under OpenBSD, we have disk quotas that keep one user from filling up the filesystem. By your own statements, there may not even be that much of a demand. I thought Nate's suggestion was good: let's try it for a month and see what happens. Leave a disclaimer that the plug can be pulled if it becomes a problem. I'd rather see some experiments that yield some data off of which we could make a decision rather than just go on people's guts.
(On the question of members reading coop: I suspect most people find coop before they decide to pony up the bucks for membership.)
I don't know; do they then follow it regularly, like, say, agora? Do we have numbers on who reads what?
I think that if images become a problem they might easily take more than a month to be so. It could be 6 months or a year before we have issues, and by then people with images on their websites would have installed a lot of links that would break if we turned images off. They would be understandibly pissed. So I don't think it's realistic to think we could back away from this policy once we open the door. Or, to put it another way, once we start allowing images, it will take something truly heinous before we'll have a good reason for stopping.
By the way: People should keep in mind that the official proposal I entered allows only MEMBERS of Cyberspace Communications Inc. to host imaged. Not many people, not much policing needed.
Yeah, I think if you allow members outbound net access, then allowing them to host images should be a no-brainer.
And what happens if a member has a bunch of images and links to said images and then lets the membership lapse? Does the keeper of the membership rolls have to be root staff such that he/she can delete the images of said lapsed member or does staff get a list of member lapses each month and have to delete the images? What if a membership lapses and the images are deleted and a two or three weeks later the membership is renewed? How do we keep it from becoming an administrative nightmare and timesink?
I'd forgotten that aspect of the proposal so thanks for the reminder in #110. Still, Glenda's comments are valid, and the larger issue of not wanting to offer more special things for members remains.
> Does the keeper of the membership rolls have to be root staff such
> that he/she can delete the images of said lapsed member or does staff
> get a list of member lapses each month and have to delete the images?
I'm not sure you understand how images are presently restricted, Glenda.
You see Apache, our web server software, is configured to redirect HTTP
requests for files with certain extentions. Here is the relevant part of
/var/www/conf/apache.conf:
<Directory /[abcdefghijklmn]/?/?/*/www>
RedirectMatch \.gif$ /white.gif
RedirectMatch \.jpg$ /white.gif
RedirectMatch \.jpeg$ /white.gif
RedirectMatch \.png$ /white.gif
</Directory>
Thus, what we would need to do is find a way to disable this redirect
for users who are members of the 'members' group. I'm not exactly sure
how to do this as yet, but it shouldn't prove to be difficult.
In other words, chances are; No, the person maintaining membership rolls
will not have to delete images.
> the larger issue of not wanting to offer more special things for
> members remains.
How is this an issue? And who doesn't "want to offer more special things
for members"? You? Are you a member? Because it seems to me that the
membership of Cyberspace Communications should be the ones who decided
whether or not more special things are offered to members. And this is
exactly what is going on in this item: A member is proposing for a
membership vote on offering more special things for members.
By the way, the notion of a "larger issue of not wanting to offer more special things for members" sounds like the "resistance to change" stuff that Dan was talking about in #81.
Not wanting to offer more special things for members is one of the core founding principles of Grex. It was adopted as a position in explicit contrast to The Other System. Repeating myself: outbound telnet for members is a historic quirk, not a model we should follow again. In 2006, Grex should not become a fee-for-services organization, in part because it doesn't have the resources to provide reliable service to people paying money, and in part because those services are easily available elsewhere for little to no cost.
Something that perhaps isn't well understood is that once the word gets out that Grex "allows" graphical images, people will plop them over here and give out passwords to others to share them. This is *already* happening, it's been going on for a long time. To me allowing graphical images means more than just Apache giving them out. Just like the number of people who bring over psybnc, bnc, eggdrop, mech stuff, irc, etc.
> Not wanting to offer more special things for members is one of the core > founding principles of Grex. http://www.google.com/search?as_q=core+founding+principles&as_sitesearch=cy bersp ace.org Guess how many results? Where exactly can we find these core founding principles? Or are we talking in the abstract about how Ken feels in regarding to special member priviledges? So far, the reasons for not allowing members to post images have not been compelling. John Remmers once told me that users on Grex should be as free as possible without allowing them to infringe on other people's usage. This was part of the justification for removing the idle limits. I feel that at this point Grex has the resources and common-carrier status to allow all users to post images. And I really think that making us "different" from "The Other System" is not enough of a reason to open this freedom to users.
You are completely ignoring the fact that we have a limit on the amount of bandwidth we can use for our $100/month charge. Allowing graphical items for all users is going to ramp up our usage, and if we get 'successful', we'll wind up paying more, to host web stuff. I believe we get 50G per month right now, and we're somewhere around 30% of that. I know that as grex has gotten more stable usage has climbed up. Now, this is a policy question, that of how much we're willing to pay for more bandwidth, used largely because of graphical files. Will we hit the limit that causes us to pay more for bandwidth? I'm not sure, but we need to think about that. The next increment of bandwidth would be another $50/month I believe, or $600/year.
Well, if this is what the membership wants then, who are me or you to say otherwise?
I agree, the membership will determine this.
re. 119: I've already said this a couple times, but again, please realize that the official proposal would only allow *members* to host images.
Regarding #117; I don't think there's any evidence of that. Maybe five or six years ago that would have been true, but not necessarily now. And surely no one is *denied* graphical images on grex now, there's just not much that they can do with them. Regarding #119; You said we're using about 30% of our bandwidth. Where do you get that number from? I'd like to see the numbers....
Regarding #112; Then the apache daemon notices that they're no longer in the members group and doesn't show their images. No one deletes anything. If they rejoin, then apache notices that they're in members again and shows their images. That's that.
Dan, I remove images from Grex every day, and have at least a couple of conversations (or attempts if they don't respond) about Grex not being a file repository. Please don't say that, its simply not true. It might be a little less common today, maybe. But we still see people ftping files to Grex and then ftping them back out again, which surprises me since we there are so many ftp server packages out there for Windows, etc.
The 30% number came from John A, one of the admins at Provide.
Regarding #125; Steve, what evidence is there that if grex allowed members to host image files on their personal web pages that hordes of users would then start trying to move hordes of files here? Clearly they already put them here expecting them to work, and are suprised when they don't. And what, precisely, is wrong with users using grex to move files around? That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Regarding #126; Another way of looking at that is that, if we're only using 30%, then we're wasting the other 70%. I say we have 70% of our bandwidth to lay around with.
re 125 Why are you removing them when they aren't going to be available for viewing ?
Sigh. Think about, just a little before squawking, would you? Each FTP requires bandwitdh. Each FTP uses space. Most people after using Grex to move files around leave them here, not cleaning up after themselves. I should note that wget plays a role here too, as does mail. People bring stuff to Grex and move it elsewhere.
Re #127. Several times in the past we've been an upswing in the amount of stuff brought here. In talking with a few people who'd been doing that, they'd said they'd heard that Grex allowed such things (file storage, bots, warez, ...). Of course none of them ever bothered to read what newuser told them. Based on this I don't think its unreasonable to assume that we'll have more of the same.
Regarding #129; I have thought about it, and I don't appreciate such quippy statements. But enough about that. Step back for a minute: you're anticipating a huge influx of users putting huge amounts of image files on grex. I'm asking what you're basing that on. I'm saying that, those users who want to try and use grex for images are already transfering them here. There aren't likely to be many more if we turn images on. Where do the hordes of users who are going to stampede to grex to display images going to come from? Why aren't they here already? And what's the big deal if someone uses grex to move some files around? Isn't grex's purpose to serve its users? So what if they use a little of bandwidth and space? We have plenty of both to spare, and they're capped by quotas anyway. If we're really worried about the web server using too much bandwidth, then set up PF to put a limit on it.
Regarding #130; So it's already happened that the "word" has gotten out, and yet grex is still here and still has bandwidth and space to spare.
This touches on what the people who make up Grex want Grex to be. Are we some kind if ISP, or conferencing system, both? Once Grex ceased being a local BBS with phone lines, it changed. Most of the users have never been in the conferences, be that good or bad. My problem is that there are fewer systems like us around today, putting pressue on us. People seeking a place for bot tools are never ending. People who don't know how to set up FTP servers abound, and use us. These trends are going to continue, or I should say that I see no reason for them to ramp down. Given that, I'd like to keep policies in place that won't encourage more file/net bandwidth use. I'm not sure I'm going to respond to this item any more. Everything I say you pounce on Dan, and I'm tired of trying to explain myself. Since it appears that most people reading this item aren't jumping up and down to support this, I don't think I can do any more to state myself. You can (and I'm sure will) continue to question what I'm saying and thats fine. When this comes to a vote we'll see what the membership thinks. Others are free to speak up on this.
Very well, Steve. I'm sorry that you feel that my asking you to justify your opinions is "pouncing." However, I just see it as debate, and without debate, we can't make reasonable decisions. If one cannot justify one's opinions, then one has no position to stand on. If one cannot change one's opinions if they cannot be supported, then well, I don't really know what to say.
#133 is about as close as I've seen you come to admitting your arguments are essentially cultural and not technical. Even so, I find your earlier statement "Given that, I'd like to keep policies in place that won't encourage more file/net bandwidth use." downright bizarre. Exactly what DO you suggest be done with that bandwidth you're hording like a pot of gold? I mean you can basically recycle that ridiculous statement anytime someone proposes ANYTHING that will increase bandwidth use. Are you opposed to new users in general? Don't new users mean using up more file/net bandwidth regardless of whether or not you allow pictures?
Dan, no matter what I say, you're there questioning more. How long should I try and state myself? I note that you are the only one doing this. I just don't see what good I'm going to do for anyone, sitting here talking about this with you on what seems to be an endless basis. Grex folk reading this, please speak up. Am I all wet? Are you reading this wondering, and want to know more? Is this discussion helping you? I would really like to know.
No cyklone, I'm not againsr new users. But when thousands (and yes, I mean thousands) of eggdrops, psybnc items, etc are dropped on to Grex, when people use Grex for various things like file shuffling, and aren't a part of any of Grex's culture, I have to wonder. Does that make sense (not that you may agree with it) what I'm trying to get at?
It is helping me. I will continue to be a contributing member of Grex regardless of this discussion. I do feel that there is a valid point about the necessity of protecting Grex from harmful imagery. On the contrary to that, though; there is something to be said about being able to log into Grex and make a fully functional webpage in addition to participating in BBS and party. More members aren't a bad idea.
Regarding #136; Steve, with respect, take my continued questioning as a sign that I am not convinced by your arguments and do not support your position. And since cyklone just posted, empirically I am not the only one (not to mention others who have posted in this thread). Regarding #137; Perhaps it is us who are not really a part of grex's culture anymore, Steve.
Re #137: You're right that I don't agree, but I do think you are clear. It IS a cultural issue with you and you would prefer something that encourages more people to post in bbs as opposed to those who don't. I can't say I wouldn't like to see more new blood in bbs, either. OTOH, maybe just trying new things temporarily would provide a better test for what would actually happen, instead of just worrying. As for Tod's concern about photos, if Grex is so hung up on ID'ing members, and only members can post pictures, then it seems to me the potential problems are pretty remote. Again, try it and see.
I just don't understand all the teeth being pulled about this, Grex never hosted pictures, other places do (I have mine posted in 3 free places, no problems). I understand the problems that the staff would like to avoid and I think it's reasonable. just my 2 cents worth =^o.-^=
re #141 I just find the actual threat a low to moderate risk compared to the benefit which could be moderate to high of attracting interest in Grex participation. Like cyklone pointed out, we're talking about vetted members.
re 129 You think about it, you bum. People are going to FTP stuff to GreX, images or otherwise, regardless of whether or not you've deleted it from another user's disk space. If you delete someone's file, chances are they'll upload it again because they won't know why it was deleted; thereby giving you two uploads for the price of one. Quotas are what prevent users from uploading massively huge files and taking up disk space. If you're worried about someone who never logs in yet has filled up their allowable space, just reap their account. It's not a case of "I'm the only one who really cares about GreX. Why won't you listen to me?" Get over yourself.
slip !
STeve and Dan, I'm here, I've been listening. At this point it looks as if the opinions have been clearly stated and all that's left is the digging in part. But know that I've read it all and appreciate the time both of you have put into the discussion.
Okay, thank you. My last comment on the matter is that opinions aren't the same as supportable arguments. I remain unconvinced that images would be a problem for grex, because the arguments for such haven't been strongly supported and counter examples exist. I see a lot of potential benefit from allowing images. If the membership isn't clamoring for them, perhaps that's because those of the membership who desired images over the years have since moved on (if, indeed, most members are aware of this discussion at all).
I'm here too. Reading, cogitating, mulling things over. Both Dan and STeve have provided at great deal of information that I find sometimes too technical, but always informative. I don't see consensus on this emerging. I havent gone back to scan the entries, but I'm not even sure we have sufficient support to take this to a vote. My current stance is not to support the proposal. However, limiting the images to members makes many of the "we're going to be overwhelmed" arguments moot, if there is a way to stop the uploads (use of bandwidth) before they get to nonmember storage space. I understand the maxing out our current level of paid-for band width, and really, really don't want to up our costs. It seems to me the question IS a cultural one. Do we want to use member perks as a marketing tool to attract new members? Or do we want a system that tries to provide an close-to-equal level of services for all users, whether or not they have paid us money? The second question is a resources one. If we DO want to start adding perks for members, will it create so much confusion for nonmembers that our limited staff resourses get diverted to even more garbage-clean-up tasks, picking up after nonmembers? And will the bandwidth used increase our monthly costs? The third question is back to the cultural issue. If we DO want to start adding perks for members, will we lose any current members if we try this experiment? In other words, assume we try this, attract new members, but then have to shut off the perk because we are overwhelmed. Will we be worse off than we are now because we lose not only the new members but some of our current ones? My two cents. (where did my cents key go? I lost it in the mid80s I think).
Regarding #147; One of the things about bandwidth is that any operating system that grex runs or is likely to run supports limiting the amount of bandwidth used by any given service. It would be possible to configure the operating system so that the web server can never dominate the link, and we'd never go over the bandwidth limit, no matter who was hosting what here. Even without images, this may be a good idea. It would take a lot of new members to overwhelm grex now.
re 147 Bandwidth questions aside, why do you not support the proposal ?
I support the idea that we keep grex access as level as possible between members and nonmembers.
Given that the proposal would limit image hosting to members, I'm not too worried that our bandwidth would be overwhelmed, or that "unsuitable" images would be a problem. But I agree with Colleen's #150 and am in the krj telnet-for-members-is-an-historical-anomaly-that-shouldn't-be-repeated camp.
I'm curious: why shouldn't it be repeated?
I like the idea of extending additional services to paying members because they're vetted and their money is appreciated.
Members are already given additional services, and this would be no different. The money members donate helps Grex provide services to both members and non-members.
Again, it's ultimately a cultural issue: should grex provided extended services to its users?
My opinion is no. The reasons have all been stated, repeatedly.
Mary: Where?
Dont' make me go back and list the item numbers. Pleeeeaaase.
Do it!
I haven't got any references located on Grex, but the standard history
of M-net and Grex, by Jan Wolter, contains the following in its
account of the origins of Grex:
"They ((Grex)) abandoned the idea of offering extra dial-in
lines to paying members, not wanting privileged classes of users
on the system..."
http://unixpapa.com/conf/history.html
From the Grex membership FAQ (http://www.cyberspace.org/memfaq.html): "Grex memberships are not contracts for services, they are donations. Since Grex is run democratically, the BENEFITS OF MEMBERSHIP ARE DECIDED BY THE MEMBERS. So far in Grex's history the membership has been very conservative about changing Grex policy on things like membership benefits, and it's likely that will continue to be so. But YOU SHOULD BE AWARE OF THE POSSIBILITY THAT IT MIGHT NOT ALWAYS BE SO." All I am looking for, are good reasons why it doesn't make sense to provide Grex members more benefits, even if the same benefits can't be given to non-members. Reasons that are similiar to "we've always done it this way" are simply not good reasons in my opinion. In other words, what would this hurt?
Apparently, grex "culture" is a very fragile thing.
It would increase the gap between nonmember and member benefits.
re 163: That is the main point, yes. Why is that bad?
Its not written in stone nor in the bylaws, right? We, as members, could vote on this as a change for the benefit of increasing membership to Grex. I appreciate the "history" but I do not feel bound to it as a voting member. I think extended services for members is a good idea.
Well put, Todd.
Re. 163: Yet there aren't enough people who need to use the dial-up lines to support them. As long as increasing services to members also helps provide services to non-members, which seems to be a necessity these days, I don't see a problem with it.
re #167 Check each proposal for ego bruising. Remember, everything was started initially by someone and you're likely going to offend them by offering logical improvements which clash with historical reverence. I'm guessing the best way to actually get momentum on a "change" is to have the originator's buy-off. Clue me in if I'm off base here.
re 150 Why not make GreX image hosting open to all, then ? We kill 2 birds with one (kidney) stone !
Regarding #168; I'm beginning to form the opinion that #27 in garage is of that nature.
I thought the extra member privileges were restricted to verified users to prevent vandals from getting loose via grex.
That's true. The question is whether to allow for extra "member perks" in hopes of bringing in new members.
It's quite correct that the philosophy of keeping the gap between members and nonmembers is not written in stone. The membership can vote to add services for members if it wants to. So I'm for voting on this, to see how the membership feels. But we need some more members to endorse taking it to a vote. A number of people keep making noises to the effect that new ideas are being repressed by "the man", or "the inner circle", or whatever; that's clearly not the case here. All it will take is for 6 members to endorse bringing the proposal to a vote, and we'll vote on it. If you're a member and want that, say so. If you're not a member but want that, consider becoming a member.
(Of course, as the number of members goes up, the number of people required to endorse the proposal goes up proportionately. In this case, that probably won't matter.)
I forward-actively endorse this proposal, having just purchased a 3 month membership.
I forward-actively endorse this proposal
So far, by my count, that's scholar, aruba, tod and cross that have endorsed bringing the proposal to a vote. nharmon, are you a member?
I am now (having just purchased a one year membership 2 minutes ago). I forward-actively endorse this proposal.
That's five. We need one more.
Of course, if the proposal can't even get enough endorsements to go to a vote, that's a fairly plain statement that the membership isn't interested, isn't it?
We'll see how the vote goes, assuming there is one.
I think this should go to vote. A five-member endorsement is pretty good.
You have several choices: