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janc
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Grex Blogs
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Jan 4 15:41 UTC 2005 |
I'd like to propose the creation of a Grex blog-sphere. This would be a new
service offered by Grex where users can have blogs hosted on cyberspace.org.
If you had a Grex-blog, people could go to http://yourname.cyberspace.org/
(or http://yourname.grex.org) and see a fairly standard looking blog page
for you. You'd have a choice of a couple basic formats, each of which
would allow you to post messages, and allow other people to post responses.
There would be support for "trackback" links linking your blog to relevant
blog entries on other blogs on Grex or anywhere else on the net where
trackback is supported. As blog owner, you'd have some ability to customize
the look and feel of your blog. You'd have the ability to edit your own
postings, or to delete comments other people most on your blog. In these ways
blogs would be much more under the personal control of their owners than
conferences are under the control of fairwitnesses. Users would sign in to
post to blogs using their regular Grex logins. Blog owners would be able
to enable posting by "anonymous cowards" (users who are not logged in) at
their option. RSS feeds for all blogs would be available. Links from the
blog to the rest of Grex would exist, but would be somewhat subdued.
My plan would be to implement the blogs in Backtalk. This would mean that
all blogs would be accessible not only via the blog interfaces (which would
be Backtalk interface flavors) but could also be accessed as normal
conferences via the normal backtalk interfaces or via fronttalk, making them
accesssible to dial-in users and people who like command line interfaces.
Though technically implemented as conferences (each blog entry is an item with
the responses being comments) the would be administratively different. The
"fairwitnesses" would have much more power. It is my perception that blogging
requires more personal control of the space than ordinary conferencing does.
I haven't done all the coding I'd need for this. The "wasabi" interface used
at http://www.greatgreenroom.org/ is a blog-like interface I wrote for my
personal use. I'd plan to write one that is a bit more conventionally
structured - with the front page showing the most recent blog entries and
links to comments on them and older blog entries. I've got trackback
links about half implemented.
My inclination is to offer a blog to any user who requests one, with the
proviso that they might be deleted if they are inactive too long. I believe
that we can create yourname.cyberspace.org subdomains without cost (though
I don't know the details). I'm thinking that this could be a popular service,
partly because of the reasonably cool cyberspace.org domain name. Even if
offered for free it could attract more memberships, and perhaps encourage
some cool activity on Grex.
It would, of course, be possible to offer this as a fee service, and Grex's
financial problems make that tempting, but I think it wouldn't be a very
Grexian approach to the problem. I don't think the per-blog resource cost
is actually very high, unless some blog gets extremely popular and eats up
all our bandwidth, but I think that would count as a "good problem".
At this point I'm looking for ideas and feedback. Bringing this into
existance within Backtalk would require a moderate investment of time on my
part, and I'd like some input before I go far down that path.
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| 61 responses total. |
mary
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response 1 of 61:
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Jan 4 17:22 UTC 2005 |
Very cool idea. I'd think allowing .gif files would be a must
though. Is this something Grex can allow?
I'd like to see this started on a free basis with the understanding
that might change. I hope it doesn't change, but I'd rather be
clear from the get-go, it's an experiment.
At some point we'll need to start having some serious discussion
about Grex's finances.
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ryan
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response 2 of 61:
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Jan 5 01:01 UTC 2005 |
This response has been erased.
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keesan
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response 3 of 61:
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Jan 5 01:12 UTC 2005 |
For $1 you can get about 30MB of home directory and 30MB of webspace at
sdf.lonestar.org where you can post images to link to. NetBSD.
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abc
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response 4 of 61:
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Jan 5 01:25 UTC 2005 |
You can get 25 megs of space (and 1,500 megs of bandwidth) per month at
free image hosting, http://www.photobucket.com/
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richard
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response 5 of 61:
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Jan 5 01:27 UTC 2005 |
It has to be considered how this proposal might affect grex's regular
conferencing environment. Hosting blogging here could hurt the normal
conferencing, which up until now has been grex's raison d'etre. People
could come here for blogging and email, and the regular conferencing would
only wither on the vine.
Whats the point of even having all this niche speciality conferences, when
the groups of people using them can do these blogs instead? What is grex,
a conferencing environment or a blogging environment. I don't think it
has enough users or activity to be both.
I am against this blogging idea. Grex needs ideas to HELP the open
conferences, not to kill them. There are a zillion places on the web to
have your own blog. Grex doesn't need to be one of them. Grex needs to
champion its old style open conferencing. If everyone starts using blogs,
it could well kill all but one or two confs here.
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twenex
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response 6 of 61:
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Jan 5 01:29 UTC 2005 |
Confs are interactive; blogs, afaik, are not.
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richard
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response 7 of 61:
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Jan 5 01:33 UTC 2005 |
NOt all the conferences are inactive and never that I know of in grex's
history have the conferences not been the center of everything. That would
change adding a blogosphere. As a co-fw of three mostly dead conferences,
I don't like the idea that the blogs would drive away the few users that still
participate in those conferences.
Tell me how this helps the conferences. If it doesn't help the conferences,
grex should not do it. After all, what is Grex if it isn't ABOUT its
conferences...
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twenex
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response 8 of 61:
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Jan 5 01:37 UTC 2005 |
Why can't GREX be about blogs AND conferences? For some of us, GREX is about
conferences and party. For others, it's about party, solely. For others, it
may be about programming, with or without any or all of the other services.
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cross
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response 9 of 61:
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Jan 5 02:45 UTC 2005 |
I thought grex was about community. Why does that have to focus
solely on conferencing? Why can't a programming community spring
up here? Or a blogging community? For that matter, who says it
all has to be the same community? Grex can, and should, strive to
provide for multiple communities sharing the same space. Building
blogging on top of an existing conferencing system provides a nice
way to provide a loose coupling between at least two (potential)
communities.
In short, I'm against the idea that grex is ``all about'' any one
thing or the other.
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twenex
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response 10 of 61:
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Jan 5 02:50 UTC 2005 |
I don't think GREX *is* one community.
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keesan
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response 11 of 61:
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Jan 5 03:08 UTC 2005 |
I have met many people at grex who never tried the conferences but wanted to
'talk' over the web.
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mary
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response 12 of 61:
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Jan 5 03:14 UTC 2005 |
If conferencing fails it's not because of blogging. It's because
conferencing isn't working.
I'd like to see this tried here. For some already here, it might be
a more comfortable way of being part of the community. And it might
bring in new people. We really won't know until it's tried.
Grex needs to experiment more and try new things. Like, soon.
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cross
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response 13 of 61:
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Jan 5 03:23 UTC 2005 |
Agreed.
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jp2
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response 14 of 61:
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Jan 5 03:34 UTC 2005 |
This response has been erased.
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twenex
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response 15 of 61:
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Jan 5 03:35 UTC 2005 |
Heh. I love the third idea.
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jp2
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response 16 of 61:
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Jan 5 03:38 UTC 2005 |
This response has been erased.
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richard
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response 17 of 61:
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Jan 5 03:42 UTC 2005 |
#12...agreed that grex needs to experiment more and try new things.
But why something that will kill the conferences rather than enhance
them?
Why not offer some sort of pop e-mail. Many users would come here for
free web email, and limits could be in place and you could only get
around those limits if you paid for a membership.
Also allow limited use of .jpg files
Maybe even a web chat or web interface to the existing party program.
The answer is to make the place more web friendly so people coming
here will see and USE the conferences. Not to provide them with
excuses to not use the conferences. With a blogosphere Grex may as
well close down every conference but Agora and Coop.
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twenex
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response 18 of 61:
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Jan 5 03:43 UTC 2005 |
Re: #16. Is that just trolling?
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richard
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response 19 of 61:
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Jan 5 03:50 UTC 2005 |
Also why not a better menu system for the conferences, and since grex
is on this fast new server, why not start offering usenet feeds again.
Remember the good old days when grex offered tin and trn newsreaders.
The problem always was that grex was too slow to take advantage of
them. The conferences would be helped with the ability to link to
relevant usenet feeds and get people from usenet groups joining grex
groups.
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cross
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response 20 of 61:
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Jan 5 03:50 UTC 2005 |
Regarding #17; I don't think it will kill the conferences. Those that
participate in the conferences now aren't likely to stop; new users aren't
exactly appearing in droves. So what are we losing, really? If anything,
we might net a gain as users pop on to look at blogs and then say, `oh,
neat, what's this conferencing thing?' Anyway, my point is: What makes
you so sure that blogging will kill conferencing?
I agree that we should do all the other things you mention. Pop and
webmail, image files on the web server, and perhaps even web chatting
aren't a bad idea.
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twenex
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response 21 of 61:
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Jan 5 03:52 UTC 2005 |
Someone could do blogs on using a timesharing system, or a system that isn't
one of the Big Two.
Re: #19. Agreed.
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mfp
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response 22 of 61:
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Jan 5 04:31 UTC 2005 |
http://www.juiceforjesus.org/
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pfv
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response 23 of 61:
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Jan 5 14:55 UTC 2005 |
Sadly, they CAN go overboard (you know how they can, too).
A gif Collective would be an interesting idea, though.
Again, it is unfortunate that staff would have one more
detail to manage.
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mooncat
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response 24 of 61:
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Jan 5 15:29 UTC 2005 |
I like the idea of Grex hosting blogs- it still may attract new people
(people who want something 'different' than say LJ or one of the other
sites). Also, if you're able to link between blog and conference (the
way an fw can link maybe? or just a -for the web- clickable link)
people who blog but don't know about conferences may be lured over.
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