Should Grex preserve M-net's conferencing?

Sep 27 20:16 UTC 1996

   I was on M-net earlier and a user I was talking with posed a question
that is sure to come up in the next couple of months., given M-net's
current dire situation.:

Would Grex be willing to take M-net's conferences, if M-net itself dies?

This user was speculating that Grex could install Yapp and transfer over
all or most of m-net's current conferences intact, thus preserving many
confs that have been around there for years.  Then an old m-net user can
come to grex, type !yapp or !mnet or someting, and get their usual mnet
cfs.

If this is feasible, it seems like a decent thing to do and would make
mnet's dy ing (which now seems a foregone conclusion) a bit less painful.
The downside is that user loads are going to be higher as it is in a
post-mnet world, and bringing all these confs and thus users over here
could slow things down.  Also if all these people start using grex, will
grex turn into mnet with all its infighting?

But then again, by transferring over mnet's confs, it will make it easier
for grex to makea  pitch for the mnet members to become grex members,
since it will be offering essentially the same thing.n 


This could be a temporary thing so that so that there will be a chance to
re-organize a new mnet and allow it to have its confs intact instead of
having to start over with all ne ones.

M-net conf fw's are probably going to make such requests for ttheir confs
to grex staff idividually, but it is probably a good idea to settle on a
policy so it doesnt look like staff is playing favorit3es by saving some
mnet confs and not others.

response 2 of 34:

Sep 27 21:06 UTC 1996

   First off, I don't think its a forgone conclusion that M-net
is going to die.  Possibly die I'll go along with, but there is
still time for things to get better.  Given that Arbornet has a
new president, and they might be picking up some new board members, I 
think their board can become strong enough to do what is needed
to pull through.  Already, they have a new system administrator who
knows what he's doing, so thats another positive sign.

   But, the question is, what would Grex do about picking up the conferences
if M-net dies?  I think that is a user question: if a bunch of M-net folk
came to Grex wanting the "nnn" conference, in Grexian tradition we'd
create tha conference.  So quite litterally all the active conferences
could "move" over to Grex.  If the question was could the conference
files themselves move over here, the answer is yes, they could, but I
don't see any reason to do that.  it isn't the files that are important,
but the people and ideas.  If M-Net dies, the important part will live
on.:p

response 4 of 34:

Sep 27 22:49 UTC 1996

It isn't incredibly hard to start a system, especially if you have a lot of
people already wanting to use it.  I'd say that it would be bad for both Grex
and M-net users to host M-net conferencing, since *not* doing it would tend
to push people into starting a new system.  I'm sure the clientele will remain
available, and probably the data as well.

response 6 of 34:

Sep 28 03:56 UTC 1996

Gods, I almost wish I'd been on M-Net that day...

I certainly don't think it's a given that M-Net will die.  It's a
possibility, of course, but M-Net has survived *much* worse than this.

As for the conferences, I'd just as soon have the M-Net users bring
over any individual items they want to keep, on their own initiative.
I sure wouldn't mind some items for the SciFi conference, for instance.
People are more interesting to me than items, though, so if they all
come over here, I'd prefer that they use our already-existing confs.

response 8 of 34:

Sep 28 18:46 UTC 1996

There are already posts in M-net's policy conf about preparing for a
orderly shutdown, giving notice at the New Center and making sure
bills are paid and that little is left outstanding in the way of bills
after the first of the year.  I think the general conclusion is that
arbornet wants m-net to die, that the arbornet board doesnt believe
in the concept anymore.  Getting a new sysadmin is nice and the hardware
and software will run better.  But in absence of a new sponsor, there arent
enough members (or potential members since many have lost faith in
mnet's potential as an ISP) to offset a $750 a month defecit.  M-net
is going todie.  Unless that is, it canbe put on life support, and 
someplace like Grex can take the confs temporarily so they dont die.

The idea is that a few months down the road, M-net can be reborn and
re-organized and at that point, rather than starting over, it can simply
get back its still active confs from Grex.  This is a way to
preserve what Mnet was and its history, as well as provide a method
of continuity that might allow it to retain many of its current users.

response 10 of 34:

Sep 28 19:07 UTC 1996

I don't think that's correct that Arbornet's board, as a whole, doesn't
believe in the "M-Net concept," or that they want M-Net to die.  (That
view *may* be represented on the board, but I think it's a minority view).

response 12 of 34:

Sep 28 21:17 UTC 1996

Right, we already have the M-net in exile conference.  I *don't* want to take
M-net content.  We can take M-net users, but they usually need to be broken
of some rude habits before they stop looking like twits.  If we got all the
existing content, it would be much harder.  

response 14 of 34:

Sep 29 03:34 UTC 1996

Richard, this is a really sweet idea you have, but hon, it isn't fair to
the people who poted their items and responses on m-net, in the long run. 

Look at it this way: Many of M-Net's users are either A2/Ypsi local, or
are net-accessed. Either way, it's just as easy for them to post their
thoughts, ideas, arguments, hopes and fears here as there. 

So, who are we, as nice as we are trying to be in possibly doing this, to
simply copy all of that over here, without asking them? And by them, to be
fair, I mean ALL of them. 

What if they never wanted to have it elsewhere? What if they intended to
have their comments sink with the ship, should that ever happen? Sure, it
would be nice for those few M-Netters we can ask, IF they say yes, but
what of the impossible amount of other M-Netters who we can't ask? 

It is simply better to openly say, even perhaps in the MOTD, that any and
all M-Netters are free to start new items on the same topics as their old
favorites here, and let them choose what to put here, and what not to. 

Just my $0.02

response 16 of 34:

Sep 30 15:00 UTC 1996

But what if an fw on mnet requests a new conf here on the same topic
and name, andonce he gets it, requests that the content form from the
mnet version of hisconf be linked over?  I think thats a reasonabled
request and one that grex ought to facilitate if it can.
\
Although god forbid if someone requests the policy conf to be linked over!
**shuddering at the mere thought of that!*

response 18 of 34:

Sep 30 21:35 UTC 1996

kerouac--nothing would be stopping the ex-mnet fw's from entering new items
themselves...*gasp*...   Recreating a conference would be good enough, and
it would even be perfectly feasible to summarize previous discussion in some
of the more active items.
Also, keep in mind that there are no doubt many conferences on the same topic
both here and there, and creating an "m-net-art" or "m-net-music" conference
in addition to the grex conferences on those topics would only serve to
segregate the ex-mnetters from teh grexers.

response 20 of 34:

Oct 1 05:54 UTC 1996

actuaally ....... nowthat you mention it .. there is at least one m-b0x
conference (maybe two) that are shared between two isolated b0xes. it works.
but ya gotta be a login on eitehr system to participate.

response 22 of 34:

Oct 1 18:45 UTC 1996

could just start a second "storage h' conf, called "misc storage"
where any requested mnet items could be stored.

response 24 of 34:

Oct 2 03:26 UTC 1996

Summarizing items is a great deal more laborious than re-entering
them.  If the desire is to make existing material available for
continued discussion, summarizing can be worse because it inevitably
loses nuances in the process.