response 1 of 90:

Apr 8 13:48 UTC 1996

Hmm.  I'm thinking of several things, none of them inherently
social.  (Though they would have an effect on Grex's social
aspects, as would any major change to the system.)

<robh waves his wand and says "XYZZY">

Grex suddenly has a T1 connection, and a good route box to go
with it, thus allowing far more people to use the system at once.
The webmasters confer, and decided that allowing pictures on
Grex Web pages is okay now.

<robh waves his wand and says "PLUGH">

The webmasters also find a way to offer various stock CGI programs
for the users to include in their pages.  (I would give Grex a huge
staff to hand-vet every CGI program any users wanted to install,
but there's only so much magic I'm capable of.  >8)

<robh waves his wand and says "PLOVER">

I'd like to see the Grex benefit show come off.

That's all for now, I'm sure I'll add more.

response 3 of 90:

Apr 8 17:40 UTC 1996

I enjoyed reading that. (oops that was off topic, sorry.)

I would like to see the Grex interface improved so that people don't have to
learn a command line interface to join in our converstaions. Ideally they also
wouldn't have to wade through a long questionnaire which asks them questions
they don't know the ansewr to, just in order to get an account here.

(look ma, no wand.)

response 5 of 90:

Apr 8 20:26 UTC 1996

A web interface to confing would be great and help readership I think, but
alas, the glitter is still swirling in the glass on this one.  ;)

I think a friends/enemies list wouldn't be too hard to add to writes/tels,
but I don't imagine there is enough demand to warrant someone sitting down
with the source code and adding a bunch of stuff to support it.

response 7 of 90:

Apr 8 22:42 UTC 1996

(Re #4: If by "friends list" you mean what I think you mean, it's
an easy shell script to write. Send me mail if you want details.)

response 9 of 90:

Apr 9 01:02 UTC 1996

I dunno. I suppose that if Grex had been mine from the get-go, and if
I were fluent in technical and software areas, I'd've set up newuser
such that it could only be run from the dial-ups. I'm glad that 
Grex didn't go either route (the "single-owner" or the "limited-
access").

One of my pet dreams is to earn more money than I'd know what to
do with, and set up something similar to Grex in another state, say,
South Dakota, with the caveat that it'd be donated to the members
within two years.

response 11 of 90:

Apr 9 03:13 UTC 1996

What I mean by a friends list and an enemies list is that tel/write would
first consult this list to determine whether you are accepting tels/writes
from friends only, everyone except enemies, or everyone.  A couple options
would have to be added to turn on and off these various levels, and provisions
for checking the .friends and .enemies files.  I don't think this would be
too hard to write, but it would lead to a very non-standard tel/write.

response 13 of 90:

Apr 9 03:51 UTC 1996

A friends/enemies list can have several functions:
(1) It informs you when people on your list log on or off, automatically.
(2)  It provides you with a list of friends who are currently logged on
(that is, it compares your list to !users and gives only the matches.  This
list is provided only when you request it.
(3) It prevents people from writing you.  This is little more than an
expanded, permanent filter, and Kerouac, it's hardly cliquish to have people
you'd rather not talk to.  I'm not one for enemies lists anyhow, having
really only three people that I'd not want to get written by, and only
being written by one of those... the other two leave me alone, and I them.

I'm interested in something that would do (2).
I'd like (1), too, but I was told that it would be a system drain, and
it's an NTH and not worth lagging things up.

response 15 of 90:

Apr 9 05:53 UTC 1996

I agree about web based conferencing.  I was somewhat skeptical of the idea,
but I've been playing around with BackTalk (janc and srw's conferencing
software) on another system, and it seems really neat.  I don't think I'd use
it, since I already know Picospan and prefer command line interfaces, but it
looks much easier for beginners to get the hang of quickly.

I don't think that needs a lot of discussion in this item, though.  I think
we'll see it here RSN, while this item, if I understand it, is for things that
need to be suggested.

Untlmately, I'd like to see Grex remain a place I can come and talk to
interesting people about interesting things, and can continue to have fun on.
I also want to see Grex continue to be a great system to play around on and
try new things.  I've learned an incredible amount over the last couple of
years from playing around on Grex, and I want other people to be able to have
those experiences too.

Really, I don't want Grex's main characteristics to change much (except that
being faster and more reliable would be a good idea).  I'm sure some people
are going to think it's really backwards to not want a lot of change, but I
don't think so.  If I didn't like Grex the way it is, I wouldn't still be
here.

response 17 of 90:

Apr 9 08:08 UTC 1996

I think that on an open system like ours, where anybody can create a login
id through newuser, having friends/foes lists for write/chat/tel would be
*extremely* useful.  Right now, the staff list is seeing several complaints
per week about sexual harrassment and other types of harrassment, and we're
impotent in most cases, unless the user comes over the link from a cooperative
provider.  Usually, we end up telling victims of harrassment that the only
thing they can do is turn off all their write permissions, which is a real
shame.  A real shame.  

I would *much* rather tell someone that all they need to do is to edit a file
called foes (or whatnot) and put the login id of that person in it.  This
seems *very* empowering for those people.  

Then there's the problem of the folks who are swamped by their popularity.
STeve recently told me about how he sometimes gets a tel or chat request about
every ten minutes, such that he can't get done the stuff he wants to get done.
Without having a "friends" list, he either gets nothing done, or he has to
turn his messages completely off.  

I believe that Valerie (popcorn) routinely leaves her messages off because
of the above two problems, and that she'd probably be able to leave her
messages on (at least partially) if she could use a friends/foes list setup.

response 19 of 90:

Apr 9 17:36 UTC 1996

You have a point, nephi - unfortunately. I don't have the problem of
either being harrassed or of being "too popular", though I have turned off
write because of newcomers just looking for someone with whom to chat. But
the general idea doesn't sit well with me - its like refusing to speak to
someone that speaks to you - generally considered very rude. How about not
naming the files .friends and .foes, though? I'd prefer neutral names,
like .nowrite and .yeswrite. There would also have to be easy ways to
turn those on or off.

response 21 of 90:

Apr 9 18:18 UTC 1996

This friends/foes thing is one of the most commonly suggested "improvements"
to write.  Lots of people would like it.  I have a lot of sympathy for some
of the people who have requested it (Like women who are sick and tired of
being accosted by teenage males every five minutes but still want to be able
to write to their friends).  I'm very worried, however, that it would make
Grex a more cliquish and closed society.

I was very amused to hear Kerouac oppose this on the basis that the staffers
would use to be even more cliquish.  The reason the feature doesn't exist is
because the staffers worry that it would make Grex more cliquish.  So I guess
we are in perfect agreement.  Well, *near* perfect.

response 23 of 90:

Apr 9 20:26 UTC 1996

On a related note, I thought of something else I'd like to see,
which would probably be easier than most of the suggestions so far:

A message stored in a file in the user's directory, which would
be sent to anyone who tried writing that user when their messages
were turned off.

Generally when I download files, I turn my message flag off.  (Since
I wouldn't even be able to see the write messages, never mind
respond to them.)  I've gotten all kinds of bizarre reactions
from people who saw that I was on-line but had my messages turned
off.  ("Oh my god!  I must have offended Rob so badly that he
doesn't want to talk to anyone!" and "Someone must have broken into
Rob's account!" are my two favorites.)  With this feature, anyone
who wrote to me during a download would see a message saying,
"I'm downloading files, please send me mail instead, I'll check my
mail as soon as I'm finished."