response 1 of 112:

Jul 22 01:37 UTC 1996

John, do you mind if we link to that from Backtalk? 

response 3 of 112:

Jul 22 03:35 UTC 1996

Dunno... with Backtalk coming so soon, do we need this?  I mean, it wouldn't
hurt, but it seems like a duplication of effort.  But if you're willing to
do it, John, I don't see where it would hurt.

response 5 of 112:

Jul 22 11:28 UTC 1996

Re #1: Not sure what you mean.

Re #2: No CGI is involved. This thing is a back end to Picospan.
Somebody runs it on Grex; it produces html versions of items, that
can be read over the web.

Re #3: I've done it, so any harm has already been done. :)
With Backtalk, I presume you'd still have to have an account on
Grex, or go through some kind of registration, to do conferencing.
With what I've done, people would be able to read *selected* items
without an account. Like I said, I'd think the main use of this would
be give people who access Grex's homepage a sampler of current items
to show them what kinds of discussions are taking place on Grex.
i.e. think of it as a form of advertising. If Backtalk is going to
have some facility for reading without registering, this of course
will be obsoleted when Backtalk comes along, which is okay with me.
If not, then it serves a distinctly different function from
Backtalk.

To test out the software and pass the time, I ran it on Agora and
Agora1.  Web-browsing addicts can now read yesterday's Agora, and
all of Agora1, over the web.  Just fire up your favorite web browser
and open the URLs http://grex.cyberspace.org/~remmers/agora/agora.html
and http://grex.cyberspace.org/~remmers/agora1/agora1.html
respectively.

response 7 of 112:

Jul 22 16:31 UTC 1996

Re 5, if it doesn't provide automatic html updates when an item is updated,
it's similar to doing an "extract coop 93 >blah.txt" and putting a link to
"blah.txt" (except of course having much nicer HTML formatting).  One drawback
of publishing huge web sites on the net is that web crawlers and indexers tie
up bandwidth downloading it all.  I'm also not sure how people feel about 
having all their responses copied and accessible on numerous other sites.

response 9 of 112:

Jul 22 16:48 UTC 1996

Backtalk is supposed to be 100% Picospan compatible.  The idea is that you
read the *same* conferences with either interface.  They'll even have the same
idea of which items you have read, so that you can read one day with Picospan,
the next with Backtalk, with no ill effects.

Backtalk supports read-only access by people without accounts.  So I think
it probably would obsolete John's reader.  Except for one thing...the web
search engines like Altavista will index through John's interface, but not
through the backtalk interface.  If you want conferences indexed, John's will
work better.

However, work on Backtalk hasn't been amazingly fast lately, and getting it
up on Grex is going to require a couple interesting stunts with password
files.

response 11 of 112:

Jul 23 07:22 UTC 1996

(Almost *any* name would be better than "bbshtml"....though one cannot
claim that it is lacking in pertinance.)

response 13 of 112:

Jul 23 14:11 UTC 1996

One of the reasons I entered this for discussion in Coop is that
I thought there might be concerns such as those Rob expressed.

Keep in mind that the Intro conference is recycled frequently.
Items stay around for only a few weeks before disappearing. Thus, any
webcrawler indexing of that conference will quickly become obsolete.

However, that wouldn't be the case if this program were used, say,
to archive more permanent conferences like Agora or Coop. It would
have the effect of making those conferences roughly as accessible
as, say, Usenet newsgroups. So here's a question: is there any reason
for anybody to expect that something they post in a Grex conference
on some topic to be any less accessible than something they might
post in a Usenet newsgroup on the same topic? Keep in mind that as
things are now, anybody in the world with telnet access can *already*
read anything that's posted in a conference on Grex, and can do so
anonymously because of our open newuser policy.

response 15 of 112:

Jul 23 20:20 UTC 1996

Hm.  That's true for current Agoras.  For really old Agoras (Agorae?), before
Grex was on the net, people's responses were composed more for a local
audience than for the entire web.  Though I can't think of anything I
personally posted in an old Agora that I wouldn't want posted on the web.

response 17 of 112:

Jul 26 04:08 UTC 1996

Yeah, I've thought about making a distiction between readable on Grex and
readable anywhere, and I can't find a way to make the distinction.

Jan already pointed out that Backtalk will permit people to view the
conferences *without* taking out an account. Such aonymous web viewing means
that  they cannot participate, and that no participation file will be there
to keep track of what they've seen.

This facility could be configured out of Backtalk if so desired, but I would
argue it is a useful feature.

response 19 of 112:

Jul 27 03:16 UTC 1996

#13> So here's a question: is there any reason for anybody to
   > expect that something they post in a Grex conference on some
   > topic to be any less accessible than something they might
   > post in a Usenet newsgroup on the same topic?
 
  It depends on how you define accessible.  Businesses don't sell
Grex archives on discs.  Grex responses are probably not indexed
in monolithic archiving systems along with other huge information
databases, and provided alongside advertisements.  I consider
those means of access, among others, "more accessible."
 
  John's current web interface is tantamount to distributing the
conferences in question it to a variety of other organizations to
use as they please.  A conference-to-web interface doesn't need to
do this.  Grex can publish conferences on the web so that they
aren't automatically copied elsewhere.
 
#16> Maybe what's drawing attention to just how public it all is
   > are those incredible search engines.
 
  Very much so - it's the monolithic archives and search engines.
Many privacy issues the nation is now grappling with aren't
concerned with independently stored bits of information, but the
way in the data is being combined.  It's one thing for Coke to
know I drink their products, my church to record my membership,
the state DOT to store my driving record, my doctor to know my
diseases.  It's another for TRW to know all these things, and
divulge it all to prospective employers.
 
#16> I'd suggest those who are sensive about their words being
   > world read either say less or say it under a pseudonym.
 
  My concern isn't about it being world-accessible, but in
what manner it's world-accessible.  But that's a good suggestion.
By itself, it doesn't address concern for past users who wouldn't
want their responses published on other systems.  But combined
with my suggestion to give notice that future responses may be
copied and used freely by other organizations, it's certainly
sensible.
 
#16> Grex can't promise your words will stop here.
 
  No, but neither does it have to ensure that our words won't
"stop here," if I interpret your meaning correctly.
 
  If this is limited to just the Intro conference, I think it's
a very small intrusion.  On the other hand, another alternative
to showing web users what conferencing is about is to use stagnant
"sampler items" which have the blessing of the item contributors.
In addition, of course, to the option of providing the items in
a way that they won't be automatically copied to other systems.

response 21 of 112:

Aug 4 14:53 UTC 1996

        Do you even support the idea of grex being available via the WWW,
tsty?

response 23 of 112:

Aug 7 03:44 UTC 1996

I would object very strongly to having my Grex writing accessible 
through search engines.