Grex's Web Pages

Nov 29 17:46 UTC 1996

I think Grex's web pages could use some work.  I basically like the look
of the first few pages.  They aren't flashy, but they are tasteful, clear
and usable.  I think we should carry the same look though more of the
pages (some of the pages are really ugly).

Also, a lot of this is getting out of date.  We should keep these current.

One of the nice things about page design, is that pretty much anybody can get
involved.  Just copy the files (they are under /usr/local/www) to your www
direcotry and edit them to meet your vision, and tell people the URL, and see
if you can convince the webmasters to install your version.

So this isn't really a policy item.  But I think that more and more people's
first impression of Grex will be through the web pages, and getting lots of
people's input and feedback on them would be a good idea.

response 2 of 39:

Nov 29 19:06 UTC 1996

Here's the info I got from aruba on that last subject:

>Regarding payments from India:  I sent out three copies of a letter on the
>subject, one to the Indian Embassy in Washington, one to the Indian
>Consulate in Chicago, and one to the U.S. Department of Commerce.  The
>Embassy hasn't answered yet.  The Commerce Department wrote back and said
>"In order to serve you more efficiently, we are now responding to all
>inquiries by telephone.  Please call 1-800-USA-TRADE".  I haven't gotten
>around to doing that yet.
>
>However, the Indian consulate had this to say:
>
>----
>The difficulty you have described in your letter is due to the reason that
>Indian Rupee is not fully convertible currency.  However, Indians can draw
>foreign exchange in exchange of Indian Rupees on specific demand.  For
>this they will have to approach the Reserve bank of India or any Indian
>Bank dealing with Foreign Exchange.
>----
>
>That makes it sound like anyone can walk into an Indian Bank dealing in
>foreign exchange and request a draft in dollars.  I have no idea how hard
>it is to find such a bank in India.  Perhaps folks (this means you, Rob)
>could pass that paragraph on to people actually in India and see how they
>respond to it?

And thanks for doing this, janc.  I've wanted to do a major construction
job on the pages, but haven't felt terribly inspired.

response 4 of 39:

Dec 1 03:51 UTC 1996

My version of the Front Page got moved to
       http://www.cyberspace.org/~janc/home.html

I've done new versions of serveral of the second-level pages that this
points to.  Links that work point to my versions.

"What is Grex?" Page:

  Didn't change this much.  But:
    - changed Grex's "running since" date from 1990 to 1991.  If I'm not
      confused, it didn't come up until June 26, 1991.  Or did I get the
      date scrambled?
    - Moved Grexwalk link to here from front page.
    - Moved membership link to front page from here. 

"How to Connect to Grex" page:

    - Added pointer to and discussion of backtalk.
    - Added information on using BREAK to connect to our modems.

response 6 of 39:

Dec 1 16:58 UTC 1996

Well, if you have ideas for changes, either enter suggestions or edit up
a copy of a page (starting with either mine or the original Grex one)
yourself.  The idea of this items is to try to make sure the pages represent
as many of our users as possible.

response 8 of 39:

Dec 1 17:39 UTC 1996

The version of the bylaws on the Web seems to be missing at least some
amendments.

response 10 of 39:

Dec 1 19:27 UTC 1996

Grex's bylaws have only been ammended once.  The latest
version is /usr/local/grexdoc/archives/bylaws.v2.

response 12 of 39:

Dec 2 19:45 UTC 1996

OK, I replace the old bylaws with the current ones.

Many of the pages have lines near the front look like:

    <link rev="made" href="mailto:webmaster@cyberspace.org">

Anyone know what that is supposed to do, if anything?

response 14 of 39:

Dec 2 20:08 UTC 1996

Don't mean to be critical of anyone or step on anyone's toes.

What does the rev="made" thing do in that construct?

response 16 of 39:

Dec 2 20:30 UTC 1996

OK, from the HTML Quick Reference:

   <link rev="RELATIONSHIP" rel="RELATIONSHIP" href="URL">
          The link tag allows you to define relationships between the
          document containing the link tag and the document specified in
          the "URL". The rel attribute specifies the relationship between
          the HTML file and the Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The rev
          attribute (for "reverse") specifies the relationship between
          the URL and the HTML file. For example, <link rev="made"
          href="URL"> indicates that the file maker or owner is described
          in the document identified by the URL. (Note that link tags are
          not displayed on the screen as part of the document. They
          define static relationships, not hypertext links.)

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the site with the complete listing
of relationships.

response 18 of 39:

Dec 3 00:07 UTC 1996

the web version of grex bylaws and the version stored in coop are
different?!?!  how many state laws does that violate!  When rcurl
reads that he's going to perform a citizens arrest on janc!

response 20 of 39:

Dec 3 03:09 UTC 1996

I'd like to suggest that the web "create a login" pointer and the Backtalk
pointer really ought to appear on the same page somewhere.  

response 22 of 39:

Dec 3 08:16 UTC 1996

There are no state laws concerning the publication of corporate bylaws.

response 24 of 39:

Dec 3 23:58 UTC 1996

I don't know if there is anything I really expect people to read under "What
is Grex?".

There is an interesting issue here.  Currently we have several things we
want to say to people with new accounts.  Things like not doing mailing
lists and avoiding big ftps and so forth.  It's not a very long list, thank
god.  The question is, where do we place that information so that people will
be inclined to read it?

The "newuser" program prints it out before it starts asking users for account
information.  I didn't think this would be as effective a strategy on the Web.
It's intrinsically much easier for web users to skim and browse, and it tends
to be difficult to tempt them into stopping and reading anything.  If a user
is looking to register, they are going to be tempted to skip to the form and
ignore any blocks of text you put in their way.  Filling out a registration
form is a pretty familiar process to most web surfers.  But after you've given
them an account, the foremost question in their mind is going to be "how do
I use this account?".  That's a point in time when the odds are a bit better
that they will be willing to read a chunk of text about using Grex accounts.

Anyway, that was my theory.  It has the disadvantage that if someone wanted
an account especially to run a mailing list on, he may not hear about the fact
that we don't support that until after he has created the account.

Back to Misti's question:  One thing we might do is break the "Connect to
Grex" bullet in two.  So it looks like:

  * Connect to Grex - Login via telnet or by dialing (313)761-3000.
    ---------------             ------
  * Grex Conferences - Use Backtalk to read Grex's Conferences.
    ----------------

This gives the Backtalk link a bit more prominence, while making clear that
it isn't a full connection to Grex, just to the conferences.