Let people filter themselves out for unregistered readers?

Mar 15 23:23 UTC 1997

I'm kind of reluctant to start yet another unregistered reading item, but I
had an idea for a technical solution (partly inspired by something pfv said)
that I thought I'd describe and see how people react.

There is such a thing as a "twit filter" or "bozo filter" that some
conferencing systems support.  There are a few people using them on Grex and
M-Net, but they never got as popular here as they are on the Well and other
west-coast systems where they are considered basic necessities.  What a "twit
filter" does is let you set a list of people whose responses you never see.
Instead of seeing any items or responses by, say, janc, you'd see something
like
    [12 line response by janc filtered out]

Backtalk doesn't currently have twit filters, but I've been meaning to add
that (mainly because it is important for the west-coast market) and it
wouldn't be very hard to do.  (Just to be absolutely clear, in normal use you
you control who is filtered out for you -- you can't put anyone on anyone
else's bozo list.)

Now my notion would be to have a the equivalent of a "twit list" for
unregistered readers.  Since unregistered readers can't set anything, they
wouldn't be able to edit their "twit list" (hmmm...need a better name).
Instead, any registered user would be able to add themselves to the twitlist
for unregistered users.

So the effect of this would be that any individual user could make all of
their responses in all conferences inaccessible to unregistered users.
This wouldn't be hard to implement, and it would be mostly code I've
been meaning to write for another purpose anyway.

Would this be a compromise that more people could live with?

response 2 of 89:

Mar 16 00:50 UTC 1997

Excellent idea!  Also might be a good idea to exclude items entered by a 
person if they want to be placed on the "twit list" so that unregistered 
users cannot view items from "twits".

response 4 of 89:

Mar 16 04:25 UTC 1997

The filter would remove item text as well as responses.  Of course, if you
enter an item and have filtered yourself out, other people's responses to the
item, and the item title would still be visible.

response 6 of 89:

Mar 16 04:59 UTC 1997

Yeah, this does sound good.

response 8 of 89:

Mar 16 05:40 UTC 1997

Actually, I suspect that Rob is one of the people less likely to be satisfied
by this "solution".  But some of the other people who dislike unregistered
reading might be more comfortable with this variation.  But I can't speak for
anyone else.

response 10 of 89:

Mar 16 13:07 UTC 1997

Nice idea. Easy to implement and self-administrating, too, which
means it would actually work in the long run.

response 12 of 89:

Mar 16 16:01 UTC 1997

   Its an interesting idea, but I'm only wuke warm to it, myself.  I think
things should be open, or closed, but not selectively changable.  For one
thing, I can see people keeping their responses open, then changing them
at a later time--such that people might look at an item, then upon looking
at it another time find what they were looking for gone.

   Thats the only negative I can see.  If this gets the Grex community
back together, then I'm all for implementing this asap.  It's certainly
something I can live with, as I've come to the conclusion that I see
things too differently (too much technical a bent) to be able to look at
the larger issue here as others do.  Grex was created by group consensus
however, and maybe this can be in that spirit.

response 14 of 89:

Mar 16 16:15 UTC 1997

"Boxers or Jockeys?  Depends!"

response 16 of 89:

Mar 16 17:49 UTC 1997

How long would it take to actually have this *working* on Grex?  Are we
talking hours, days, weeks?  I know this is an estimate of how soon you
can find the time to do it as well, so be accurate, not enthusiastic ;-). 

If it could be implemented before the vote on my proposal is final (March
31st as I calculate it), it might solve this whole problem without a new
policy vote. I personally would consider this a technical setting that did
not really change the Grex policy of having unregistered reading available
from the Web (Our current policy).  If implementation is possible that
quickly, I would seriously consider withdrawing my motion. 

If it could be done before the voting starts on my proposal (March 21st),
most people would probably consider my proposal moot.

response 18 of 89:

Mar 17 01:23 UTC 1997

Re: 12

If somebody wants to see a response, but it is gone at that time, don't 
you think the user might be compelled to create an account at Grex so 
the response is visible?  This is accomplishing the ultimate goal: 
finding more people to participate in the conferences.

response 20 of 89:

Mar 17 02:40 UTC 1997

To turn on anonymous unregistered reading would take about half an hour.  To
implement twit filters, perhaps two hours.  Add another half hour to set up
the special twit filter for "unregistered".  (Note, if I was talking to
an actual client, I'd multiply all these estimates by two or three.)  Then
you have to add on the time for me to actually get around to it.

I've heard lots of people support this idea, but I haven't heard much from
the people who most object to unresigistered reading, so I'm not yet excited
enough about it to put it very high on my ToDo list.

response 24 of 89:

Mar 17 07:55 UTC 1997

Everyone should realize that this would apply to *every* response one
makes in *every* conference. The user electing this option would be totally
off the web for unregistered readers. I'm not so single minded that even
if I did want some responses off the web, I might not want others. This would
not be possible.

Re #16: this proposal is a form of opening conferences to reading by
unregistered users so as far as I can see it requires a motion and a vote
to adopt it, as much as any of the other proposals we have been considering.
This does change the current policy (totally open unregistered reading from
the web). You can't throw out the current policy just because you like this
one better (except with a vote). If this proposal were cast as a motion,
and cmcgee withdrew her motion (or rather, not submitting it for a vote at
the end of the discussion period), then we could go directly to this
proposal. 

There is a danger in this proposal - related to The Prisoner's Dilemma. Since
no one knows what anyone else is doing in limiting unregistered reading,
they may fear that they are the only person allowing it. While I have no
problem with everyone being readable, I have some reservations about being
the only one being readable! If everyone thinks this, we will not have any
unregistered reading (which would be, of course, a form of vote, but not one
based on a choice).