response 12 of 624:

Dec 18 17:34 UTC 1996

what Im saying is that both proposals were tabled pending  
Valeries's request to have a member vote.  If only one of them
is going tobe voted on, the other shouldbe put back on the agenda for
the nextboard meeting.

response 14 of 624:

Dec 18 17:42 UTC 1996

I believe her concern was with both.

response 16 of 624:

Dec 18 18:35 UTC 1996

I understood the issue to be that if someone requested a conference be
created in the picospan environment, should it be assumed that this is
the environment the fw wishes to present his/her conf in?  Should Janc
get individual fw's permission before putting links to their confs on
Backtalk.  Anonymous reads were only part of the issue.

response 18 of 624:

Dec 18 18:40 UTC 1996

   Janc shouldn't have to get permission for BackTalk to carry a
conference any more than anyone who brought over some other method
of reading conferences would (Granted, writing to those files would
require staff intervention).

response 20 of 624:

Dec 19 22:54 UTC 1996

Scott, that's H-E-L-M-K-E, correct?
I want my lawyers to spell it correctly.
Seriously, all previous arguments repeated, this is a dangerous idea.

response 22 of 624:

Dec 20 17:46 UTC 1996

(I was at that board meeting, and as far as I remember, the only thing
proposed and discussed was anonymous reading, not backtalk access.  If you
feel that strongly about backtalk access, become a member and propose a vote.)

I support this completely.

response 24 of 624:

Dec 20 19:11 UTC 1996

I'd actually have to vote against this amendment, for the reason
janc cited above: if registering as a Grex user is so trivial, why not
make people do it?  What's the big deal?

response 26 of 624:

Dec 20 19:40 UTC 1996

Sorry, could someone clarify:  Does anonymous reading of grex conferences,
via backtalk or any other method, mean without having to create a grex
account, which an in-dialer or telnetter would do with newuser?  If that's
what it means, then I'm against the idea, and would vote against it.

response 28 of 624:

Dec 20 23:26 UTC 1996

But note that people who don't create accounts would have READ ACCESS ONLY.
They couldn't post anything without creating an account.

Also note that Grex has for some time had two different programs for creating
accounts.  The "newuser" program which is used by telnetters and dial-in
users, and the "webnewuser" form that can be used over the web.  So people
wanting to use the Web Conferencing don't need to telnet in to create an
account.

I don't think the argument about anonymous readers being scary because they
are anonymous makes any sense.  They really aren't any more or less anonymous
than any of our other users.

But I do think that letting them skip the registration step puts these people
in a state where they are reading Grex but can't fully participate.  It makes
more sense to encourage them to get accounts up front so they'll be real
participants once they get on line.

But anonymous reading, even if we don't strongly encourage it, does have
advantages.  For example, I could put links to Grex items on my home page.
For example, my home page might include something like:

   For a really neat discussion of this, see Agora14 item 90 on Grex.
                                             -----------------------

So that when people clicked on the link, they would see the item via Backtalk.
You can do that now, but anyone following the link would be greeted by a
Grex login box, which they would have to satisfy with a valid Grex login.
It'd be nicer if they could just see the item.

So I don't have a strong preference, but my weak preference would be to
allow anonymous reading, but barely mention the possibility on our web
pages, using it mostly as a way to do things like the link above.  So people
could read anonymously, but they'd pretty much have to figure out how by
themselves.  We wouldn't advertize the option.

response 30 of 624:

Dec 22 02:09 UTC 1996

It strikes me that restricting backtalk to those with accounts makes little
sense for several reasons.  First, part of Grex's declaration of principles
is 'to foster free exchange of information', or some such.  So, restricting
people from seeing conference info because of something so trivial as not
having an account seems to me like restricting that for no good reason. 
Second, the thing about anonymous reading not encouraging people to be members
isn't really true, I don't think.  Just seeing that there is this discussion
going on, and knowing that all it takes to participate is filling out a little
form, would be plenty of incentive.  Certainly more incentive to join the
conferences than those who just use Grex for mail get.

response 32 of 624:

Dec 22 07:48 UTC 1996

I started reading the conferences by cating the raw files.  It took me a while
to track down what program was generating those files tucked in right along
side /bin.
 :)

response 34 of 624:

Dec 22 18:23 UTC 1996

Going through newuser, even the web form of it, is a bit of a hassle.  I think
people are less likely to bother if they don't know what it will get them.
If people can look through the conferences first and see that they look
interesting, they are more likely to run newuser so that they can post.  Also,
staff gets bombarded by account deletion requests from people who have gone
through newuser and then found that Grex wasn't what they were looking for.
If people could find out what Grex was without going through newuser first,
staff time could be freed up to do more useful things.

Selena still hasn't answered the question about what the big problem with
"anonymous" reading is.