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Grex > Coop7 > #106: Retiring the ID of someone who has died | |
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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 326 responses total. |
srw
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response 175 of 326:
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Oct 15 19:17 UTC 1995 |
I agree with your wild guesses and your conclusion as well.
That's why I proposed that it only be done upon request.
BTW I remember once when a semi-regular user (call him X) let his account
lapse, and it got grabbed by another person (call her Y). Now it turns
out that both were very attached to their login names and had identical
names on other systems. There was a brouhaha over that, too, but it was
private, between X and staff. X was not a happy camper. This hasn't happened
often, but it has happened, fwiw. The user name is now in the hands of a 3rd
person, I believe.
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kerouac
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response 176 of 326:
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Oct 15 20:42 UTC 1995 |
If the stated purpose for such a policy would be to help newusers
avoid problems associated with using such logins, I dont see how we can
say this should apply to only deceased logins and not include logins of
former longtime users (say users who had used grex for more than a year)
SRW's idea of staff simply taking requests is worse than if it was an
official policy. Taking requests puts staff in the position of having to
decide which requests are valid. If a newuser uses grex for two days and
then dies, and only two people know her, if one of them makes a request
to set aside the login what would be staff's answer?
Also, with many of us who use Grex living outside A2, there is the issue
of verification. I know several users here in the DC area who, if they
died, there would be no way of verifying other than some other user's
word. Not everyone gets obituaries in large city papers, there is not
enough room, and not everyone puts their phone numbers or addresses in
their .plans.
So I really think setting aside logins is unworkable, whether done
officially or unofficially. The real issue is helping newusers avoid
the hassles of accidentally getting a "used" login. Changing the
"newuser" program to give some sort of simple prompt, whatever wording
we agree on, is the only logical compromise I can see and I dont think
it hurts anything. Maybe its not necessary, maybe its silly, but if
it ends this debate, who cares.
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lilmo
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response 177 of 326:
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Oct 15 21:38 UTC 1995 |
As one of the most tenacious defenders of retiring logins, I hereby endorse
the compromise. Anyone that ignores or flouts the warning therin contained
deserves whatever s/he gets. I'm sorry that it would still be potentially
traumatic to ppl who were good friends of the former holder of that login,
but I feel that this is the best that can be gotten at this time.
I think that should a similar situation come up fbefore the patch is installed
that the login should be temporarily retired, and I reserve the right to argue
for retiring logins in the future.
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selena
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response 178 of 326:
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Oct 15 22:57 UTC 1995 |
Alright, who is *opposed* to the compromise plan in #167? Anyone
seriously opposed, instead of just finding it siily?
If so, speak up, otherwise, I think that should be put through
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popcorn
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response 179 of 326:
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Oct 16 15:22 UTC 1995 |
Well, it sounds like a lot of work, and possibly scary to a newuser.
How would we decide which logins to put on that list?
Back before STeve started reaping regularly, I watched a newuser
try something like 10 different logins before finding one that was
available. This makes me think that a lot of people would see the
message.
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sidhe
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response 180 of 326:
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Oct 16 16:22 UTC 1995 |
I'd daresay it's less upsetting to the newuser than selecting
a login that is, in itself, a trap.
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kerouac
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response 181 of 326:
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Oct 16 22:19 UTC 1995 |
How is it a lot of work? all that needs to be done is a file to be
created that would be updated if and only if a longtime user leaves grex
or a grexer of note dies. neither of which will happen often. Is it
more work than manually setting aside accounts?
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scg
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response 182 of 326:
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Oct 17 00:46 UTC 1995 |
There are two tasks required for this. The easy part is having a file to put
peoples' names into. The harder part is teaching newuser to handle the file.
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kerouac
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response 183 of 326:
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Oct 17 01:11 UTC 1995 |
If newuser can handle the file that lists accoutns that are in use
as mail aliases, I dont see why this would be so difficult.
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rcurl
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response 184 of 326:
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Oct 17 03:33 UTC 1995 |
I would consider #167 the second best plan for handling retired logins,
except that "The staff of Grex strongly suggests that you choose a
different login." must be struck, as it is and will always be untrue, as
well as not being the sole concern of staff. Without that phrase, the
statement is true, though unnecessary.
The best plan is to have no plan - the "open access" option - and let
users choose what they wish if it is available, and deal with any
busybodies that harrass them. They would also be free to change their
login if they find it an annoyance, though we should always come down hard
on annoyers and harrassers.
I think that STeve was right, way back, where he suggested the issue
splits to some extent between youthful and mature users. The former are
often effected by youthful sentimentalities, which they almost always set
aside when they grow up. I respect those sentamentalities, but do not
think they should be grex rules, as they are very changeable.
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scg
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response 185 of 326:
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Oct 17 04:17 UTC 1995 |
re 183:
The file that lists mail aliases is a standard file on all Unix
systems, and that it would be a very bad thing for somebody to have an account
that was also a mail alias is universal, not just a Grex thing. I know
almost nothing about newuser internals, but I would assume that checking the
alias file would probably be hard coded rather than being a configuration
option. Now you're suggesting not only giving it another file of logins to
look in, but you also want it to do something completely different with that
file than with the aliases file. I don't have much experience with Unix
programming, but I can see that it might not be as trivial as some of the non
technical people in this discussion are making it sound.
Anybody reading this discussion can put a file in their home directory
containing the logins that they don't want reused. That's easy. The problem
comes in when newuser doesn't look at the file, because it has no reason to
think the file is worth looking at.
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steve
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response 186 of 326:
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Oct 17 06:02 UTC 1995 |
The question of how often login ID's are recycled is an interesting
one. I will supply a complete cronological list of every ID that has
every existed on Grex to the first person who mails me for it and
does the analysis.
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popcorn
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response 187 of 326:
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Oct 17 06:32 UTC 1995 |
Actually, the easy part of this proposal is doing the programming to have
newuser check this list of IDs to see if it should display the message.
The hard part is going through the 50 or so IDs that STeve reaps every day
and deciding which ones are familiar enough to put them on this list.
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wisdom
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response 188 of 326:
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Oct 17 14:51 UTC 1995 |
Hold it! Rane- it's not "youthful emotions". I'm 31, you know,
and I've seen enough crap to have earned it! What I'm saying is that
not having something there has caused problems, and good sized ones,
at that! Nothing else to be doen but to fix the damn problem. Capiche?
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iggy
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response 189 of 326:
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Oct 17 15:21 UTC 1995 |
so, the system <and not the bozos who harrassed you because of your login>
gets the blame?
interesting angle.
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steve
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response 190 of 326:
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Oct 17 16:19 UTC 1995 |
I know that *I* sure wouldn't want to try and triage them.
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rcurl
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response 191 of 326:
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Oct 17 18:44 UTC 1995 |
You don't have "youthful emotions" at 31, Debra? Tch. But you did
change your login to avoid the hassle, which is one of the options
I suggested in #184. But the problem was caused by the harrassers, as
iggy says, not by the system.
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kerouac
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response 192 of 326:
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Oct 17 22:11 UTC 1995 |
#187....how about not making any decisions from the list steve
reaps every day and just say that he can put any login on the
".warning" list (or whatever you want to call it) only when it is
formally requested by some formal number of users (2 or 3 or
something) I dont think there would be many requests and thus
not that much work for steve.
I was under the impression that marcus wrote "newuser" when he did
picospan. I did not know that it was a basic unix....would anyone
even have the source code for it in this case?
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steve
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response 193 of 326:
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Oct 17 23:13 UTC 1995 |
Newuser came along nwar the time that PicoSpan did, but since
then newuser has undergone a complete rewrite for Grex back in
'91.
I don't think it makes much sense to assign any "value" to
previously recycled ID's, because we're going to miss many of
the "important" ones. If you think about it, there are
probably several people who've used Grex on something of
a regular basis, and who have died. Todate, we've had more
than 32,000 accounts created here. What are the chances
that we haven't had someone die who used Grex. But, we
probably never found out becuase they used Grex for mail,
or never spoke up in the conferences, so 90 days after they
died they got reaped, with no one being the wiser over
why. In this particular case, someone who knew that person,
and sees the ID again on Grex might be jolted, but we can't
go around stopping people from being uncomfortable.
I am willing to go along with the retiring of ID's of
someone who has made an impact on others here, but please,
lets not set up a bureacuracy over this.
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scg
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response 194 of 326:
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Oct 18 02:35 UTC 1995 |
kerouac, I never said that newuser was basic Unix (in fact on most Unix
systems something like newuser would be a rather serious security hole). What
I said is that the list of mail aliases is a standard thing, and that the
nonstandard newuser uses that standard file to determine which accounts, other
than those already in /etc/passwd, not to create.
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lilmo
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response 195 of 326:
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Oct 18 04:37 UTC 1995 |
Re #191: But if she wasn't so stubborn, she prob would have been frightened
off by the reaction to her login.
Re #192: That seems to be the only reasonable solution, and really what was
implied by the compromise, I think. The only time the system ought to care
is when the users do.
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selena
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response 196 of 326:
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Oct 18 05:03 UTC 1995 |
Hey, the users will "harrass" these people, whether you like it or not.
So, what's going to be done, rane?
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marcvh
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response 197 of 326:
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Oct 18 05:19 UTC 1995 |
Obviously we should give in to the demands of the obnoxious harassers.
It's the only way.
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selena
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response 198 of 326:
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Oct 18 17:00 UTC 1995 |
Okay, think about it- if you want to fix the problem, there is two ways
to do it.. A) ensure that *any* user that would *ever* be upset by seeing
a dead login *never* bothers that person *ever*.. or, make it easier for
the newbie to avoid the problem altogether. You tell me which is more
difficult to do.
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rcurl
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response 199 of 326:
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Oct 18 19:16 UTC 1995 |
Let's make this a fundraising effort. Memorial logins can be designated
for donations exceeding, say $200 (the number of responses this item
is about to reach). That makes quantitative STeve's "made an impact"
idea: 200 users wanting to create the memorial login need only donate $1 each.
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