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Grex > Coop7 > #106: Retiring the ID of someone who has died | |
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| Author |
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| 25 new of 326 responses total. |
sidhe
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response 200 of 326:
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Oct 19 00:10 UTC 1995 |
Rane, perhaps this needs looking at in a more serious light than
you seem willing to give it. The problem has arisen, and needs to
be dealt with. Let us attempt to actually do so.
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marcvh
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response 201 of 326:
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Oct 19 04:09 UTC 1995 |
The problem is that some people harass other people without good reason.
If anybody knows a solution to this problem, please present it and help
make the world a better place.
What specifically the harassment pertains to isn't what is important.
I personally think accomodating the desires put forward by this kind
anti-social behavior is appeasement and not a great idea. We cannot
possibly purge from the system everything that may offend somebody, and
tis folly to try.
That said, modifying newuser per the discussion is not necessarily a bad
idea if there's somebody with the ability/willingness to do so. In
general, I don't like anything that makes newuser longer and more
complicated, but maybe this is different. However, maintenance of the
file of names that produces "warnings" must be done in one of two ways:
- Every account that is removed goes in there
- Every account that somebody else requests go in there, does
Anything else is too labor-intensive and/or controversial to maintain.
How the message is phrased depends which of the two methods is employed.
If it's every account, there will be a thousand accounts nobody cared
about for every one that is special to somebody, and the message should
not be misleading in this regard.
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rcurl
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response 202 of 326:
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Oct 19 04:50 UTC 1995 |
#199 is serious. The proposal to reserve logins for the sentimental
reasons of a few users serves no Grex purpose. However apparently there is
interest in reserving logins, and therefore they have fund raising value.
This is somewhat like selling T-shirts, except that no object of value is
involved, so the donation is 100% deductible. Very large conservation
organizations (and some small ones) offer naming nature areas after
significant donors (as do universities, for "chairs", etc). It is a
legitimate recognition of donations in support of the purposes of an
organization. I have even been thinking of what such asset Grex could
offer in recognition of donations. With the interest in reserved logins,
it is a "natural", and serves a Grex purpose. If this practice is adopted,
Grex should even advertise this opportunity, and maintain a file of
memorialized or reserved, by donation, logins.
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scg
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response 203 of 326:
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Oct 19 06:41 UTC 1995 |
To go on the university model of naming buildings for those who donate money
for them, we could always do things like "The Selena Barwens/Marcus Watts
UPS," or "The Rob Argy Terminal Server." ;)
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popcorn
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response 204 of 326:
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Oct 19 13:42 UTC 1995 |
No joke: at some point the founders talked about maybe doing that with the
modems. Originally each founder sponsored a particular piece of equipment,
such as a phone line, a modem, or X months of electricity bills. For example,
I think several of the original modems were Mary Remmers purchases.
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chelsea
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response 205 of 326:
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Oct 19 14:46 UTC 1995 |
More like I contributed X dollars to Grex which was immediately
put toward the purchase of a few modems. This all got kind of
blurry since I was the one who actually made the modem purchase too.
But since we don't accept goods and/or services in exchange for
Grex membership status, the point should be clarified.
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selena
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response 206 of 326:
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Oct 19 15:22 UTC 1995 |
That is stupid.
I'm sorry, but really, this is about keeping newbies from
being bugged by this specific problem. $200? Asinine.
This just makes me totally ill. I can't believe that, to keep
newbies from stumbling into a problem, you want money. Good night!
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rcurl
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response 207 of 326:
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Oct 19 18:56 UTC 1995 |
Good night. Sleep well. This is not asinine at all. Of course, you
were ready to make a donation of $200 to Grex anyway, to support
its charitable and educational purposes, weren't you? We would like
to honor you for making this donation by making your login id,
selena@cyberspace.org, immortal. It would be kept in a File of Honor,
with the date of the donation (but not the amount - we would accept
$2000 too), for everyone to recognize in the future. You wouldn't
want your login ID to be valued at LESS, would you? Besides, Grex
needs significant donations to create an endowment to support a
permanent ISDN connection, as well as many hardware upgrades, and it
appears that bestowing reserved logins for generous donations might
be a very popular program. If we don't act fast, M-Net will do it first.
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steve
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response 208 of 326:
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Oct 19 19:42 UTC 1995 |
Let them. I'm not crazy about it either.
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sidhe
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response 209 of 326:
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Oct 19 21:06 UTC 1995 |
Nor I. If grex is to do this, how would you keep the accusations
of elitism at bay? The only logins to be retired are the ones that had
enough people willing to pay, and likely pay well, to have it retired?
Money then, is all you're after, and the well-being of your users
matters not, as you wouldn't care how many people it would affect, or the
way it could affect the next person to choose a login that perhaps was
unpopular. Moreso, the one choosing the once-alive login must now still
face the same trap as before- what if no one paid to have the login
retired because the last to hold it was particularly despised?
The newuser would still have as many, if not more people, after
them due to the negative associations.
No, rane, your proposal does not solve the problem at all. In
fact, it makes far more problems than the money made could ever justify. I
would truly despise seeing us become so mercenary that the harm we create
is ignorable.
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rcurl
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response 210 of 326:
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Oct 20 05:20 UTC 1995 |
It appears that a lot of people here do not understand that Grex runs
on freely offered donations. There is nothing mercenary/elitist/etc
about seeking charitable contributions to operate a charitable organization,
and it has long been considered honest and respectful to recognize
charitable contributions with mention, listing, "premiums", and suitable
honors for significant contributions. This is the way the whole world of
worthwhile, non-profit, charitable, publicly supported, public-serving,
enterprises operate. I do not understand why anyone would demean open
and fair approaches to accomplish the purposes of the organization. It
is no more "mercenary" for CC Inc to offer reserved logins as "Thanks"
for a significant donation than it is "mercenary" for National Public
Radio to offer a special T-shirt as "Thanks".
[You must understand that I consider any problem related to the reuse
of abandoned logins as just meaness on the part of busybodies and
harassers. I would like to dismiss that problem, and consider opportunities
for the betterment of Grex based upon the apparently widespead, even
if sentimental, identification of logins with humans. My proposal would
encourage that practice by a means that would serve Grex purposes. It
would also reduce, but not eliminate, the opportunities for the busybodies
to annoy successive users of the same login - but the problem there is
to deal with the busybodies, not to submit to their intimidation.]
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wisdom
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response 211 of 326:
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Oct 20 18:37 UTC 1995 |
This response has been erased.
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rcurl
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response 212 of 326:
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Oct 20 19:27 UTC 1995 |
I never said anything whatever to you, or about, your chosen login until
others started this nonsense and even then all I did was defend your right
to choose your's (as I would equally defend your right to change it if you
wanted, and as you have done). I certainly don't know why that has your
nose so out of joint. I suspect you have the login of a dead person
(somewhere) now. How is anyone to know? Are you now arguing that *every*
login should be retired after one use, since everyone is going to die?
I love you too.
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mdw
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response 213 of 326:
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Oct 21 01:45 UTC 1995 |
The mail alias file's location isn't absolutely standardized, and
newuser supports an option to name one or more alternate locations.
Given the limited amount of personal investment made in the vast
majority of loginids, I think any general notion of reserving all
loginids ever issued in perpetuity an extremely silly idea. If anything
is done to reserve loginids, I strongly urge that it include a fairly
short time period before it's expired - I can practically guarantee that
in two year's time, most people on this system won't have the least idea
or care who had the loginid "mlady" in the past.
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marcvh
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response 214 of 326:
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Oct 21 04:10 UTC 1995 |
If there are still a vocal minority of people who object, the majority
won't matter. I'm pretty sure that, of the 8031 people with accounts at
the moment, the vast vast majority do not know or care who "mlady" is/was.
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gregc
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response 215 of 326:
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Oct 21 10:30 UTC 1995 |
Ms. Scully, If you moved and found out your new phone number has previously
belonged to a dead person, would you ask the phone company to change it? If
you found your new house was previously owned by a dead person, would you
move? I think it's also likely that several Debra Scullys die each year
somewhere in the US, should you change your name? Get a grip.
Your new login is "wisdom". Do you know what that means? Your post in
#211 shows little of it.
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marcvh
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response 216 of 326:
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Oct 21 22:24 UTC 1995 |
I have, in fact, had this happen; my phone number previous belonged to
somebody with a number of creditors interested in finding him, and so
of course they would refuse to believe my claims that I was not him and
had no idea who he was or how to find him. Quite inconvenient and
annoying. But it wasn't he fault of the telco.
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steve
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response 217 of 326:
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Oct 21 23:06 UTC 1995 |
I mostly agree with Marcus; but the idea here isn't to reserve
all the reaped logins, foruntely.
Most, but not all the users here in two years will not know of
mdlay, true. But those who will remember at that date in the
future will still possbily feel pain at seeing another 'mlady'
about.
It's that segment that I'd like to help, if possible. Since
this isn't going to happen that often, I'm willing to keep those
ID's of people who died suddenly out of the picture, at least
for a while.
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janc
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response 218 of 326:
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Oct 22 02:39 UTC 1995 |
I'm only about 5% concerned with the feelings of old users who see a login
ID resurrected. I am much more concerned about newusers who find themselves
greeted as if they had robbed a grave. The two are coupled. I think
reserving the logins of people who left Grex under especially traumatic
cirmcumstances is a good idea. I think unreserving them after 6 years isn't
worth the administrative bother, and we certainly don't need to decide
now what we should do then.
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selena
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response 219 of 326:
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Oct 22 09:54 UTC 1995 |
You want to know what's got Debra's nose out of joint? The
fact that, as a newuser, she's benn greeted as jan says in #218..
and how were we to know, unitl we asked her, if she was or wasn't
the mlady we knew? We really couldn't.
Hey, rane, maybe I get flaming occasionally, but I don't
remember ever going after your throat like *that*! Wow..
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remmers
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response 220 of 326:
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Oct 22 11:46 UTC 1995 |
I don't understand the first paragraph of #219 at all. It was
well known that "mlady" was a user who died tragically almost a
year ago. This was well-known and publicized at the time. I
didn't know her, but if I had, even if she'd been a close
online friend, I can't imagine myself behaving like people are
alleged to have behaved toward a newuser with the same login.
I certainly wouldn't have asked the newcomer if she were the
same person--what would be the point? I'd just have put it
down to coincidence and gotten on with my life.
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katie
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response 221 of 326:
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Oct 23 17:22 UTC 1995 |
Uh huh.
Debra, just because you didn't like 'getting a dead person's login', doesn't
mean the average newuser would care one whit.
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steve
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response 222 of 326:
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Oct 24 00:37 UTC 1995 |
You don't think the average person who comes to Grex that gets
such an ID wouldn't care? If they were the type who got on Grex
for 10 minutes (the majority are this way) and left forever, no.
But if they tried using the system for a while, I think that they
would encounter some interesting situations. It certainly isn't
the fault of the person who unknowingly took the account out;
but they'd care, I'll bet.
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rcurl
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response 223 of 326:
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Oct 24 03:29 UTC 1995 |
They wouldn't care if they got a friendly, helpful welcome. It is
this that is at stake.
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steve
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response 224 of 326:
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Oct 24 15:59 UTC 1995 |
Well, I agree with that.
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