response 201 of 624:

Jan 4 00:12 UTC 1997

<robh notes that it actually wasn't his idea to link items
from Agora to Helpers, that two other users asked him to do so, and
thanks davel for his response>

response 203 of 624:

Jan 4 02:04 UTC 1997

Comments on the above:

(1)  Currently my feeling is that the best solution is to retain the status
     quo.  No conferences open to unregistered users.  I don't think the
     "compromise" solution is particularly useful.

(2)  I don't have a problem with "compromises to appease maybe 10 people."
     This is because I don't think that any of the people participating in
     this conference are space aliens or mutants.  Or if they are, they are
     probably representative of a significant number of space aliens and
     mutants who use this system.  So if there are a significant number of
     people here who would be bothered by this, then I think there is likely
     lots more who aren't reading this item.  It should be obvious to most
     people that this is a serious concern to some people, however illogical
     it may seem to others.

Bottom line for me:

If we turn on unregistered read access, then

  - some set of current users is made unhappy.  Some may leave, some may
    reduce or change their participation, and some may decide they can
    live with it after all.

  - some wholely theoretical set of people who were previously too timid
    to fill out a newuser form, will get on, observe for a while, and
    then register to become full participants.

So the question is, should we piss of some of our current users, in hopes
of attracting more users?

I think the answer to that is obvious.  Some people really hate this idea.
Nobody has given any reason to support it that is strong enough to make
offending them a good bargain.  If we need to attract more users, we can
find ways to do it that have broader support among the people already here.
Why try to attract more users if we don't care about the users we've got?

response 205 of 624:

Jan 4 02:24 UTC 1997

First off, that would be hard to do.  All of the responses, including 0, are
stored in the same file.  
Second, that doesn't compramize anything.  Those who want open access would
say, rightly, that that doesn't give open access to most of what the
conferences are.  Those who want name tags would complain, rightly, that this
doesn't solve any of their fears.  They could never, for example, post poetry
in it's own item, only in responses.  Conclusion: No one is happy.  That's
worse than voting and getting a decision one way or the other.  At least that
way, the issue is decided, and one side is happy.

response 207 of 624:

Jan 4 02:38 UTC 1997

clarification of last entry:  Backtalk could (?) store the original
item entries (the #0's) in a separate file that it would only access
when anonymous users request conf access.  This is not in any way 
changing the present file setup, just saying that anonymous users will
as a norm be reading an entirely different file when they read the confs.

Maybe this cant be coded without a lot of sweat, but if it is simple
enough I think this is worth trying.  It gives anonymous reads at least
ona limited basis and it gives other users the option of not entering
the text in #0 and preventing such users from reading.

response 209 of 624:

Jan 4 03:26 UTC 1997

Not at all.  I don't link items into Intro that have more than
50 or so responses, since I don't want to overload any new users who
have to read through them all.  And we're a bit past 50 responses
by this point.  >8)

response 211 of 624:

Jan 4 08:25 UTC 1997

Fine Rane- we have already given you a way to test it- OPEN AGORA AND
INTRO- and whatever the hell Valerie wants to do with her conferences, so
long as the users don't mind. That should be sufficient for your little
fun and games. There is no reason to do more than that for sake of
experimentation, and even that leaves a load to be desired.

And one last thing- Kerouac- if you EVER screw with linking items out of
Sexuality II without AT LEAST the poster's say-so, you will be sorry. Mark
those words.

response 213 of 624:

Jan 4 14:53 UTC 1997

Kerouac, I seriously don't know what the hell you are talking about.  
I've never seen such backwards logic.  Not to mention that it would be 
too much work to set up an entire new way for non members of grex to 
read only the "zero" items.  It has already been stated that the source 
for picospan is not available.

Jan said this previously, and it is so true, that I will repeat it.

Why should we tick off some of our current users so that we could easily 
attract more users?

There are pleantly of others ways people can find out about Grex.  In my 
opinion, Grex is pretty much overloaded with users.  All of Grex's ptys 
are often used up, and Grex is extrememly slow at times.  I am not 
saying this to be negative toward future Grexers, however I'm just being 
realistic.  But if Grex is already close to overloaded now, what would 
25 "non members" downloading BBS items at once effect Grex's internet 
link? (and cpu)  These "non members" would be reading these items, with 
no chance to reply to them, so they really would not be contributing to 
Grex.

response 215 of 624:

Jan 4 15:46 UTC 1997

Okay, maybe rcurl is right, maybe we need to try anonymous access.  Why
not simply stipulate that the one requirement for a conf to be offered
through the Backtalk interface is unrestricted access, and that if an fw
decides or the users of the conf decide that they arent comfortable with
that, dont offer that particular conf through Backtalk at all.  In any
fashion.  The Board should vote that the one and only requirement for a
conf to be offered through Backtalk is unrestricted access, and that Grex
will not offer restricted confs via the web.


Then we can let Jan, as backtalk admin,  deal with the
upset fw's and he can remove the objecting one's confs altogether from
Backtalk.

A disclaimer can be put up saying that web access of grex confs is subject
to the permissions of the fw's and/or users of each conference.  If there
is some great clamor for a particular conf to be offered through Backtalk,
the fws will hear about it soon enough.

This would be more consistent than offering all the confs via backtalk and
censoring some and not others.  The product Grex offers via the Web would
be consistent, even if slightly different from what you get through
picospan.



(and Selena, re: #14, you and Brighn on several occasions linked items of
mine out of their intends confs without asking.  So dont be hypocritical.
And I wouldnt be linking mostly, I'd be entering new items under my own
name and copying stuff over.  But I dont think its going to come to that
because the majority sentiment is clearly in favor of at least trying some
version of open access.  will be an interesting vote though!)

response 217 of 624:

Jan 4 16:47 UTC 1997

I have to agree with Chelsea there.  Going with a compromise just 
because those against anonymous reading have been complaining louder 
and acting more hurt is probably a bad idea.  But, there *are* good 
reasons for going with a compromise, as I now realize.  
Even though it makes no *technical* difference whether anonymous 
reading of a conference is allowed, it could well change the attitude 
of that conference's users.  For example, even though anyone could 
wander into the poetry conference or the recovery conference in 
observer mode with complete anonymity, those conferences do have an 
atmosphere of community.  I have occasionally posted in (I don't 
remember if it was poetry or writing, one of the two), and found the 
atmosphere to be like sharing one's poetry with friends, rather than 
like standing on the diag shouting it at strangers.
It seems to me, from what I have heard, that the poetry conference 
wants to keep that atmosphere--and I don't blame them.  I am much more 
comfortable sharing with friends, even though there may well be 
eavesdroppers present, than I am shouting at strangers, even though 
there may be friends present.  
I realize that the idea that Websurfers are more impersonal, more 
anonymous, than Netsurfers is not true, but just the fact that that 
idea is so common is a good reason to disallow anonymous reading of 
some conferences.  Take the recovery conference, for example.  In a 
conference of that sort, it is essential for people to feel comfortable 
talking to each other.  If putting that conference out on the web would 
make the users feel uncomfortable talking, then it would be hurting the 
conference.
There are, though, some conferences where this is not an issue.  As a 
farwitness of thezone, I see no problem with putting that up for 
anonymous reading.  Many conferences are not about things as personal 
as those discussed in recovery, or even poetry, and the discomfort 
level of knowing Websurfers could read your responses would (imho) be 
much lower.  This is why I think putting conferences up for anonymous 
reading on a per-conference basis is the best idea.
And maybe I'm wrong--maybe users of every conference would be 
uncomfortable with anonymous reading.  In that case, what harm is done? 
 All that happens is that all the conferences individually choose to 
disallow anonymous reading, and we are no worse off than we are now.  
We would stand next to nothing to lose, and a lot to gain, by letting 
individual conferences decide. (Thank you to jenna for explaining this
side of the issue to me)

response 219 of 624:

Jan 4 17:22 UTC 1997

I'm not unwilling to offend people, and I know that some people will be
offended by *any* change.  But I need to have a compelling reason to think
that this will make the system better for future users before I'm willing to
offend current users.  We have arguments on both sides for what effect this
will have on future users.  Some say it will make it easier for people to get
involved in conferencing.  Others (Marcus for one) say that putting people
into a read-only environment makes it *harder* for them to get really involved
in conferencing.  I thought I'd been reading this item pretty carefully, if
you've seen a compelling case for why Grex *needs* to be readable to
unregistered users or would be much improved by that, please explain.  I don't
see it.

No, I don't think we should cave into loud-mouths and threats.  But we've got
some of those on both sides.  Clearly the thing to do is to ignore the threats
but not the feelings and opinions behind them.

response 221 of 624:

Jan 4 17:29 UTC 1997

The compelling reason is that grex's membership base is flat, it is not
growing.  The only way to change this is to get Grex's product out to as
many people as possible.  You cant get new members without new users.
People who find they can read things anonymously will get a true sense of how
how open Grex is and some will want to get logins, and some of those will
eventually be members.  That is pretty compelling ifyou ask me!

response 223 of 624:

Jan 4 19:17 UTC 1997

So if you sell one book, you lose all rights to any further copying.  I really
doubt that.