response 25 of 102:

Mar 21 10:18 UTC 1995

Having gotten to this item just now, there appears to be a confusion
between "harsh" and "blunt." This is an easy confusion. STeve was
thoroughly within all bounds of responsibility - duty -  to write
this and not one note of apology is needed. Frankly, I would have
preferred a little more terse (blunt) of a notification primarily
to save screen real estate. 
  
I see nothing wrong with a little bit of vernacular that bumps the
brain a bit. A "resource pig" is quite accurate and equally descriptive.
  
"Cyberslime" has made the news media, so that isn't particularily
untoward. 
  
As with gregc, I agree that this notice is long overdue.

response 27 of 102:

Mar 21 12:19 UTC 1995

I keep a'volunteerin' to become staff if someone will give me
a loose idea of what needs to be done...  (And permission to
do it, of course, in both sense of the word.)

response 29 of 102:

Mar 21 14:42 UTC 1995

Re 27: Interesting.... I'll go ask some questions....

response 31 of 102:

Mar 21 22:26 UTC 1995

Re #25:  I wasn't trying to say that it should not be there; au contraire
I found it to be pretty much what we needed.  I just found the wording at
one particular point to be... not ambiguous, butjarring, in the sense
thaat I felt I had to do a bit of work to figure out what exactly was
being said.

response 33 of 102:

Mar 22 02:53 UTC 1995

Yes, I'm getting more and more popular with the new users from
South America, since they can actually ask me things about
grex in Spanish...  One more thing to look for in our
helpers, I guess.  >8)

response 35 of 102:

Mar 22 14:49 UTC 1995

  Wow, cool RobH!  Maybe we should have a Spanish-speaking helper
flag, with a Spanish-language command to write to them?  :)

response 37 of 102:

Mar 22 16:20 UTC 1995

        I quibble about "cyberslime" because that automatically makes it
sound like that's what you're calling anyone who WON'T verify.

response 39 of 102:

Mar 22 17:26 UTC 1995

Contesto a preguntas al "staff" (cuerpo tecnical de Grex) en espan~ol tambien. 
I didn't know we had another resource. Excelente!

response 41 of 102:

Mar 22 18:14 UTC 1995

I tried to say that, IMHO, the term, and ones like it, should not be
used at all. 

response 43 of 102:

Mar 23 06:07 UTC 1995

As to the "negativism" in the limitations text, I just hope people
keep in mind that the vast majoity of its readers wouldn't have
caused any problems anyway.  Newuser is Grex's welcome mat, and I
think it should err on the side of friendliness.
 
Anyway, as a suggestion, I pared the current two-screen text down to
one screen, given below.  I put comments on the specific changes in
/u/ajax/limits, because it's lengthy, but even if you don't like the
one-screen rewrite, at least some of the suggestions might be useful.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
                        Limitations of Grex
 
Grex's popularity has *swamped* our Internet link.  This link is *one*
28.8Kbps modem, over which all Internet connections and mail flows.
Grex is primarily a conferencing system, not an Internet provider.
You can help keep Grex working faster if you follow the tips below.
All the users and volunteers at Grex appreciate your help!
 
 - Please don't subscribe to large mailing lists, and if you subscribe
   to any mailing lists, don't let mail accumulate.  Mailing lists
   take a lot of network bandwidth and disk space.  If you leave Grex,
   please unsubscribe yourself from lists you joined, or else Grex's
   volunteer staff will have to do it.
 
 - Please don't forward lots of your incoming mail on Grex to another
   system, as this has twice the impact on Grex's Internet LInk.
 
 - Please don't store or transfer large files on Grex.  Each transfer
   to or from Grex slows down the Internet link for everyone else.
 
 - For programmers: If you are interested in porting large software
   packages here, please check with staff@cyberspace.org first.  Some
   tips: outgoing IP access (used by most net programs, MUDs, etc.)
   just won't work, because of a custom O/S patch preventing it.
   Also, since Grex uses a 68020, SPARC binaries clearly won't work!

response 45 of 102:

Mar 23 06:56 UTC 1995

   I think we want to discourage 61 person mailing lists that were
created by people who use us as a mail redistribution point.  We've
had several of those, some sending large peices thougyh us, too.

   If someone asks, and it isn't huge, then I think we're said fine.
The problem comes from people who don't get on Grex at all, but to
set up a .forward and vanish into the night.

response 47 of 102:

Mar 23 11:17 UTC 1995

I'm glad to see this message going through.  Everything looks
good to me at this point.  Concerning omni's idea, I don't think
newuser is the place that message would have the best impact.
Most of the people who have lots of mail in the spool have
already run newuser.  Perhaps there's another place we can
mention it.

response 49 of 102:

Mar 23 15:28 UTC 1995

  (Nothing like unbiased support! :-)  Re #45 I didn't realize the purpose
of requesting no .forward files from your warning screen...I thought it was
talking about .forward files for a single user, independent of mailing lists.
Your example definitely sounds like a problem worth mentioning!  Perhaps you
could explain a bit more clearly that we don't want .forwarded mailing lists,
rather than .forward files in general.  The current wording is as follows:
 
>   curbing "mail bloat" is sincerely appreciated!  If you create a
>   ".forward" file here, do remember that all the mail you get on Grex
>   will wind up having twice the impact on Grex's Internet link.