response 25 of 171:

Apr 26 08:50 UTC 1995

Egads.  I really don't think we need to invent more bureaucracy just yet.
Life is complicated enough, without inventing solutions to problems that
haven't happened yet.

There is a risk to copying solutions from other organizations.  There are
also many advantages, and indeed, grex was very much a conscious attempt to
copy all the good things we cound find, changing only those things that
needed changing.  That process, of selecting only those things appropriate,
and adapting them to the needs and goals of the new environment, are
crucial to their success.  One of the hardest lessons the grex founders had
to learn, was the need to keep things as simple as possible.  The founders
certainly wasted enough time talking about what to do about problem users,
about the internet connection, usenet news, and more.

For problem users, one of the models the founders discussed was following
the principles of the US legal system, since that's clearly the definitive
model bar none.  The founders gave up on that idea in a hurry, however,
when it was learned that there was some other system that had dome
something like this, and that at *least* 50% of that system, in terms of
discussions, disk space, and time spent on the system, was devoted to the
various details of implementing the legal system.  The lesson the founders
learned from that was that any official problem resolution system would
create more problems than it solved, so the obvious solution was not to
implement one.  That is why you will not find any hint of such a system in
the bylaws or in the online help, other than some odd text in some random
nooks and crannies of the system, such as the newuser manifesto (where it
essentially says turn the other cheek) and "help etiquette".  So far at
least, the lack of any such official organ does not appear to have created
any worse problems for grex.  From a functional standpoint, I think the
founders got it just about right, and I don't think we're even remotely
near big enough to worry about anything more formal.

I also work for a much larger organization, right now, the UofM, so I've
seen, first hand, some of the kinds of traps a more complex organizational
structure imposes upon people.  It's really true, organizations *do* take
on a life of their own, and the acts of that organization are often driven
more by the structure of that organization, than by the actual informed
opinions of the individuals comprising that organization.  This happens all
the time, everywhere.  I'm sure the president of the US learns this, every
4 years, all over again anew.

You can, sure enough, hire somebody, seek out somebody who has social and
legal experience instead of technical experience, and you can call them a
"User Advocate".  But the laws of organizational structure take over at
that point.  Since the only thing that person deals with is screwey users
and ineffective system operation, they often come to think of users as
being inherently screwed up.  They are also likely to come to see things in
terms of reducing risk to the system, rather than in terms of the service
goals of the system.  Worse yet, since they have primarily a social/legal
background, instead of a technical background, they may have difficulty in
even understanding the technical architecture of the system, or the series
of design tradeoffs that went into selecting the service goal and its
implementation.  It's not the fault of those people though; it's the design
property of the organizational structure.

response 27 of 171:

Apr 26 15:35 UTC 1995

Hmmm... new to this item.
I tried to skim the responses for relevant content.  My own particular
problem (which has since been resolved) has not been discussed.  This
item started out discussing what to do when twits make annoying comments:
I heartily agree that, unless it's downright inflammatory aand unavoidable,
the best course is to ignore them or filter them.  My problem was with
a fw deleting an item of mine, and retiring others, out of spite.  Now
I know that retired items can be read, and even unretired, but deleting
means gone gone gone.  Grex stands on Freedom of Speech, precisely
why annoying twits should be allowed.  An FW role is to keep the topics
relevant and moving, not to take out their personal issues with other
users on those users.  Yet whan I asked for staff to at least take a look
at the situation (not to intervene, just to look at it), I got the same
"I'm not your father" spiel from Marcus... what sort of policy is there/
should there be on this sort of fw abuse of power?

response 29 of 171:

Apr 26 20:02 UTC 1995

Ok, now here is my two cents.  
As a user on grex, and one who has been complained about for my
behavior and attitude towards users, I have something to say.
I know I might seem somewhat cold hearted about this, but it is the
way I see it.  Many users on here have been complained about for legit
reasons, and some by users just trying to see people get in trouble.
Based on that fact, it is pretty hard to say what to do.  *I*
(personally) don't find it fair to give the same treatment to the
parties involved.  Hmm, that didn't come out right.  I mean -
the idea of a template for the complainer, and one for the
accused.  (Not saying they'd get the SAME one...i'm pointing out lilmo's
letter, for instance)   Anyhow, to be honest, I think this is a great place,
and I feel that alot of cases should be judged, looked at over and over, and a
slight punishment should be carried out.  I'm not saying to dlete the user, or
splatter him or anything, just that a warning or a certain measure of
punishment SHOULD be carried out. I know it can be hard at time, but, I think
if you have the right people doing it, then it shouldn't be that much of a
problem.

Who are the right people?  Well, for one staff WOULD be a wise choice,
but that isn't the correct answer here, because a staffer is the one asking
for help. :)  I think there should be a user admin.  Not necessarily
just one person, maybe a group of people who volunteer or are elected
to the cabinet.  People who want to see something done about the
user problems on here.  I think if grexers far away from the machine
want to help in addition to being a helper, that this would be a great
way to help.   Alas, there probably are little holes in that
brilliant ideas, but it sure seems a good one to me.  Or if not
a terribly good one, it is a do-able idea.
btw - this is sort of a compilation of ideas gotten from previous
responces.

response 31 of 171:

Apr 26 20:25 UTC 1995

What about a "Netiquette council"? A small group elected by the members,
with the role of (attempting to) resolve complaints about users (other
than technical problems)?

response 33 of 171:

Apr 27 03:38 UTC 1995

   Blurf.

   I think that staff as a whole is the better way to handle things,
when they need it.  Maybe there needs to be a staff person whose main
job is helping with this sort of thing?

response 35 of 171:

Apr 27 06:43 UTC 1995

That's pretty funny, staff members going yuck and blurf at there being
a netiquette council, since that is what they are acting as now on
an ad-hoc basis. I think they just don't want to lose their bureaucratic
sinecures, eh?

response 37 of 171:

Apr 27 10:37 UTC 1995

I think there's a difference between making it one's sole
responsibility, and making it a side-line to other things.  From an
organizational standpoint, the former has the effect of
"institutionalizing" the problem - people hired to resolve such
problems have an organizational need to justify their continued
existance, which means they're not so likely to be interested in
things that would reduce or eliminate the need for their job.

response 39 of 171:

Apr 27 18:01 UTC 1995

   Thats right Rane.

   Dealing with it as we need to is OK.  It's still unforunate to
have to do this, but making a "council" on this is setting up
something official to deal with this.

   One thing I've notices is that once an organization sets up
something to combat/advise something, it winds up never going
away.  In the case of a something or other to deal with social
problems, I think Grex will be asking for problems if we have
one.  Hey--want some fun?  Go over to Grex and tweak them.  Then
they'll come back to you with a committee asking you to stop...

   And, in actuality, several of us saw that happen about 1887 or
so on another system in town.  There were two people who delighted
in testing everying that was codified in some form of policy.  It
didn't work.

   I'm as desireous as you are Rane on curbing this, but I just don't
think it will work here.  I've seen it not work elsewhere and don't
think Grex is somehow different, at least in terms of social
behavior.

response 41 of 171:

Apr 27 20:53 UTC 1995

Re 39: I stopped logging in to the system you're talking about because
it seemed like every time I opened my mouth I got told I was breaking
some rule, and that some committee or other would have to "deal with"
me.  Too much bureaucracy.  Not fun.

response 43 of 171:

Apr 27 23:25 UTC 1995

   Why?  Well, there are lots of reasons, but I firmly believe that
one important factor for Grex is that we don't have a lot of government
here.  We don't have an involved set of rules.

   Basically, the people who "break rules" are the sort of people who
don't really give much of a fig about them.  The good point is that
the *VAST* majority of people who come onto Grex are really decent
people, and often send messages to staff saying its OK to leave their
account when they're done here, or ask staff if it's OK to get mail.
...The number of questions I've gotten from people is really amazing;
so many people ask whats OK here before doing much.

   Then there is the other side of the coin; those who don't care
about the rules.  These are the folk who don't really care about
social norms anyway, and like to blithely forge on, disregarding
the problems they cause others.

   It's this type of alledged human thats been our problem on Grex.
Having lots of rules to stop them won't work; but they will impact
everyone else.  Common sense is the best guidepost when it comes to
rules anyway--something that our forms of real government seem to
have forgotten these days.  Anyway, this small sub-set of the Grex
user base doesn't give a shit what we do or say here; they're going
to be a problem regardless.

   I think it's also important to remember that the problems we're
having on Grex is not linear with regard to the population here.
I am happy to say that while Grex has grown by a factor of 16 in
terms of different logins per day (comparing 1991 to 1995 logins),
our problems are a lot less than that same factor of 16.  I'm not
sure how we would quantify that, but I know that staff isn't spending
all its time dealing with vandals.  Yes, it's increased these days,
but it isn't nearly as bad as it could be.

   Think I'm thinking of 1991 as "the good old days" for Grex?
72 hours after opening Grex to the public, we had a crash on
July 21st, followed by a problem with some modei glitching up,
such that someone was able to get on as root, and they exploited
it.  This was user "hans", whoever that was.   Three days after
Grex was up we had an inept attempt to make a UID 0 account in
/etc/passwd.

   So the idiots and problems are always around.  Thats a constant.
What isn't a constant, from what I've seen, is the way we react to
the problems at hand.  People know when they've done something bad
here, whether or not there is a "rule".

   Grex is doing pretty well, considering that we don't have any
full-time staff.  Actually I think that Grex is doing pretty well
period.

   Now, having said all that, I do think we need to figure out
ways to better deal with problem type people.  Maybe we should
have everyone who's interested make comments on what they think
the problems are, and how they'd deal with it.

   Even if we come up with a group of people who become problem
resolvers, the way it can be set up, and the way it presents itself
can be something less formal but just as effective in dealing
with things.

   I'm typing too much again.

response 45 of 171:

Apr 28 14:13 UTC 1995

Back when Grex was founded, folks agreed that it would be great to have
as few rules as possible.  We seem to be steadily growing new rules,
which is probably a natural (though unfortunate) outcome of the system's
continuing to grow larger.  Overall, I'd like to see the system stay as
rule-free as possible.  Setting up a rule-enforcement committee isn't
conducive to that goal.

response 47 of 171:

Apr 28 23:28 UTC 1995

But we *have* a rule enforcement committee, and one of the members of it
said we shouldn't. Is it OK when you are the committee? (The discussion
here has not been about any new rules, but of separating the complaint
resolution function partly from the system operation function, both to
relieve the latter of a hassle - and it could also be to involve more
volunteers.)

response 49 of 171:

Apr 29 03:17 UTC 1995

   Well Rane, you are right in a sense--the staff is the "Rule Enforcement
Comittee" I guess, in that we do things when someone breaks into the
system, etc.
   But whats different about this is that there isn't a special
divison of Grex for this--it's another janitorial function that staff
does.