response 25 of 141:

May 21 02:13 UTC 1995

Anybody *can* participate in Coop.  That doesn't mean that everybody
*does*.  What it does mean is that those who do not participate in do so
by choice.  By making that choice, those people are choosing to stay out
of Grex politics, including policy questions such as what to name the
newsletter.  We could move all Grex political discussion to Agora, on the
grounds that more people would see it there, but Agora is too bloated
already.  For those who care about Grex policy, it is much easier to have
it all in one place, where it can all be easily looked at.  Those who are
feeling left out need only join Coop, and they will be part of all the
discussion.

response 27 of 141:

May 21 05:37 UTC 1995

We may have tun the vote entirely in coop too, as the name for the
newsletter is for those most interested in the future of grex to
decide. The vote was opened to everyone on a "why not?" basis. So,
stop complaining and get involved.

response 29 of 141:

May 21 14:03 UTC 1995

   Isn't coop open to the general public?  Is it unreasonable to say
that if Grex's public wants to participate in some general election
issue, they have to get to the right conference?

response 31 of 141:

May 21 22:50 UTC 1995

  The fact is that agora is, essentially, the conf of record for grex.  The
minutes of the meetings are posted here as well as in coop.  The newsletter
voting isnt some programming question or software question, it has nothing
to do with technical issues.  It is something that the majority of people
who use grex might have wanted to have input on.  Why wasnt there AT LEAST
an agora post saying that there was an item in coop about nominations for
naming the newsletter?  There wasnt...most people dont read COOP and they
dont even read the bulletings at logon.  They do read agora.

I dont think it would harm anyone to re-open nominations for a couple of weeks
or less, just to let everyone have input.  There was a time that political
party officials felt the same way. They said if you dont come to the party
meetings meetings you have no right to vote in the primary or to decide which
candidate represents us on the general election ballot.  But over time we
realized it worked better to let everyone vote in the primary.

Grex is a free and open system.  It is not the domain of just those who read
COOP.  By not mentioning this in agora until the time for a vote, there 
been a lot of people left out of the process.  So postpone the voting, this
isnt a life or death issue we are voting on here, and give everyone a 
chance.  What could it hurt?  What would be the reason NOT to re-open 
voting?  Does a couple of weeks really matter?

response 33 of 141:

May 21 23:21 UTC 1995

        Board meeting minutes are not posted in Agora, as far as I know,
and I think I do remember something in one of the anouncements items a few
months ago saying that discussion on naming the newsletter was happening
in one of the Coop items. 
        I'm sorry you are feeling that Grex is the exclusive domain of
those who read Coop.  Yes, those who respond in Coop have a lot more input
in how Grex is run than anybody else does, but that's hardly an exculusive
group.  Everybody is welcome to participate in Coop, and lots of people
do.  In case anybody hasn't figured it out yet, there are a lot of issues
facing Grex that are far more important than what to name a newsletter
that may never get off the ground.  All of these things are being
discussed in Coop, where anybody who cares is welcome to go participate in
the discussion.  Moving all that discussion to Agora would not make sense,
since it is a ton of stuff and those who don't care about system politics
would probably get pretty upset if they were forced to read through it all.
        Having multiple conferences on Grex has a very important purpose. 
Rather than dumping everything into one bloated conference that nobody
would be able to find anything in, people can choose what conferences to
read by selecting the topics they are interested in.  Stuff on cars goes
in the cars conference, stuff on music goes in the Music conference, stuff
on sexuality goes in the sexuality conference, and stuff on Grex politics
goes in the Coop conference.  The list goes on.  Agora is supposed to be
used for the stuff that doesn't belong anywhere else.
        By the same arguments that people are making in terms of moving
discussions on what to name the newsletter to Agora, the whole system of
multiple conferences is bad.  Discussing music in the music conference
deprives people who only read Agora of discussion about music.  Discussion
of sexuality in the sexuality conference denies Grexers who only read
Agora access to discussion about sexuality.
        Is anybody really advocating getting rid of all the seperate
conferences on Grex, and dumping everything into Agora?  I certainly
wouldn't agree with that.  Agora is already bloated enough even with the
other conferences, and it's really nice to be able to not read things I'm
not interested in by skipping the conferences I'm not interested in.
        Instead of users expecting somebody else to bring all the
information they are interested in to them, and everybody else who reads
through Agora, the solutins is for users to actually join the conferences
they are interested in.  I know that sounds like a really radical idea,
but aht way people will actually be able to read the discussions they are
interested in, and skip most of the others.

response 35 of 141:

May 22 02:37 UTC 1995

re #33, #34: Those are the first things I've read by people named
        Steve that I *strongly* agree with in a LONG time.

response 37 of 141:

May 22 04:21 UTC 1995

        Wow, I never realized these sorts of questions come up on Grex, too.

        The fact is, there are a lot of things which come up only in coop
which affect everyone on Grex.  If you want to know about such things,
there's just no substitute, and no way to have one that's in any way
reasonable, without reading the coop conference.
        It is pretty unfair to say, "Waittaminnit, I missed X because I 
don't read coop, due to a lack of interest in Grex affairs, but I want 
to make you redo this one thing, in a conference I read, because I have 
something interesting to say about it".
        If you want to have input, or know what's going on, read coop.  I 
do, and I have no desire for input into Grex affairs.  I read it because 
important things happen there.  I want to know about important changes 
happening on Grex.  I do have input -- I suggested at least one of the
names for the Grex newsletter, and I've made other suggestions which came
to be adopted.
        I wonder why this item isn't linked to coop.  I thought all the items
about changes and new things were supposed to be linked to coop, or just
entered there.  (More of the input I have no real desire to have.  I am a
policy wonk; incurable, I'm afraid.  I am a backseat driver.  I am done
with this response now, thank goodness.)

response 39 of 141:

May 22 05:27 UTC 1995

Not surprisingly, I agree with #s 33 and 34. I would go even further, and
recommend that we *resist* the temptation to link things to agora "for
greater exposure", when they are clearly the subject of an existing
conference. Lets get back to having a multi-conference conferencing
system. Decisions about grex matters arise and are discussed and decided
in coop - if you have the slightest feeling you should have known about
naming the grex newsletter - join coop now and participate in all the
issues that arise in the future. 

response 41 of 141:

May 22 10:29 UTC 1995

I too, agree with #s 33,34 and #39. In #31 kerouac said:
 "The fact is that agora is, essentially, the conf of record for grex."

Wrong. The *fact* is that the conference of record for official grex
policy is coop not agora.

response 43 of 141:

May 22 12:29 UTC 1995

I think that linking of appropriate items *from* agora *to* some other
appropriate conference is often appropriate.  Agora is by design ephemeral,
so that's the way to keep items around if they're of lasting interest.
This thread involved complaints that something hadn't been linked from
coop (where it belonged - coop definitely not being intended mainly for
"programming question[s] or software question[s]").  Trying to link
everything from other conferences into Agora should definitely be on
a minimalist basis.

It seems to me absurd to suggest that we link all policy questions into
Agora automatically.  If kerouac is right (probably is) that most
people don't read coop, we should presume that it's because they don't
want to be bothered about internal policy issues.  If so, why on earth
would they want to be bothered about one so minor as the *name* for an
occasional newsletter?  We'd all prefer it to be something really neat,
but Grex will sail along just fine whatever name is chosen.  But even
for most decisions that make a difference, I'd argue against linking
to Agora.  People who want to hear about policy issues, or contribute,
should read coop.  If they find most of these issues not worth while,
there's a FORGET command.  Using it in coop isn't all that
big a burden; unlike agora, coop doesn't typically have several new items
turn up on any typical day.

response 45 of 141:

May 22 17:58 UTC 1995

  The problem is that grex is slow and there are people who only read
Agora because this system isnt fast enough to allow for the reading of all
confs in a particularly speedy manner.  This is really part of a larger
problem, which was addressed in coop a while back, being that some of the
regulars are not happy with the fact that increasing numbers of people
here dont read the confs regularly at all.  It has been pointed out that
there are systematic problems (grex being too slow) in addition to
ignorance and/or laziness that are reasons.  I read COOP and some of the
other confs as often as time allows, but the users of this system should
not be treated as second class citizens because their way of using grex is
at odds with the original intent of the board of directors.

The other confs are nice and should be used more, but if you look at the
logs, you see indisputably that a substantial majority of people treat
Grex as a one conf system.  Sure this might be bad, but its the reality. 
Most of the confs deal with special interests, but what is said in 
COOP is often important with regard to the future of Grex.  Therefore
some, not all but some, of those items should be linked to agora as a 
public service to reach the widest possible audience.  Isnt that why the
newsletter voting, which is admittably a trivial issue, is posted here?

Otherwise the inescapable conclusion is that the Grex board and COOP 
regulars look down upon the general populace of Grex.  The snobbish 
attitude one sees sometimes in coop does not lead to a good feeling
of "community" and it may turn people off on the idea of contributing
anything or possibly becoming paying members.  Grex is a great system
but if you are complaining about why people go straight to party or mail,
this may actually be one of the reasons why.

response 47 of 141:

May 22 19:02 UTC 1995

There is no "snobbish attitude" in coop. All are welcome to participate.

Sigh - now we have *TWO* Name the Grex Newsletter items in Coop! This item
was entered into agora *not* for greater exposure, but solely because a
decision was made (in the real name-the-grex-newsletter item in coop) that
instead of just members voting for the name, which would have been most
logical, we would open it up to a vote by all users.  However the
resulting thread on the reasons for having different conferences, has been
very useful - too bad we couldn't change its name, when we linked it to
coop! 

response 49 of 141:

May 22 23:54 UTC 1995

  And it is ridiculous to say that those who read COOP are more
concerned with the future of grex than those who dont, because there
are plenty of people who use this system and care about it who simply
dont have the time.  I even know some FWs on other confs who dont read
COOP because they spend all their time monitoring their own confs and 
keeping up with agora.  I would hazard to guess that more paying 
Members dont read COOP regularly than do.  COOP's active reader core is
probably as small as most of the other specialty confs.  If you dont want to
come off as snobbish, dont go around saying that you car about the system more
because you spend more time in one conf than somebody else does.  That
isnt fair to 95% of the people who use grex.