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| Author |
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| 25 new of 152 responses total. |
steve
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response 25 of 152:
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Jun 8 13:11 UTC 1995 |
We can't get all the conferences as active as agora. If we take
the activity levels of all the conferences, we get this amount of
usage on Grex, which I'll call N. N right now, is primarily used
by Agora, with all the other conferences falling behind, or at least
it is the case that Agora gets more of N than anything else.
Agora gets more of N than anything else because it's the default
place we put people. Those who find the paradigm of conferencing
stay, which is some small percentage of the initial users. Those
who really like this system eventually learn enough to wander elsewhere
on the system, which is how we've gotten the new people into different
conferences.
If we change the way of picking a default conference, we will
spread the activity level around--at least I think it will. The
long-time users will still be in Agora, but the new folks won't.
We'll see some increased activity in most of the other conferences,
but since it will be spread out over xx other confernces, it might
seem like people have just vanished.
In effect we'll be distributing the conference activity load.
I don't think M-Net has ever tried this, and I know we haven't.
I think it would be an interesting thing to try, but I do think
we should be aware of the possibilities that this will hurt things
overall, and be prepared to switch back to the current system if
we have to.
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davel
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response 26 of 152:
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Jun 8 13:20 UTC 1995 |
I hate to be the one to point it out, but *newuser is ALREADY irritatingly
long & full of questions confusing to the novice*. Yes, the suggestion
sounds much like using trn the first time. I remember trying & trying &
trying to interrupt a list of hundreds & hundreds of newsgroups which were
being offered to me. Bleah. Offering such a checklist as an option seems
like a *very* good idea. Imposing it on every user strikes me as a *terrible*
one.
One advantage it might have: if we make it really impossible to break out of
the selection process before it's done, people will sure think twice about
running newuser again to create a pseudo account.
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ajax
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response 27 of 152:
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Jun 8 14:52 UTC 1995 |
The prompting of conference intersts could be shortened by using two-level
heirarchy, so that the person is asked first about the main cf categories as
listed in the 'help conferences' display (e.g. "Are you interested in
recreation-related conferences? Are you interested in inscrutable cfs?"), and
if they are, list each cf within, if they're not, skip to the next category.
Or allow the user to pick cf's of interest from a menu (either a really big
one, or a similarly heirarchical one)...e.g. "press 1 to add cooking, 2 to add
music, 100 to add fuzzcourt, or E when you've had Enough!"
My impression is that a minority of Grex users actually use the
conferences. Perhaps this will open people's eyes to cf's and they'll get
more participation, but it also seems like a waste of time for folks who just
want to run party or mail. How about making it an optional part of newuser
("<info info> Do you want to build a conference list right now?"), list it as
a menu option in the menus, run it automatically the first time people run
Picospan, or add the command to pull up a cflist editor to Picospan's
built-in help?
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carson
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response 28 of 152:
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Jun 8 15:00 UTC 1995 |
(I'd mentioned in the "suggestion box" item that it might be a good idea
for the menu system to take newusers a little further into PicoSpan rather
than just dumping them in Agora. As far as I know, it's on someone's list
of Things To Do.)
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helmke
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response 29 of 152:
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Jun 8 16:23 UTC 1995 |
For what it's worth... I remember the first time I used Usenet news at
MSU about 6-7 years ago. I was forced to answer yea/nay to a list of
some 500 newsgroups!! I have no idea how that do that now.
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carson
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response 30 of 152:
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Jun 8 16:58 UTC 1995 |
(in trn, it's "N". That's a *capital* "N", and if you don't know to
not include the quotes when using trn, you really shouldn't have
skipped those newbie pages when you first ran it. :) )
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kerouac
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response 31 of 152:
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Jun 9 01:29 UTC 1995 |
I dont know why newusers are defaulted into agora anyway, they
should logically be defaulted into the grex menu right? What is
the point of having a main menu if it is not used as the first default?
If we put up a screen in "newuser" getting people to select the
confs they want to join, it would take away this need to force them
into agora.
I think spreading the users around the confs would be a positive
step. After all Grex isnt a little community michigan board anymore, it
has evolved into a national board where by definition you are going to
have more strangers and more varied interests. I think Agora hogs
up time and space and is clogging grex's arteries. If Grex is to
continue growing we have to develop the other confs.
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steve
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response 32 of 152:
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Jun 9 02:15 UTC 1995 |
An interesting thought, that Agora is clogging things up. I kinda
see what you mean.
As for the default of Agora, it seemed the reasonable thing to do,
for those who wanted to use 'bbs' as their default login shell. Some
conference has to be picked, so why not the most misc. conference of
the bunch, went the thoughts of the founders, back in 1991.
Maybe its time to change. We could certainly try different things
out and see if something works better.
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rcurl
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response 33 of 152:
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Jun 9 07:52 UTC 1995 |
Agora could still be the first cf into which a newuser placed, but
everything should be marked as read! Then they will see each Item/thread
grow "out of the silence". They can always go back and read whole
items if they want.
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selena
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response 34 of 152:
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Jun 9 14:43 UTC 1995 |
Nah. Agora's too unweildy. Try teh menu idea- it sounds wonderful!
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rcurl
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response 35 of 152:
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Jun 9 22:44 UTC 1995 |
The menu idea and the "everything read" idea can occur together.
The menu idea was only to select conferences. The "everything as read"
idea applies to items in conferences. If a new person in a conference
were only automatically shown a short FAQ, and the item list, they
could choose which items to read. Also, since they would only start
seeing new responses, they could choose to forget items early, and keep
their use of the cf under control.
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selena
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response 36 of 152:
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Jun 9 23:28 UTC 1995 |
That's good. I just didn't like the idea of "everything read"
without the menu.
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tsty
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response 37 of 152:
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Jun 21 15:54 UTC 1995 |
#22 is a clean and jerk - -the pun workx
nephi's #23 is the better idea but limited to , say, 4-5
conferences and a note taht there ARE more conferences available.
agreed taht newuser is kinda long, so i would
sugest that the "create .cflist" option become aprt
of the menu - either create or update .cflist .. and that
the same "command" be avaialble for non-menu users.
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sidhe
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response 38 of 152:
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Jun 25 19:57 UTC 1995 |
Would it be better on menu, or as a wrapper around picospan, I wonder?
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carl
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response 39 of 152:
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Jun 27 10:18 UTC 1995 |
Here's another thought: put together packages of conferences.
Perhpas something like this.
The Daily Paper:
agora, sports, classified, consumer, aaypsi
Entertainment:
arts, books, kitchen, travel, games
About Grex:
info, coop, grexnews, helpers, publicity
Philosophical:
directions, reality, synthesis, politics, sexuality
The Unusual:
enigma, scruples, accordians, cflirt, paradox
That way people could easily select one or more package of
interest. Of course, if this were done, it would be a good idea
to mention how to edit .cflists to customize it later.
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rcurl
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response 40 of 152:
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Jun 28 22:17 UTC 1995 |
There already are "packages" of cfs, which you'll see if you enter
help conferences. However I'm not sure that all people want to
choose their cfs by these categories, as the cfs in each category
can be very different. Nevertheless, there is no harm in it being
an Option, among other options.
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sidhe
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response 41 of 152:
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Jun 29 00:48 UTC 1995 |
I think what carl is getting at is a menu with cf's bunched as such
would take far less time to scroll by than the entire help conf list,
as a y/n menu.
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lilmo
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response 42 of 152:
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Sep 5 20:47 UTC 1995 |
Two ideas:
1. Combine the two menu ideas a bit: have a list as in #39 with the short
descriptions from "help conf" (or whatever, but SHORT), and then have each
conf in the selected group put forward one-by-one with a longer description,
since the one-line summaries don't say very much, esp. those w/ Grex-isms.
2. How about putting "N for Next Conf in your .cflist" in the standard prompt
for those that are new, or who use this, or whatever.
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rickyb
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response 43 of 152:
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Sep 20 19:43 UTC 1995 |
I'd think most newusers don't stay on for a long time after the newuser pgm
on the first session. Maybe just a little poking around in Agora or sending
some mail.
Is it possible to do the conference choice thing as a default _2nd login_
after running newuser? That way, when a newbie logs _off_ on the 1st
encounter they could get some friendly message that "next time we'll help
you customize your conferencing preferences" and the process doesn't have to
be too time consuming.
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adbarr
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response 44 of 152:
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Sep 22 00:03 UTC 1995 |
I like this suggestion. Although, I confess, I have no idea what it
entails, so it probably 1. is simple; 2. will only "take a minute";
3. was suggested by an article in Reader's Digest as wonderful;
and 4. Dosen't cost much, if anything. Like a "simple will". Anyway -
the conferences can be most intimidating when someone wants to join
and is greeted with "500 new responses, and 67 new items. . . " Perhaps
a "newbie" or "example" conf could be suggested as an alternative to
just jumping off the high dive. I had the benefit of major personal
help from several wonderful people here, but someone from another
situation might not be so fortunate. <adbarr still gets secret help> :)
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rcurl
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response 45 of 152:
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Sep 22 06:29 UTC 1995 |
Newusers are only presented with two items when they join. I think
they should get an introduction, but with everything marked "seen".
Its not intimidating at all, then: they will only automatically see
the new posts, and can "join in" whenever they want. If they are
sufficiently interested, they can learn how to look further back.
"No new Items; No new Responses" is the battle cry.
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lilmo
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response 46 of 152:
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Sep 22 16:44 UTC 1995 |
Re #43,44: If newuser created a file in that user's directory, the logoff
routine could look for it to display that neat little message, and so could
login. login could also DELETE that file, so it wouldn't be there again.
Or user accounts could include a "newuser" flag, but I think that would
require a bit more work, like editing and recompiling newuser, login, and
assorted other programs that access the user account file, so that might
require a bit more work, and hence, generate a bit less staff support. :-)
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steve
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response 47 of 152:
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Sep 22 17:40 UTC 1995 |
I agree Rane, that newcommers should get something far different
than the first and last items. My personal idea would be to make the
first five or so items show up; these would be a series of one screen
introduction items talking about what is what. Those items would be
read only, so new users wouldn't get a huge first item with lots and
lots and bunches of meaningless responses.
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davel
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response 48 of 152:
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Sep 23 01:26 UTC 1995 |
<cheers>
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rickyb
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response 49 of 152:
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Sep 23 14:42 UTC 1995 |
re#48: but then the newusers would get no practice at entering a response
(something which at m-net often brings out the olympic judges, heh).
I've often wondered, and I think the question has been posed in some form or
other at m-net, if there could be a way to use "browse", then pick out an
item one is interested in, but read _only_ the new responses, rather than
the entire item.
As a new, but not really newbie, user I would find such a possiblity very
helpful. Many is the time I have only a brief chance to login and I know I
want to respond to a specific item I caught just before my last logoff. Now,
the only way I can do that (either in Picospan or YAPP, as I understand them)
is to go to that item and "read item #nnn", which will read the entire item
from the beginning (sometimes rather L-O-N-G) before allowing me to "respond
or pass".
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