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Grex > Coop8 > #36: Conference participation files on Grex | |
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| Author |
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| 25 new of 113 responses total. |
brighn
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response 25 of 113:
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Mar 12 19:21 UTC 1996 |
As an FW, I prefer people who don't have anything to say but wish to
read the conferences as lurkers than as people who post repetitive
rubbish (e.g., one user in cflirt who for a while was hugging every
female who posted in every item they posted in every time they posted...
nothing's more irritating to me than seeing 12 newresponse items just
to find out all 12 are series of <hug x> and nothing else) just because
they are reading the items and feel compelled to say *something*.
(And yes, I *have* spoken to the user in question, and he ignored
me... *shrug*).
As for Agora, I left Agora because there were too many useless items.
Telling me General has ten times that many useless items doesn't exactly
speak poorly for Grex. =}
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ajax
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response 26 of 113:
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Mar 13 00:36 UTC 1996 |
I don't find the stats shocking or especially dismal. Though speaking
for myself, I find system speed a really big factor in how many conferences
I read. Sometimes I just hang up when starting Picospan if I have to
wait more than a couple minutes for an Ok: prompt. At that point, I find
it too annoyingly slow to halt the process and run the logout command!
(I'm aware hanging up is a security risk; it's a calculated one.)
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popcorn
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response 27 of 113:
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Mar 13 06:20 UTC 1996 |
(Tip: try control-\ to crash the program you're currently running, and then
do a "logout".)
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scg
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response 28 of 113:
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Mar 13 07:17 UTC 1996 |
re 24:
Maybe it's a sign that people just don't know what they're missing,
but a lot of the people I meet in the real world just don't see the point of
talking to eachother through a computer when they could be talking in person.
I think that could probably be said about most of the non-Grexers I know.
I don't think we'll ever get those people to become active Grexers, and it's
probably not even really worth trying.
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davel
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response 29 of 113:
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Mar 13 11:35 UTC 1996 |
But I *can't* talk in person to you *and* Valerie *and* STeve *and*
everyone else whose postings I read almost daily, not every day. Some
of the people you refer to would change their minds if they found
themselves in a discussion of something that really interested them; some
never will no matter what. It's worth giving them a good try.
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kerouac
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response 30 of 113:
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Mar 14 02:36 UTC 1996 |
There's a middle ground between the two worlds. Its wrong to overuse
computers and substitute what you get in them for reality. I knew a
guy in college who got hooked on a party prog and related confing progs,
and ended up virtually living on them. He ended up flunking out of school.
What happened was he broke up with his girlfriend, met a bunch of new
people on the computer and started thinking that cyberreality beat
real reality. What became apparent to me when I talked to him, was that
he felt that cyberreality gave him and the people he was dealing with,
more protection. You get hurt in real life, you go looking for buffers,
things to insulate you from the pain. Computers provide that insulation.
Computers also allow you to step outside your body and physical appearance,
and be accepted on terms that you may not feel like you are in real life.
There's a place for that. I know a sweet girl who has a disease and
is confined to a wheelchair, and the computer allows her to deal with'
people who dont see her as handicapped. In that way its wonderful.
And of course the computer allows long distance communications that wouldnt
otherwise be possible. In a sense it brings the world together. But
it only works when you dont forget the limitations or pretend that said
limitations dont exsist.
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brighn
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response 31 of 113:
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Mar 15 21:02 UTC 1996 |
*brighn nods silently*
Cyberreality can hurt, too. It just hurts in different ways.
Over the computer, you can't be slapped or kicked and vicious words
don't sting as much. Over the computer, words of comfort don't
echo as loudly, and you can't feel the warmth of arms around you.
O.k. enough from the emotional guy. =} Back to the thinkers...
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arianna
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response 32 of 113:
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Mar 16 15:53 UTC 1996 |
*nods in agreement with Brighn*
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tsty
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response 33 of 113:
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Mar 19 07:14 UTC 1996 |
I am very glad that someone else(es) made the same statements as I have
considered making, lo these many days.
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carson
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response 34 of 113:
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Apr 30 13:23 UTC 1996 |
re #24: I think we disagree on the concept of community service, but
I'd hvae to digress to address it. =)
anyway, scg's #28 shares my theory on why people don't use Grex,
although I don't share his hopelessness on their potential
convertability. I suppose that means that I share the hope
davel expresses in #29.
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rcurl
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response 35 of 113:
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Apr 30 17:59 UTC 1996 |
It wouldn't be a *new concept* to digress, carson. :)
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dang
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response 36 of 113:
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Apr 30 18:49 UTC 1996 |
Actually, I've found that the greatest block to getting people to cf regularly
is the time commitment. They don't want to spend a half hour to 2 hours
online to follow 5 conferences every day.
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kerouac
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response 37 of 113:
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Apr 30 18:55 UTC 1996 |
#36....true, and the net lag REALLY discourages people from trying to
actively enter items. When grex is really busy, even a decent typer
might need 20-30 minutes to hack out two paragraphs.
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sidhe
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response 38 of 113:
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May 1 23:08 UTC 1996 |
Was it my imagination, or is the latest coop's participation sharply down
from its predecessors? Somehow I don't doubt that if participation in
agora wasn't virtually forced, that we'd see as sharp a decline there too.
I know that my agora paticipation file hasn't been updated since the new
agora hit- I just get one every time a new one comes along, nevermind
that I don't use it.
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scott
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response 39 of 113:
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May 2 01:30 UTC 1996 |
Board/staff issues got real quiet when the Sun4 went live. We still get
plenty of arguments here in Coop, though.
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popcorn
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response 40 of 113:
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May 2 03:25 UTC 1996 |
<expurgated and scribbled>
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davel
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response 41 of 113:
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May 2 10:17 UTC 1996 |
Participation in agora isn't "virtually forced", it's just the default.
It's easy enough to set up a .cflist, and when you do that you get whatever
conferences you want, in whatever order you want, by doing "next". If you
don't put in agora, you don't get agora. Even without a .cflist, you can
invoke bbs with a conference name (either by hand or from your .profile or
.login) and go directly into some other conference. Certainly if agora
weren't the default it would see less activity, of course, but I don't know
that this has sinister implications.
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brighn
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response 42 of 113:
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May 2 18:07 UTC 1996 |
It took me about four months to find out what a .cflist *was*,
Dave, and until then, I thought that Agora was a forced thing.
Then again, I never thought I *had* to participate... just because
I got dumper there didn't mean I had to read any of it.
Now, I only go in there when the Motd tells me to look for something
interesting.
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kerouac
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response 43 of 113:
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May 2 18:33 UTC 1996 |
I thought newuses were going to be defaulted into the new Intro conf...
I like the way rob has set it up but it doesnt do much good if users
only see a suggestion to go to it in the motd. For intro to work it has
to be the default.
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robh
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response 44 of 113:
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May 2 19:48 UTC 1996 |
Well, I think we're all (collectively) still trying to decide
whether we want the Intro conference to exist. You and I have
made up our minds, ker, but not everyone else has...
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janc
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response 45 of 113:
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May 3 02:11 UTC 1996 |
I think the way for us to make up our minds is to set it to the default
conference, wait a month or so, and then talk about it. It's certainly more
than good enough for an experiment.
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srw
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response 46 of 113:
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May 3 06:48 UTC 1996 |
I am convinced that Rob has gone far beyond demonstrating the concept.
I think we have a very viable candidate for the default conference
here in "intro" and ought to perform exactly the experiment Jan suggested.
Would intro need seasonal restarts? Would agora?
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remmers
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response 47 of 113:
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May 3 10:21 UTC 1996 |
If 'intro' were the default conference, would it become agora-like?
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janc
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response 48 of 113:
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May 3 15:04 UTC 1996 |
That is indeed one of the hazards. Agora might die and Intro might become
agora. Or more likely, the old users might continue to hang around in agora
while the new one stay in intro and never come to agora. I don't know though.
I think the only way to find if these are problem, and if they can be treated,
is to try it.
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robh
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response 49 of 113:
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May 3 16:25 UTC 1996 |
I deliberately included items from Agora to try to stave off
the latter situation. As to the former, I wish I could set
up the conf. so that nobody can enter new items there, but
I was told this couldn't be done. *sigh* I'll just have to
play Mr. Ruthless Bastard and tell people who enter items there
that they shouldn't do that.
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