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Grex > Coop9 > #27: Motion: To allow anonymous reading via Backtalk | |
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| 25 new of 624 responses total. |
kerouac
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response 300 of 624:
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Jan 8 16:37 UTC 1997 |
Valerie, you should go back and re-read Remmers objections to that proposal.
Itis a bad idea even if it is a 90-day trial and as Remmers noted, how do you
guage what a real consensus is when so many people in each conf lurk and
who wants the bureacracy and the pain of each conf making their own rule ssand
if this is done , how doyou respond topeople who the3n want to close their
confs to *registered* users?
This would be saying its okay to discriminate against one group of users
but not another? Ireally think that idea is anti-grex and it appalls me
that a co-founder of grex would even consider for a minute signing off on
something like that. Even for ninety days.
The rotation idea is really simple. Break the confs into four grups so
that no one conf is available to unregistered users for more than 90 days
each year. It is NOT byzantine and it doesnt have each conf making their
own rules. It allows for users to beable toprotect their own items and
toknow when their favorite confs are going to beavaialable in that manner.
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kerouac
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response 301 of 624:
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Jan 8 17:00 UTC 1997 |
The preamble to thebylaws states:
"It is the objective of this organization to provide anopen-access
computer conferencing system"
I submit that if any of grex's conferences are allowed to make themselves
permanently unavailable to any group of users, then grex is no longer open
access. An unregistered user of grex is still a user of grex and grex
cannot be true to its mission if any user of grex is permanently denied
access to its conferences.
"Open Access" isnt a vague term. It is a very exact and specific term.
It means that everything is accessible and available for every user on
this board. EVERY user.
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rcurl
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response 302 of 624:
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Jan 8 19:52 UTC 1997 |
Unfortuantely, "open access" is a vague term. You can still have "open
access", no matter what procedures you institute. In any case, no matter how
web readers are handled, everything still remains accessible by some route.
It is obviously not necessary to permit *all* routes (e.g., Grex does not
provide its services in Braille).
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raven
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response 303 of 624:
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Jan 8 20:30 UTC 1997 |
Kerouac if you dangle the red herring of open access one more time I
shall have to pickle it and eat it. :-) Seriously, though, all confernces
will continue to be open access, tell me who can't run newuser? Furthurmore
anonymous users even if they are able to access all conferences won't be
able to post and you don't seem to have a problem with that as unequal
access. The thing you fail to realize is that conferences on Grex are
radically different and some people don't want strangers in thier
metaphorical living room. By your logic Grex would only have 1 confernce,
instead we have 92 confernces that address very different needs in the
Grex community. If some conferences don't want to live by *your* standrds
of what constitues community and anonmity I say let them.
I again propose lets let the conferences vote on whether they want to be
anonymously accessible or not for a 90 day *trial* period. I really don't
think it will create the burecratic hastle Remmers & Chelsea think it
will. An informal agreement among fws to not link items between anonymous
and non-anonymous confernces without asking the fw of the non-anonymous
conference should suffice. I have been on Grex for years and frankly the
only fw I can imagine who would be petty & selfish enough to link between
anon and non-anon confernces without asking would be Kerouac. If he did
in fact start linking unrelated items from say poetry or sexuality to
world solely for the purpose of disrupting conferncing then I think there
would be pretty good grounds for staff to can him as an fw, problem
solved, if not, not.
Kerouac I'm sorry if this post comes off as a personal attack, however,
your insensativity to views different than yours is *really* annoying to
me.
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kerouac
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response 304 of 624:
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Jan 8 21:22 UTC 1997 |
Raven, I think you are the one who is showing insensitivity. The ONLY
views you have concerns for are those on one side of the issue. My
compromise gives something to both sides. And when you cant
argue you point any more you start making it personal. Why cant
you just understand that having each conf making its own rules would
create mass confusion. Partiuclarly for new users who would jump from conf
to conf having to learn different sets of rules for each conf.
Grex's conferences are not intimate. Strangers read them everyday.
Logins are not verified and people routinely use bogus names. Those
opposed to anonymous read access are opposing something that already
exsists and has for a long time. The idea that grex's confs are closed,
intimate, or for or about any small group of people is ridiculous.
The only compromise between all of the time and none of the time is "some
of the time" And that is what this comes down to.
A strong conferencing system is one in which a user feels comfortable
jumping from conf to conf, knowoing that each conf belongs to the same
community and folows the same sets of rules and philosophies. You want
to destroy that here on Grex..
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krj
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response 305 of 624:
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Jan 8 21:31 UTC 1997 |
<krj starts to respond and then remembers his New Year's Resolution. :) >
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valerie
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response 306 of 624:
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Jan 8 21:42 UTC 1997 |
This response has been erased.
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raven
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response 307 of 624:
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Jan 8 22:52 UTC 1997 |
re #304 Well lets just put it this way my compramise is agreeable to all
the people I have talked to who have strong concerns about anonymous
access, your is not agreeable to those people. Your "compramise" would cause
tthe fw of the poetry conf to leave taking about 1/3 of the items there with
her, as well as probably causing several people to leave Grex permanently.
You are just plain wrong when you say I'm not giving on both sides of the
issue, under my proposal *86%* of the conferences would be open to anonymous
access 24-7 365 days a year. I actually think anonymous access is a
*good* idea to increase the diversity of the Grex user base. I just think
that showing sensativity to those who view there confernces as a community
is a wise thing to do. You are wrong when you say certain confernces on
Grex aren't intimate, both the poetry and sexuality conference have a
relaxed living room feel to them, and I can understand how people would
feel uncomfortable having unregistered users drifitng in and out of those
confernces.
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kerouac
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response 308 of 624:
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Jan 8 23:06 UTC 1997 |
#307...but people drift into and out of those confs all the time! And how
do you come up with 86% when you have no idea which confs (other than one
or two) would want to cut themselves off from anonymous users? I think
you are more interested in your friends interests than you are in grex's.
Grex does not need every conf having its own rules of access, even on the
smallest points.
The confs should all be playing by the same rules. The status quo would
be better than your proposal. At least by rotating the confs, anonymous
users would get the opportunity to sample everything that grex has to
offer at one point or another.
Fair Witnesses do not own conferences! Even the active users dont own the
conference. All of the people who enter it to read, lurk observe or just
hang around are a part of it. There is no way you could ever tell if any
vote taken within aconf was a valid representation of the true feelings of
all of those people.
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jenna
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response 309 of 624:
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Jan 9 06:25 UTC 1997 |
The word community is thrown around alot.
My schol recently decided that it was detrimental to the community
to allow somehwat lewd anime to be posted on walls. 360 students stood up
and said, in different ways, "If we all support this, and want this
but this 'community' doesn't. then who is the community?" If the people
who make up the community are not what decides what the community wants,
that's not really much of a community
is it?
-
I think most nonsensative conferences will not vote in favor of being closed.
Fairwitnesse don't own conferences. But they're not evil people either.
And hey, if you lie, let someone besides the fw DECIDE WHAT THE CONVERSATION
IN THE CONFERENCE POINTS
TO.
mAKE SOME POOR STAFER do it for every single cnference ( aplogies ofr caps).
(It's late, I can't type)
I support a compromise that allows conferences to decide.
However, any compromise that randomly chooses 50% of the conferences
is as good as no compromise at all. I dont think you understand the objection
to
all confrences open if you even propose something like that as a compromise.
Everybody
is trying here, but let's be rational. Sensative information is not randomly
distrubuted, and its what I object to sticking on the web.
Rotations are a pain in the ass, then no one ever knows what's going on
and you run into the same problem as with random choosing. Nothing is
permanent.
I would not have a conference permanently decide to be one way or the other.
It would always be opn to that conferences current communities peferences.
However, I do believe in the right of choice.
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rcurl
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response 310 of 624:
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Jan 9 07:18 UTC 1997 |
I posted a notice of this issue in four cfs (in which I am a fw), asking
for opinions. One person posted in one cf indicating they were in favor of
anonymous web reading. That is one message. The other message is that
these cfs - and in my opinion many others - are barely alive for lack of
participants. Where are they? Probably surfing the internet. Grex was
founded to make conferencing available to the public, but It seems the
public has moved on to better technology - perhaps also along with a
shorter attention span. CLI will probably survive for a small group, but
that isn't serving the general public. A shift to Backtalk will continue
for more and more users. Therefore, in my opinion, anonymous web reading
should be tried as a means to open the "window" of conferencing to more
people. So, I'm convinced of that. The question then is, what should be
done about a small number of users that use conferencing for what they
consider as too-personal for anonymous web reading, even though the
majority appear to think that there will be no probIems. I believe in
democratic majority rule but with protection for the minority. Often it
has to be one way or another, but there is room for a compromise here that
will not cause any serious injury to Grex or other users. I therefore
propose a modification of the "exempt conferences" along the lines of:
1. cfs can decide whether they want anonymous web reading by discussing
it, but the fw deciding.
2. No items can be linked from those cfs that choose to not allow
anonymous reading.
3. All conferences will remain open to all registered users (as now).
4. No new cfs may be created as "exempt".
I would suggest two weeks for decisions to be made, at which time the
policy and anonymous web reading of "non-exempt" cfs would be inaugurated.
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remmers
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response 311 of 624:
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Jan 9 13:01 UTC 1997 |
(Suggestion: Let's call it "unregistered reading" instead of
"anonymous reading". It's not truly anonymous, since http
servers keep logs of hits. Also, anonymous reading has always
been possible via "observer" mode.)
I like the spirit of Rane's proposal. Sets a clear new direction
for Grex; I can live with the grandfathering.
Also, it's not tedious administratively except possibly for
clause (2). It would be nice if we could have the software
enforce any linking restrictions rather than staff having to
play police. This may not be easy though, as we don't have
Picospan source.
Question for Rane: What do you intend if an fw doesn't respond
by the end of the decision period? Leave the conference exempt
of open it up?
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raven
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response 312 of 624:
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Jan 9 14:00 UTC 1997 |
re # 310 I think all of this proposal is workable except for # 4. Why
can't new confernces be created that are exempt from unregistered reading?
I think it's possible that conferences may be created in the future that
may not want to permit unregistered reads. It seems to me that the
logical extension of this proposal is to let those new conferences decide
if they want to permit unregisterd reading just as the old conferences
would be allowed to decide if they want unregistered reading.
I think it might also be workable to allow linking from the confs that
don't allow anonymous reads to those that allow anoymous reads if the fw
of the conf that doesn't allow anonymous reads OKs the item to be linked.
However I don't feel strongly about this and no links is probably a good
fallback position.
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valerie
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response 313 of 624:
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Jan 9 15:40 UTC 1997 |
This response has been erased.
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kerouac
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response 314 of 624:
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Jan 9 17:00 UTC 1997 |
And what about items that are linked to more than one conf? I originated an
item in politics about "same sex marriages" that is now linked to three other
confs (including Gay and Sexuality, which would both be likely closed to
unregistered users) What am I supposed to do if the item is in two
closed confs and one open one? Have it unlinked? That would be a shame
because its a terrific item that has lasted several months already. The
flaw in rcurl's argumkent is that so many items are linked already that it
is going ot be difficult for users to know at times whether they ar
responding to a an item that is closed to anonymous readers or open to
them. Noone responding to that item in SExuality is going to have any
idea that it is open somewhere else.
Also rcrulc's idea, like raven's still makes implication that the fw's own
the conferences. I really think a solution needs tobe found that doesnt
have anyone making that sort of arbitrary decision. I really dont see how
rcurl's pro[posal is different than RAven's.
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e4808mc
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response 315 of 624:
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Jan 9 17:36 UTC 1997 |
I would like to back the idea that new conferences *do not* get to decide
whether they are open to unregistered reading. The plan would be to
"grandfather" some current conferences where the participants feel strongly
about previous posts. New congerences would be open to anyone to read and
post, and everyone would know that from the beginning. That way we wouldn't
continue to split Grex into two types of conferences. All new conferences
would be as open as technology could make them.
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remmers
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response 316 of 624:
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Jan 9 18:13 UTC 1997 |
Yes.
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albaugh
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response 317 of 624:
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Jan 9 18:14 UTC 1997 |
Just for the record, I don't care about any of the compromises, I oppose
unregistered reading in any form, as I don't believe it advances grex's
objective(s).
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davel
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response 318 of 624:
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Jan 9 18:25 UTC 1997 |
... whereas (just for the record) I also don't support any of the compromises,
but it's because I think limiting web readership doesn't advance Grex's
objectives.
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rcurl
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response 319 of 624:
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Jan 9 18:30 UTC 1997 |
Re #311: yes, staff would have to remove links, but if the proposal has
general support, few links would be created and probably mostly be accident
or oversight.
fws not responding: I suppose we may have some cfs with no active fws. They
should choose new fws. If, however, a fw refuses to decide, I would propose
that the Grex chairman poll the cf, and make the decision.
Re #312: my reason for #4 is that this decision is essentially one of a *new
direction* for Grex, as remmers observed. The majority should be able to
choose new directions. However the proposal is designed to allow those that
obvject to specific cfs being open to unregistered reading to have everything
they have now - and indeed, for as long as those cfs remain or until they ask
to join the mainstream.
The "no linking" provision is to keep it simple and enforceable. If someone
wants an item in an "open" conference, they can start it there.
Re #314 - currently linked items. If a "closed" cf doesn't want an item
to remain linked, they can restart it as an unlinked item. I think that
anything now linked to what will be "open" cfs is history, and can be
continued in the "open" cf. Otherwise - negotiate. This is a temporary
problem.
Re #315: that is the spirit of this proposal.
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rcurl
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response 320 of 624:
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Jan 9 18:39 UTC 1997 |
Re #317: I think it does advance Grex objectives, as it provides a wider
public with an example of the conferencing format, which will attract new
registered users that want to participate. It will also make cfs with a lot
of information content that people might want to explore, more like web pages
- a source of public information.
Re #318: Dave, would you explain further? The result of this proposal would
open probably 85+% of conferences to unregistered reading. Its only purpose
is to move in that direction without losing the participation of a few active
users in what they consider "sensitive" cfs. View this as a small price to
pay for a greater objective.
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kerouac
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response 321 of 624:
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Jan 9 19:52 UTC 1997 |
I guess grandfathering it in is ok so long as the eventual
policy is that all confs be open to reading by unregistered users. To
that end I propose that not only new confs be automatically open but
that ifa currently closed confis re-started, the cfadmin *treat* it like a
new conf and also make it open to unregistered users at the time of the
restart. This way would make it clear that grex is moving toward a
uniform policy.
I still think there are going to be compliants because it ca be hard at
times to remember how many confs an item is linked between and will be
even harder to reemember if one or some fo those are closed.
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rcurl
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response 322 of 624:
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Jan 9 20:00 UTC 1997 |
A lot of cf restarts occur because a cf hos gotten too unwieldly, and not
because of any change in topic, content (type), fw, or participants. If
we are going to be willing to "grandfather" cfs thought sensitive, I don't
want toset any traps for them to be ungrandfathered later. I think the
proposal goes as far as we can at this time.
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kerouac
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response 323 of 624:
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Jan 9 20:07 UTC 1997 |
its not a trap, a re-started conference is a new conference in effect and
if new confs are to be requiored to be open, it wouldnt be fair to the other
new conf fws
if an old fw can re-start their conf without having to confform to the same
rules they have to. The idea shouw be to one day, even if it is tenyears from
now, have all cnofs open to unregistered users.
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raven
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response 324 of 624:
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Jan 9 20:35 UTC 1997 |
Re 323 I agree wholeheartdly with 322. Poetry will probably have to be
restarted soon as it has over 800 items and it in *no* way will be a new
conference. If the prposal is stated with this restart clause it is
unacceptable to me and I imagine it will unacceptable to the other fws who
object to unregistered access as they will all probably restart their
conferences at some point in the future.
I still don't see why new confereces shouldn't be allowed to decide if
they want to be read by unregisterted users. I could see how a
hypothetical new conference on say psychological tramas or invasive
medical procedures that would involve discussion of personal history might
want to be closed to unregistered users. I am willing to compramise and
accept just current conferences being grandfathered in for the sake of
making policy, however, I think it shows Grex to be moving away from the
principle of democratic control and towards inflexible overgeneral rules
which is sad to me.
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