response 50 of 102:

Mar 24 00:11 UTC 1995

        Ajax, good show! The way I see it, your one-screen is far less
harsh, but it still gets the important items out. As for Popcorn's quibble;
that *should* be easy enough to put in. Now, let's see..

        Please limit use of .forward files for when they are needed,
        as they double the workload on our link.

..or something like that.

response 52 of 102:

Mar 24 06:05 UTC 1995

   I like what Rob wrote too, but the way I see it, it isn't blunt
enough.  Unforunately, seeing people upload 10M+ to Grex, "just
because I had a need to keep alternate copies of my GIFs" as I heard
last month, has made me probably over sensitive to all this.
   The one thing I think really needs to be in the above text is a
statment that WE ARE NOT AN INTERNET PROVIDER of some sort.  I'm
still getting calls from people about how much we charge, etc for
net access.  I still see people who get on, after they've called me,
and wonder why they can't telnet, etc.  Somehow the idea of Grex
being an Internet provider got out (and out of hand), and we're
still dealing with that.

response 54 of 102:

Mar 24 06:48 UTC 1995

I think we should expect people to be confused about whether we are an
internet provider. There are about a zillion new internet providers
out there these days, and how many systems are there like us?
People will naturally assume we are part of the crowd. It's human
nature, and we need to put up with it calmly.

I think ajax's wording is sufficient. Further harshness doesn't seem
appropriate in newuser, because it is our front door.

response 56 of 102:

Mar 24 10:27 UTC 1995

Good stuff, all - - and now I am puzzled by the advertising campaign
so that we get swamped even more .??????????

response 58 of 102:

Mar 24 16:58 UTC 1995

   The problem with saying Grex doesn't want to be seen as a provider
is that to me, that says Grex *could* be thought of one.
   We aren't.  28.8Kbps is simply ludicrous for a machine with
as many people as we have.  Since people don't have any conecpt of
what that means we need to state this loudly, LIKE THIS.

response 60 of 102:

Mar 24 23:12 UTC 1995

From my experience talking with help-seekers who want to use
the Internet, the things they are looking for here are
(in roughly descending order): e-mail; IRC; "files" (I
assume ftp); and MUDs, either setting them up here (yipe!)
or telnetting to other sites.  Oh, and there's the large
group who have no idea what the Internet is or what they can
do with it, but they really really want to use it.  >8)

(On a slight tangent, does anyone know of a public IRC server
folks can telnet to?  The ones I used to use are closed now,
and I'd like to help these folks access it, preferably by
telnetting from their own sites.  >8)

response 62 of 102:

Mar 25 08:19 UTC 1995

        Get real! You're both of those, and more! I'll bet you that there are
MANY people who come here for party ONLY, doing nothing else! You guys don't
even know what You've got here.. at least, that's what it looks like,
when you spout that piece of rhetoric. Let it rest. Yes, there are LOTS
of people who cf here, but there are lots who do many things, and may NEVER cf
here.
        As to I-Net provider.. hey, you "charge" for acces, currently, so,
equipment notwithstanding what the hell else are you?

response 64 of 102:

Mar 25 21:04 UTC 1995

   We're a conferencing system, Selena.  We can call ourselves whatever
we'd like.  But if you get terms confused and even think for a minute
that we're an "Internet provider", then you're going to get pissed
at that provider, when you FTP a file and get 80 characters a second
transfer rate.  It's real simple: we aren't a provider in any realistic
sense of the word.

response 66 of 102:

Mar 25 21:58 UTC 1995

Yeah, to me it would be like someone who had some 2x4's to sell.
He couldn't really call it a "Lumber Yard" since he wouldn't have
molding, panelling, boards or posts.  Granted, you can get 2x4's
at a lumber yard, but not all places with 2x4's are necessarily
lumber yards.

response 68 of 102:

Mar 25 23:18 UTC 1995

   Interesting thought about party, but I have to disagree.  A piece
of conferencing software, like Confer II, or PicoSpan, or EIES, or
Participate or usenet seperates discussions into some form of distinct
"thread" in some form.  I do not see party doing that.  Yes, there are
the various chennels, but in terms of PicoSpan, each party channel is
one item in a conference, because everything said in that party channel
is seen by all the people there.

response 70 of 102:

Mar 26 03:38 UTC 1995

I found my way into here by accident. danr told me to have fun when I
paid my dues but I didn't know I had tolearn so much techinical stuff.
I don't know what the intenet has to offer or how to get in but I guess
I will learn.  I guess I will try to getinto Party and see whats going
on.  I thought MUD was something I played in and SLIP access was the
$1500 bucks I paid yearly for the opportunity to store my boat for the
summer. Also PPPs was when I had to go tothe bathroom real bad.  Are
we really having difficulties or maybe taking it to serious?  Just a
thought from an innocent bystander.

response 72 of 102:

Mar 26 16:00 UTC 1995

Well, John, here IS some useful information:

UNIX (the operating system Grex runs) includes an on-line (nothing to do
with fishing :) ) manual system.  You can find out more about party by
typing "man party" (man for manual, party for party, w/o the quotes, of
course) at the "grex%" prompt where you now type "bbs" to get into this
system you already know how to get to.  Be forewarned that not all of us
use party; I went in once and left after a few minutes with a big ? over
my head as to what all the excitement was about.

So far you are doing great.

response 74 of 102:

Mar 27 06:04 UTC 1995

For a taste of an Internet provider, consider ftp (send/receive
files) at a rate of 15,000 characters per second instead of 80.
Mayhaps even greater!
  
I truly remember the first 10 Meg file I ftp'd - 15Kbps average
and I thought that was HotSmit. Now, modei are 28.8 Kbps (capable).