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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 154 responses total. |
brighn
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response 50 of 154:
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Mar 23 16:11 UTC 1996 |
*laugh at the last paragraph* Yeah, well, neither of us were acting
very adult, were we, John?
I believe that Colleen was including you in the four, yes.... at anyrate,
I can't think of a fourth, save for you, and so yeah, tht confused me.
And while Val clearly stated she left for the reasons you state, you just
as clearly imply that she left because of
our fight. *shrug* Not that it matters *why* she
left, and it certainly doesn't interest these folks. =}
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mdw
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response 51 of 154:
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Mar 23 17:35 UTC 1996 |
I would never care to claim that grex is impregnable. Nevertheless, we
(staff) have put considerable effort into making it as secure as
possible, and it is a fairly routine matter for us to see people try to
break in, and fail. It is likely that your average scumbag vandal can't
break in, and perhaps especially probable that the ones who boast or
threaten are least likely to be actually capable. Still, there are no
guarantees in life. The only thing I can say is that each staff member
is basically dedicated to that goal of "proving" that impossible goal
that it's possible to run a secure yet open timesharing system.
Part of our solution to that problem is, however, entirely at odds with
kerouac's self description, of being a "liberal democrat". It would be
more accurate to describe the grex staff & board as "liberal anarchists"
- people who are dedicated to people, but who are equally dedicated to
avoiding rule making or enforcement. This is not a arbitrary decision.
One of the things that eggs on slime-sucking scumbag vandals is
overbearing authority, because that gives them something to rebel
against.
Of course, one should be careful of over-generalization as well. At
least one grex board member has short hair. It's kind of scary.
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kerouac
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response 52 of 154:
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Mar 23 22:33 UTC 1996 |
What?! who on staff has short hair?!?!
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srw
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response 53 of 154:
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Mar 23 22:53 UTC 1996 |
Liberal - yes, in social matters
Democrat - usually at the National level
Anarchist - not on your life
Conservative - yes, in fiscal matters
Think rules are good - sometimes
Agrees with Marcus's goals for Grex - yes
It's kind of scary.
I agree that Grex doesn't want to be overbearing. It is of and for the people.
That means that rules are to be put in place only where they are truly
needed. To call this anatchistic does not seem right to me.
There is a necessary authority on Grex. THere are a lot of rules that are
needed. I'm all for them and so is Marcus. Rules like "a" should not be able
to read "B"'s mail. There are many more. Marcus is not so much of an anarchist
as he would have you think.
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adbarr
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response 54 of 154:
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Mar 24 00:38 UTC 1996 |
Marcus is definitely not an anarchist. Srw is sometimes just a little
stubborn, but we can live with that.
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scott
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response 55 of 154:
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Mar 24 00:48 UTC 1996 |
*I* have short hair - right now growing out a bit from a buzz cut.
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srw
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response 56 of 154:
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Mar 24 01:42 UTC 1996 |
OK, I yield to Scott. My hair is longer than that. But still short.
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robh
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response 57 of 154:
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Mar 24 02:42 UTC 1996 |
I think of myself as more of a libertarian anarchist, actually.
(And yes, what hair I have is on the longish side, I need to get it cut...)
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mta
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response 58 of 154:
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Mar 24 16:26 UTC 1996 |
My hair is not short. Just for the record. <grin>
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selena
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response 59 of 154:
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Mar 24 17:25 UTC 1996 |
neither is mine..
Can I be on Staff, now?
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adbarr
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response 60 of 154:
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Mar 24 20:58 UTC 1996 |
Hair length is not a qualifying attribute of staff membership. The board, on
the other hand, may be different.
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kerouac
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response 61 of 154:
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Mar 24 21:58 UTC 1996 |
Personally, I think all staffers should have long beards like marcus's
as a qualifying attributes. Staffers should look like old gurus!
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robh
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response 62 of 154:
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Mar 24 22:04 UTC 1996 |
<robh does not want to look any older than he already looks, thanks>
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scott
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response 63 of 154:
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Mar 24 22:07 UTC 1996 |
(scg has no beard, but enough hair for 3-4 staffers)
And there can't be any rule about hair length, since I have hair less than
1 inch long, while scg has more than 12 inches of hair. And both of us are
staff and board members.
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davel
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response 64 of 154:
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Mar 24 22:42 UTC 1996 |
That's just fine & dandy, but sooner or later we're going to *have* to come
up with a way to help people understand the functional differences between
board & staff. Not that I'd personally go for hair length for that purpose,
you understand ...
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brighn
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response 65 of 154:
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Mar 24 23:07 UTC 1996 |
Isn't there an FW here to tell people to get back on topic?
Hair length is not a co-op issue. ...
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scg
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response 66 of 154:
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Mar 24 23:54 UTC 1996 |
Right. Robh's hair isn't that long. I think, going by most standards of what
counts as long hair, that I'm Grex's only long haired male board member.
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kerouac
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response 67 of 154:
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Mar 25 00:07 UTC 1996 |
Actually I always hear robh complaining on party that he's bald...I guess
one's definition of "baldness" is a matter of perspective hehe
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robh
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response 68 of 154:
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Mar 25 01:15 UTC 1996 |
One can be bald *and8 have long hair, kerouac. Think Riff-Raff
from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
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brighn
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response 69 of 154:
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Mar 25 07:51 UTC 1996 |
*contemplates a link to the Homme conference, since men are stereotyped
as being not concerned with superficialities, while nearly everyone
in this conversation is male (selena, last i checked, was *very*
female)*
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popcorn
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response 70 of 154:
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Mar 25 15:38 UTC 1996 |
Re way-back-there: I'd be curious to hear from people what their various
definitions of "strong and healthy conferencing" is. I'd guess it's different
for different people.
For me, conferencing is at its best when the conferencers are a small band
of intelligent people whose responses I enjoy reading. My favorite
conferencing experiences ever have been on little systems that nobody noticed
because "everybody" used the competing big system. In particular, I really
liked *forum on the UB computer at U of M, back when everybody used
MEET:STUDENTS, and I really liked Kitenet back when everybody used M-Net.
These conferences were often rather quiet, but the responses that were
entered were intelligently written and fun to read.
Grex has a lot of low-traffic conferences. Those conferences don't have a
merry band of regulars who steadily enter a few responses a week, but other
than that they are very similar to some of my favorite conferencing
experiences. I wouldn't want all the conferences to be as busy as Grand
Central Station -- or Agora. Quiet conferences are just that: quiet
conferences. To me, they're not a sign of illness; they're OK.
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brighn
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response 71 of 154:
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Mar 25 16:30 UTC 1996 |
I agree. My other fave board after this one is Monolith, precisely
because traffic is so low that I know nearly everyone on there, and
posts are relevant and interesting. Monolith is based on the same
software as ISCA, a bear of a board with a 1000 user capacity, usually
full, and tons of drift. ISCA is definitely quantitatively healthy,
but I hate it... it's nearly impossible to hold a serious, consistent
conversation in public, and privately, it's hard to get anything going.
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davel
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response 72 of 154:
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Mar 25 17:38 UTC 1996 |
What Valerie said ... except that I never met the systems she uses for
comparisons.
I don't especially *want* things to be really active, for myself. I've
subscribed to, & then resigned from, quite a number of mailing lists, & had
stopped reading usenet before it went away (here), precisely because it just
took too much time to read due to the sheer number of postings. It also seems
that drift & meaningless yatter & redundant postings increase faster than
total number of postings, but that was secondary. Here on Grex, several cfs
which I'd have said were quiet enough to be almost dead have recently had some
very active threads turn up - not all of interest to me, but some.
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janc
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response 73 of 154:
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Mar 25 17:49 UTC 1996 |
By may personal scale, I don't think any conferences on Grex are "too active".
Some are certainly "too dead". For most fair witnesses, inspiring a
reasonable amount of activity is a bigger problem than keeping it from getting
too big.
Other issue on a "healthy conference" is the amount of flaming and
meta-discussion going on. Unless this is a "flame" conference, big flame wars
are a sign of sickness. By meta-discussion I mean users talking about the
conference and the fairwitnessing of it instead of talking about the subject
at hand. A bit of that is OK, even necessary, but when those items start to
intrude on the real discussion, the conference is sick.
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kerouac
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response 74 of 154:
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Mar 26 00:46 UTC 1996 |
I'm all in favor of small conferences, although I think if a conf that
is topical becomes too cliquish it doesnt serve the subject matter well.
What I mean by conferencing dying isnt small confs but those that become
virtually inactive because either the fw or most of the people who
used it have left.
Example, the Hippie conf, which was one of the first confs I joined on
Grex, hasnt had a new entry since June of 1995. I just put a new entry
into the History conf, the first since last September and the third in the
last two years. These are confs that are worthwhile but that noone
seems to care about anymore. There are some confs that dont even have fw's
anymore because whoever they were have been reaped. I dont define a
healthy conf as one thats dormant. When people decide not to contribute
to a conf anymore, then the conf is dead.
I disagree with Helmke in that I think going through a bbs and
seeing lots of dormant, inactive confs is like walking down a street
full of empty and abandoned storefronts. Its depressing and doesnt
present the bbs in a good light. So even if there is no technical (space)
reason for killing confs, I think cfadmin should do this anyway. If a
conf hasnt had any responses in a year, cfadmin should put it on death
row and ask if anyone wants to save it. If not, execute it. Cfadmin
needs to be doing a better job of keeping people advised of which confs
are in such condition and need recycling.
This is just another part of what I keep saying is a need to improve
the presentation of the conferencing on Grex. I have been on many
many boards over the years, and I've seen many that were vital at one time
but died. They died because they were too dependent on a core of users.
I can think of 25-30 people who if, for one reason or another, they left
Grex, even the stronger conferences would die out. The only way I see
that any conference can survive a naturally revolving user base, is if
the presentation is strong and the climate is not cliquish. Popcorn,
how many of those early boards you mentioned are still around, or are
still exsisting in the same form? How many would you still consider using?
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