|
Grex > Coop8 > #78: Agenda for the June 26, 1996 board meeting (7:30pm, UM Union food court) | |
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 94 responses total. |
kerouac
|
|
response 50 of 94:
| 
Jun 29 15:17 UTC 1996 |
thats an idea...set the prompt when one has an incoming !tel to:
"You have an incoming telegram from....., would you like to R)ead it, S)ave it,
D)irect to send e-mail?"
Set this prompt up right and there'd be no need to add code for .yes or .no,
because the user would already have the option to not read the tel.
|
robh
|
|
response 51 of 94:
|
Jun 29 15:54 UTC 1996 |
Great idea, and impossible to program in a Unix environment.
(I wish we could, though!)
|
kerouac
|
|
response 52 of 94:
|
Jun 29 16:20 UTC 1996 |
why would it be imnpossible to code? All it is is a prompt which would link
either to the incoming !tel or to email.
|
brighn
|
|
response 53 of 94:
|
Jun 29 17:16 UTC 1996 |
You're also missing the main point, Richard...
I for one don;'t havea problem with tels... I don't really even have
a problem at all withw unwanted writes of any sort, I'm speaking mostly
for my sweethearts, one of whom isn't around for a few weeks to speak for
herself, and one of whom doesn't read this conf (and one of whom is being
quite vocal for herself)... (sorry about the overlong lines, lag is HORRIBLE)
Anyway, the main problem is not !tels but !ntalks. !tels can be annoying, but
!~ntaks spam your screen... Maybe we could write a code making it impossible
to ntalk another user on the same system (so if
joebob@mercury.com.ord,.edu.uk.nz wanted to ntalk me, he ould, but
joebob@cyberspace.org couldn't...) but that seems like it would definitely be
impossible to code
|
scott
|
|
response 54 of 94:
|
Jun 29 17:59 UTC 1996 |
I can't figure out why I wouldn't just want to receive the tel rather than
have a prompt and a choice....
Tels only system:
1 things appears, the tel
Tels with option system:
1 or 2 things appear, the choice and then maybe the tel.
In the kerouac proposed case (most recent proposal) I *still* get something
cluttering up my screen. Why is that any better?
You'll have to take our word about what is and isn't possible in Unix.
|
scg
|
|
response 55 of 94:
|
Jun 29 18:02 UTC 1996 |
kerouac's suggestion wouldn't be impossible to code. It would just be a
matter of having the program shell out to some mail program. Still, it
wouldn't be worth coding. If anybody has a reason to send mail to somebody
they can send it. Otherwise, why not just let people be left alone if they
want to?
|
remmers
|
|
response 56 of 94:
|
Jun 29 18:02 UTC 1996 |
I agree that chat requests themselves can be disruptive, but it's
kinda moot because I don't think the suggestion in #50 is
technically feasible. The problem is not in sending the prompt to
the user's screen but rather having the user's response to it go
to the chat program rather than whatever program the user was
running when the chat request arrived. There's no easy way under
Unix for one program to grab control of the user's keyboard away
from another program and then give it back.
If Grex were running in a windowing environment such that a
chat request would arrive in a different window and the user
could then shift the input focus to that window to reply, this
could work. But Grex's operating system environment doesn't support
that.
|
remmers
|
|
response 57 of 94:
|
Jun 29 18:04 UTC 1996 |
(#54 *and* #55 slipped in...)
|
scg
|
|
response 58 of 94:
|
Jun 29 18:37 UTC 1996 |
Oh, I had missed the part about the user on the receiving end having to
respond to something in kerouac's most recent suggestion. As other people
have said, that wouldn't be possible.
|
scg
|
|
response 59 of 94:
|
Jun 29 18:40 UTC 1996 |
Ok, I now see that I really hadn't read #50 very carefully. I was thinking
along the lines of something that would automatically prompt the person trying
to send the tel or write to send e-mail if they didn't have permission to do
the tel or write. I see now that that's something completely different from
what kerouac was talking about, although somewhat along the same idea. Again,
I don't see the point in either method, though.
|
ajax
|
|
response 60 of 94:
|
Jun 29 20:35 UTC 1996 |
This is such a bad idea, I hesitate to discuss it further. But while it
would be practically impossible (a bit short of completely impossible -
this is software, after all) to do kerouac's prompt thing, a tentative
message could say "You have an incoming tel message from <..>. Type
'!whatever -r' to read it now, '!whatever -s' to save it, etc." It's just
so completely *pointless* though. The current system lets you log tels to
a file if you don't want them interrupting you, and the proposed yes/no
system allows you to choose from whom you will and won't accept the tels.
These abilities enable a user to make these decisions beforehand, without
having to be interrupted for every message while doing other things.
|
srw
|
|
response 61 of 94:
|
Jun 29 20:53 UTC 1996 |
The board discussed this at the board meeting, and voted a resolution not to
object to yes/no files. The details are in the minutes, which I am about to
post in its own item.
|
nephi
|
|
response 62 of 94:
|
Jun 29 21:47 UTC 1996 |
I *do* like the idea of having a file be displayed when a person writes me,
if I have my messages on or if I have my messages off. If I had the ability
to edit a .mesgn file (something that should probably be limited to a screen
length 8^), this is what it would probably say today (as I have my messages
off):
I'm at work right now, and between the phone calls, I figured
that I would try to catch up on the conferences because I am
*way* behind. Since I can get phone calls at almost any instant,
since I am *really* lousy at typing and talking at the same time,
and since I'm really not in a social mood today anyway, I have my
messages off. I do have my email window open, though, if you have
something you need to tell me or ask me. I'll probably be on later
tonight (around 10?) if you would like to chat.
--- hit return to continue ---
Wow. I'd *really* like that message be displayed to people trying to write
me right now. If I could have a .mesgy file, this is probably what it would
say (for when my messages are on):
Hi there friends and strangers! If you don't know me, I sure
hope that you have read my .plan (!more /u/nephi/.plan) because
if you have nothing to say I'll get bored and gouge my eyeballs
out. (And *then* what kind of conversation would we have?)
Well, if you've not been scared of by *that*, please make sure
end each of your responses with an "o" on a separate line so I
know when to start talking. Otherwise our conversation could
end up being very one-sided . . .
--- hit return to continue or q to quit ---
I'm sure that what I would put in there would be much more creative than that,
but I think you get the idea. 8^)
|
scott
|
|
response 63 of 94:
|
Jun 29 22:40 UTC 1996 |
Hm... I can imagine .mesgfile spamming as a new art form... ;)
|
jenna
|
|
response 64 of 94:
|
Jun 30 08:43 UTC 1996 |
oh gods... Ok. I'm doing my conference. and 3 people bug me tonight.
yuiichi, josepaul, praveen. oops that's yuuichi. he's done it before
i asked him to stop and praveen. they didn't. josepaul's was a tel.
(a somewhat rude and incoherent tel). only got one.
Perosonally... thse days I don't even want to log on to grex anymore.
I don't want a message every time someone chats me or talks me or
tels me when i'm conferencing. I want the people who I care about/
need to talk to to be able to talk to me when i'm doing that because
it
's not more important than my friends...
i just don't l;ike being bothered with spams of talks...
oh boy. ;} and quite frankly I don't want it diverted to
e-mail if it's a tel asking me for cybersex. I wana club the bastard
right here and now.
and then i want some peace so I can do my conferenceing.
|
adbarr
|
|
response 65 of 94:
|
Jun 30 17:36 UTC 1996 |
A great example of the consequences of policy.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 66 of 94:
|
Jun 30 19:56 UTC 1996 |
jenna, if you set all your messages off (mesg n) you will not be
bothered by anyone. Tell your friends to send you e-mail. You will
get a note (at the end of reading an item, for example) telling you you
have new mail. Suspend Picospan and go read your mail. If you want to,
and they have mesg y, you can tel or ntalk them. Probably, if you
did this for a month, you could go back to leaving mesg y, and the
same people would not bother you anymore.
|
arthurp
|
|
response 67 of 94:
|
Jun 30 21:49 UTC 1996 |
Plus, if you tel someone, there is a short time in which they can respond to
you even if you have your messages turned off.
|
ajax
|
|
response 68 of 94:
|
Jun 30 23:37 UTC 1996 |
What's the command to inform you immediately when new mail arrives?
That's a handy program that might serve Jenna well until the yes/no
addition is in place.
|
nephi
|
|
response 69 of 94:
|
Jun 30 23:48 UTC 1996 |
(biff?)
|
robh
|
|
response 70 of 94:
|
Jul 1 01:07 UTC 1996 |
Grex doesn't do biff, try "newmail".
|
janc
|
|
response 71 of 94:
|
Jul 1 13:41 UTC 1996 |
I don't object to most of the ideas suggested here, and I would probably work
on some of them if I didn't feel BackTalk was a higher priority. I'm pleased
to hear John is interested in working on it, and would certainly like to make
such modifications part of my standard distribution.
One technical note for whomever does the .yeswrite/.nowrite things. Lots of
programs other than "mesg" turn write permissions on and off. I think sz does
this, for example. They do so by manipulating the group permission bits on
the tty device, just as "mesg" does. The point here is that when "sz" turns
off my write permissions, *nobody* should be able to write me, not even people
in my .yeswrite file. Probably that means "mesg n" should have the same
effect. This needs to be handled right in the design.
Another issue is efficiency. You don't really want to have to check a user's
directory for a .yeswrite and a .nowrite file each time he is written. I
don't think write currently does a passwd file lookup on the writee, and you
need one to find his home directory, and those are expensive. Probably some
flag should be added to the wrttmp file indicating if he has .yeswrite or
.nowrite (or "all" or "none") turned on, and you would only check for the file
if that flag is set.
The last issue is syntax on the "mesg" command. "Mesg" already has so many
flags and settings that it is seriously confusing. You need to find a sane
way to add switches to turn on yeswrite and nowrite.
(Note: I'm not married to any of these ideas. But they need to be thought
about.)
|
robh
|
|
response 72 of 94:
|
Jul 1 18:28 UTC 1996 |
sz does *not* turn off write permissions, annoyingly enough.
I had many help-seekers write to me during file transfer before
I found this out.
|
janc
|
|
response 73 of 94:
|
Jul 1 19:18 UTC 1996 |
Well, OK, but it should and various file transfer programs do. And
"amin -n sz" does turn off permissions, and that should work right with
.yeswrite files too.
|
jenna
|
|
response 74 of 94:
|
Jul 2 00:02 UTC 1996 |
(hah ha h hahif i turn my messages off
i and tel my friends to mail me, usually i get the mail
at least an hour later! you are kiding yourselves uif you
think t comes that fast. besdies, because grex is and historaclly has
been slow and ocasionally impossible to get on, i have my mail
set to forward somewhere else. (it's oly practical)
i'm not undoing that every time i log in just because some idiots want to bug
me.
otherwise, if you're actually installing this, i'll take my
displeasure out of the people doingit to me by swearing at them in all caps
thank you ;} (doing that does get boring after a spell)
|