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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 239 responses total. |
srw
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response 75 of 239:
| 
Jan 14 07:29 UTC 1996 |
Remmers fairly accurately portrayed my history here. It's clear to me that
keeping open email isn't a bad idea. I think usenet would also be valuable.
What we need is a more efficient way to get users to discover and appreciate
conferencing. I'm not at all sure we do a very good job of that.
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carson
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response 76 of 239:
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Jan 14 11:34 UTC 1996 |
re membership distribution:
I think that's the point I was trying to make: our generally
accepted population centers _aren't_ becoming members, at least not
yet. I don't know whether that has to do with age or limited resources
or general ignorance of how Grex is able to operate. I do feel that it's
worth attempting to develop those user bases as members, perhaps using
some of the suggestions I proffered.
side note: does anyone remember how successful the fund drive for pledges
for the new hard disk way back when was, or why?
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danr
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response 77 of 239:
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Jan 14 19:17 UTC 1996 |
The disk drive and telephone line fundraisers were all very successful.
If that's what you meant, carson, then we're in total agreement. We don't
do enough to encourage people to become members. I don't really think
restricting services is the way to do that, at least not for local users.
I'm not so sure that isn't the right approach for remote users,
though.
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kaplan
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response 78 of 239:
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Jan 14 20:33 UTC 1996 |
Would it be a large technical problem to restrict off-site mail to
non-local non-members? Er, in case that's not clear, let's try it
this way. Would it be a large techincal problem to permit off-site
mail only to dialin users and members?
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kerouac
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response 79 of 239:
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Jan 14 22:27 UTC 1996 |
What could be done is limit BOTH off-site email, and dialups to members.
Surely it could be set up so that the dialups only accept member logins.
I know that too many nonlocal users are taking advantage of Grex to get
extra e-mail accounts. You see people with 5 or 6 mailboxes for no other
reason than to subscribe to mailing lists that they dont want cluttering
their primary mailboxes. So make that a member perk and say they should pay
for that. That will cause an upsurge in memberships, as would restricting
dialup capability. Telephone lines are expensive and even most local users
in A2 have the means to telnet in, so why not consider direct dial the
luxury that it is these days and make it a membership perk.
On the other hand, I regard usenet as a natural companion to the
picospan conferencing and that ought to be a basic grex service open to
everyone.
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robh
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response 80 of 239:
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Jan 15 00:55 UTC 1996 |
Restricting dial-up access to members will KILL any chance of us
getting new potential members onto the system. That's ludicrous.
As I thought danr showed quite clearly, the people who pay are
almost all local. How will they ever find out about us if we
won't let them dial in? Especially since the folks without
Internet access elsewhere are so much more likely to become
members?
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popcorn
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response 81 of 239:
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Jan 15 02:48 UTC 1996 |
I don't have any access to telnet from elsewhere.
Neither do a lot of other local users.
Re e-mail: I ended up in the on-line community when I got an account on
Kitenet (a now defunct Unix/picospan/etc type of system in Ann Arbor) to do
e-mail from. I discovered the conferences on Kitenet. Then Kitenet merged
with M-Net, and then Grex split off and I ended up here. E-mail is a definite
draw for new people.
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janc
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response 82 of 239:
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Jan 15 08:39 UTC 1996 |
I think you should listen very closely to John. The "big welcome mat" has
worked very well for Grex. It may need refining, but not not discarding.
As for making it easier to discover conferencing, I think a "solution" may
be in the pipes. Steve and I are working on a Web interface to bbs right
now. We'll probably have good beta-test version within a week or two.
When this is up, just about the only part of Grex that will be Web-accessible
will be the conferences. BBS will go from being rather obscure and hard to
use to being one of the most accessible features of the system. We may
well have users in a few months who are unaware that Grex can be used for
anything except conferencing. This will probably have bad sides to it as
well as good sides. I'm not all that confident that people will be more
inclined to donate money. I'll bet that at least some people will be pining
for the good old days.
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robh
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response 83 of 239:
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Jan 15 11:47 UTC 1996 |
<robh notes that the Steve janc is referring to is srw, in case
there was any confusion>
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kerouac
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response 84 of 239:
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Jan 16 00:34 UTC 1996 |
#82.....now thats a good idea, but the web interface will make the confs
read only from the web right? The conferences are the best advertisement
for Grex and if people read the confs and want to participate, they will
telnet over and get logins. I dont see a downside.
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mta
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response 85 of 239:
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Jan 16 00:49 UTC 1996 |
I would also point out that one of the points the founders considered in
designing how GREX would work was that the net is seen as the province of th
"haves". We wanted one of GREX's many roles to be that of allowing thr
"have-nots" reasonably inexpensive access to the net. To me that is still
one of the very important points.
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danr
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response 86 of 239:
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Jan 16 00:59 UTC 1996 |
re#85: This is another reason to give some kind of preference to locals using
the dialins. By definition, those telnetting in already have net access.
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davel
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response 87 of 239:
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Jan 16 02:27 UTC 1996 |
Re 84: kerouac, those doing the work may jump in & say I'm all wet, but I
*think* that their idea is that a web interface to conferences would be
fully functional. I think a read-only browser would be at most a milestone;
though quite possibly of interest to some people who prefer not to say too
much anyway. (I think that a **really** read-only model, which couldn't
even update your participation files to say what you've read, was
demo/testing mode at some point. I may be wrong about that, too; I'm
fairly sure it wasn't considered ready for release.)
|
kerouac
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response 88 of 239:
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Jan 16 04:16 UTC 1996 |
#87...if the web interface to conferencing is to be fully functional,
is it the intent to put the newuser prog on the web page so it can
be accessed without actually telnetting in to grex? The only reason
I assumed the web interface would be read only is because it would be
slightly difficult for someone who access the web page to participate in
the confs without a login, BUT they could read the confs without one.
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janc
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response 89 of 239:
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Jan 16 04:28 UTC 1996 |
A web-interface to newuser already exists. It'll come up as soon as we are
on the sun 4 (probably).
The web-interface to picospan will be fully functional, supporting reading,
posting, cflists, fairwitness commands, find commands, and most anything
else you can think of. It'll be a bit different in look & feel to picospan,
but pretty much equivalent in power. It is designed to be completely
compatible with picospan.
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srw
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response 90 of 239:
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Jan 16 08:22 UTC 1996 |
It won't have *all* of those features when it is first ready for beta testing,
but it will have them all in time, and progress is quite tangible.
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carson
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response 91 of 239:
|
Jan 16 13:42 UTC 1996 |
That's incredible. I'm really looking forward to it.
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ajax
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response 92 of 239:
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Jan 16 17:13 UTC 1996 |
Yep, same here! Does this mean CGI scripts will be enabled on the Sun 4?
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janc
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response 93 of 239:
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Jan 17 00:48 UTC 1996 |
Not for users. But staff will be able to install them. I doubt if we are
likely to allow users to put up CGI scripts any time soon.
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sidhe
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response 94 of 239:
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Jan 17 01:30 UTC 1996 |
Interesting. I don't think I've seen but one or two responses from the Indians.
What are they doing, then, with the time they spend on here?
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scott
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response 95 of 239:
|
Jan 17 02:22 UTC 1996 |
Mostly in party, and a lot of write/chat.
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robh
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response 96 of 239:
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Jan 17 11:52 UTC 1996 |
A *lot* of write/chat. I generally can't sign on in the morning
before work without having at least one Indian user writing to me.
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rcurl
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response 97 of 239:
|
Jan 17 16:11 UTC 1996 |
It has gotten to the point that if I have any time constraint at all I
turn off my helper flag. There are usually so few helpers on, that if you
"announce" you are available, you are deluged (well, a little exaggerated,
but I have had a steady stream of consecutive requests, to the point I
didn't get to do what I intended).
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scott
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response 98 of 239:
|
Jan 17 17:05 UTC 1996 |
Even without a helper flag, I get requests every 2-3 days or so.
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scg
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response 99 of 239:
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Jan 18 05:48 UTC 1996 |
Yeah, I get enough requests without it, too, although if I do have a lot of
free time I should be better about turning mine on.
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