response 76 of 121:

Dec 1 07:10 UTC 1996

Perhaps we could auction off the naming rights as a fundraiser?  :-)
 
The reason I like "mail" is that it's very easy to remember or guess.
Having used about a half dozen different ISPs over the last year, I
appreciate it when news servers are named "news," and mail servers are
named "mail."  (Prepended to the ISP's domain name, of course, like
mail.ic.net).  While Grex isn't an ISP, there are still times when
people will want to type in the mail server name, and I think "mail"
is the easiest name to remember or guess.
 
For machines like our router or terminal server, where people outside
staff rarely type the names, I have no strong naming preferences.

response 78 of 121:

Dec 2 11:48 UTC 1996

Re #75: Hey, I think all users should have equal naming rights.
A request by someone named Valerie to name it The Valerie should
receive the same weight as someone named Richard to call it The
Dick.

response 80 of 121:

Dec 2 13:16 UTC 1996

Not that I know of.

response 82 of 121:

Dec 2 23:04 UTC 1996

What about 'Grail'?  For those who want a cool name, for those who want  to
include the word 'mail', and for those who want some reference to the word
'grex'...

response 84 of 121:

Dec 3 05:30 UTC 1996

I like calling it The John.  It's going to be so slow, people will 
spend lots of time in it, reading.

response 86 of 121:

Dec 4 00:17 UTC 1996

Well, the naming issues are really pretty moot unless we decide that we
actually want to do something like this.

The negatives I see right now are:
  - Some inconvenience to people who use both mail and bbs, since it is
    may be harder to switch between reading mail and reading bbs or party.
    Some of this may be mitigated with improving software.
  - A considerable increase in the complexity of the system (two computers,
    two routers, etc.) which will make system administration more difficult.
  - Less than full utilization of our link bandwidth.  We are keeping the
    conferencing side fast by not letting mail saturate the link.  In
    otherwords, we are deliberately keeping some bandwidth idle most of the
    time.
  - Reduction of the likelihood that mail users will stumble into the
    conferences.  This may be mitigated by suitable design.

response 88 of 121:

Dec 4 09:48 UTC 1996

(Re the Edna books: Actually, we do know how they got into the Dungeon.  The
person who took them out of the library says that he's going to return them
eventually.  He also says that the library's computers are sufficiently
confused that the library does not realize that these books are missing.)

response 90 of 121:

Dec 9 02:07 UTC 1996

Although making the conferences more worthwhile might net us a few more
members...<says the chronic non-member>

response 92 of 121:

Dec 9 08:17 UTC 1996

TS, I am trying to figure out how you can promise that.  The whole board
would have to approve of accepting credit cards; it's not a decision that any
one board member could make for Grex single handedly.  Also, there are issues
about it that would need to be worked out here in the co-op conference.
For example, if Visa charges 2% (a number I made up) of the cost of each
transaction, would people have to pay 2% extra to buy a membership with a
credit card?  Or would Grex absorb the loss?  I'm not sure which of those
options would be right for Grex, or maybe something else, but I'd think
it would have to be discussed here in co-op, first, where all Grex users
can have input into the decision.

Also, what does accepting credit cards have to do with partitioning Grex?

response 94 of 121:

Dec 9 21:05 UTC 1996

With our margins, that quickly becomes untenable.

response 96 of 121:

Dec 9 22:14 UTC 1996

Read resp:93 and concentrate on the first sentence very carefully.
Now lets talk about partitioning Grex.

response 98 of 121:

Dec 10 00:38 UTC 1996

Not if they take visa and mastercard.  Amoco was the last holdout, and now
even they have the same price for cash and credit.