cfv@packet.UUCP (06/28/83)
That's quite a criticism coming from a person who reads net news:
99% of news articles are worthless at best, NOT refereed, any
trivia that's sent in is published; occasional gems, but spending
money (large phone bills) and wading through the dreck isn't worth
it, even on company time ...
I have net.news in here for one reason: I support a Unix system for my
company. Berkeley doesn't support it. Bell doesn't support it. The only
way I can get questions answered and find out about bugs and fixes and all
those other things that a company that relies on a computer HAS to have is
through this network. If I have to put up with ~4Megabytes of cr*p a week
(easily expired) to get the 2 or three messages that make my system work
reliably or answer a question then that is a SMALL price to pay. To be
quite honest I wish I didn't HAVE to rely on this network for my opeating
systems support; to be frank it isn't always right. If Unix was supported
the way VMS was, I wouldn't be here because VMS has the support that my
company requires.
--
>From the dungeons of the Warlock:
Chuck Von Rospach
ucbvax!amd70!packet!cfv
(chuqui@mit-mc) <- obsolete!
msc@qubix.UUCP (07/01/83)
Chuck Rospach: For one who thinks that %99 of the material on usenet is c**p you certainly post plenty of messages. I think you have surpassed Guy Harris as the most prolific author on the net. -- Mark ...{decvax,ucbvax}!decwrl!qubix!msc ...{ittvax,amd70}!qubix!msc decwrl!qubix!msc@Berkeley.ARPA
guy@rlgvax.UUCP (07/02/83)
Actually, if we're doing statistics on articles submitted, I'm 44th and you're 35th (I don't know what the time period was). I suspect there's enough variance in the numbers that one has to be careful in drawing conclusions from them; for example, it's a function of available time and varying interest. I also suspect interest tends to drop once the novelty wears off and you decide what's worth your time and what isn't. I've found the same is true of publications, interestingly enough; I've had less time to read my magazines lately, and I'm not sure how much I'm missing. SIGPLAN is one of the ones I miss less; I find some of the articles not interesting to me because they're of interest mostly to specialists, and others just don't seem useful at all. Guy Harris {seismo,mcnc,we13,brl-bmd,allegra}!rlgvax!guy
tim@unc.UUCP (07/03/83)
Please bump this trash onto net.flame. Sorry for the meta-flame, but this is a pretty extreme violation of etiquette. ______________________________________ The overworked keyboard of Tim Maroney duke!unc!tim (USENET) tim.unc@udel-relay (ARPA) The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
andrew@orca.UUCP (07/04/83)
From Chuck Von Rospach: 99% of the articles they publish are rather worthless at best ... You must remember that SIGPLAN (and most if not all of the SIG publications) is NOT a refereed publication, and it will usually publish anything that is sent in, no matter how trivial the material ... I will agree that there are occasional gems, but spending $22 a year and wading through all of the dreck simply wasn't worth it anymore, even if I can do it on company time and with a company membership... That's quite a criticism coming from a person who reads net news: 99% of news articles are worthless at best, NOT refereed, any trivia that's sent in is published; occasional gems, but spending money (large phone bills) and wading through the dreck isn't worth it, even on company time ... SIG publications are not refereed, but they are edited. I have seen at least one rejected manuscript (from SIGOPS) .. the author's offense was to take twenty pages to make a not very worthwhile point where two pages would have sufficed. -- Andrew Klossner (decvax!teklabs!tekecs!andrew) [UUCP] (andrew.tektronix@rand-relay) [ARPA]