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.ARPAguy@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!guytim@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]