avolio@decuac.UUCP (04/26/86)
In an article someone wrote: > ANYONE WHO RESPONDED TO THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE ON 4/24 or 4/23 > PLEASE RESPOND AGAIN AS THE MAIL WAS LOST. THANK YOU. >> Child care need by experienced homemaker for three children >> (one in school full time) in the Eatontown area. Please >> call xxx-yyyy at Holmdel, New Jersey, or electronically mail >> to ... I CANNOT BELIEVE IT! Not once, but twice!!! How many people from Sweden do you suppose will respond? Okay, how about Australia? Too far? You're expecting people from Ontario or Georgia or Washington or Nevada to reply? Why send it to the whole bloody world then? Why is it always from the same state? Why from the same company? Okay, really I know why. News software is given out too quickly and news connections are made in an assembly-line fashion. You want it? Sure. You want it? Sure You want it? Sure. And so on. So the news administrators (if there are even such people... I suspect not) just say -- there it is and never educate anyone in the use of the software as they themselves were never educated. So, having no idea that `net.' newsgroups, in general, go to 22 or so countries on 4 different continents, they post requests for local things 1) to the wrong newsgroups and 2) worldwide. When I send news software to a site that wants a USENET connection, I do not start up the news connection before asking that the contact on the other end read the documents that come with the software. At leats then there's a chance of some education getting done and, hopefully, the importance of "knowing what you're doing" will sink in. -- Fred @ DEC Ultrix Applications Center INET: avolio@decuac.DEC.COM UUCP: {decvax,seismo,cbosgd}!decuac!avolio
ronc@fai (04/29/86)
>I CANNOT BELIEVE IT! Not once, but twice!!! How many people from >Sweden do you suppose will respond? Okay, how about Australia? Too >far? You're expecting people from Ontario or Georgia or Washington >or Nevada to reply? Why send it to the whole bloody world then? Why >is it always from the same state? Why from the same company? *** From what I have seen, the New Jersey AT&T sites blow it in this fashion more often than any other part of the world. I think part of the problem is that there's a misconception on the part of the users over there that Usenet is an AT&T network. I've taken issue with offenders in this area via private mail and have been told a) there are no local groups in NJ, b) because of this, there's nothing wrong with posting lost and found notices in net.general, and c) they don't give a damn about the rest of the world. In a similar vein, it occurs to me that the low traffic in net.general makes it a tempting place to post when you want to be sure to be noticed. Thus, it's a 'dandy' place for garage sale ads and requests for babysitting, and a 'great' extension of net.politics. I don't know what the solution might be. Discussions on nuking net.general have already been beat into the ground, and probably don't belong here in any case. Ron -- -- Ronald O. Christian (Fujitsu America Inc., San Jose, Calif.) seismo!amdahl!fai!ronc -or- ihnp4!pesnta!fai!ronc Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: "If you are seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it."
mkr@mmm.UUCP (MKR) (04/30/86)
In article <905@decuac.UUCP> avolio@decuac.UUCP writes: >In an article someone wrote: >> ANYONE WHO RESPONDED TO THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE ON 4/24 or 4/23 >> PLEASE RESPOND AGAIN AS THE MAIL WAS LOST. THANK YOU. >>> Child care need by experienced homemaker for three children >>> (one in school full time) in the Eatontown area. Please >>> call xxx-yyyy at Holmdel, New Jersey, or electronically mail >>> to ... > >I CANNOT BELIEVE IT! Not once, but twice!!! How many people from >Sweden do you suppose will respond? Okay, how about Australia? Too >far? You're expecting people from Ontario or Georgia or Washington >or Nevada to reply? Why send it to the whole bloody world then? Why >is it always from the same state? Why from the same company? > >Fred @ DEC Ultrix Applications Center >INET: avolio@decuac.DEC.COM UUCP: {decvax,seismo,cbosgd}!decuac!avolio Usually a good point, but not in this case. Sweden provides many au-pair "girls" to fill the jobs like the one mentioned, as do many other countries. Re-location for such a job is not uncommon by any means. --MKR
andy@cbmvax (05/02/86)
In article <150@fai.UUCP> ronc@fai.UUCP (Ronald O. Christian) writes: >>I CANNOT BELIEVE IT! Not once, but twice!!! How many people from >>Sweden do you suppose will respond? Okay, how about Australia? Too >> >>Why is it always from the same state? Why from the same company? > >From what I have seen, the New Jersey AT&T sites blow it in this fashion >more often than any other part of the world. I think part of the problem >is that there's a misconception on the part of the users over there that >Usenet is an AT&T network. I've taken issue with offenders in this area >via private mail and have been told a) there are no local groups in NJ, >b) because of this, there's nothing wrong with posting lost and found >notices in net.general, and c) they don't give a damn about the rest >of the world. > > Ron That's funny...we get nj.general, nj.wanted, and nj.forsale. Perhaps the AT&T people in New Jersey don't want to admit they actually ARE in New Jersey :-) andy finkel Commodore(Amiga) (And no, I don't think there's anything especially wrong with NJ, so no flames, please. And I don't wanna hear about it if YOU think there is :-) ) -- andy finkel {ihnp4|seismo|allegra}!cbmvax!andy or pyramid!amiga!andy "I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors." "Remember, no matter where you grow, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonsai.
mark@cbosgd (05/02/86)
Well, actually, you see so many wrong postings from AT&T in NJ for two reasons I can think of: (1) The level of support of Usenet by AT&T in NJ is lower than in other areas. There are only two backbone sites (clyde and ulysses) in all of AT&T in NJ, and the distribution arrangements for the rest of the machines tend to be pretty ad-hoc. The typical system administrator is pretty busy with other things, and doesn't really have time to participate in the electronic community or Usenet. (Many of them won't even answer mail.) As a result, the users have no formal instruction from the SA, no written documentation, just word of mouth. The typical posting comes from someone who doesn't read news, has something for sale, and heard through the grapevine that they should try to post it to Usenet. (2) AT&T accounts for about 1/3 of all of Usenet, and over half of that is in NJ. So of the erroneous postings you see, a large chunk are from there because a large chunk of the net is there. Of course, any administrative or software fix to the problem won't work, because the SAs of the offending machines won't install the new software. In this case, the only possible fix is to start a new network with a human filter in the loop (in appropriate newsgroups) to prevent such mistakes from making it to the general readership. This is what we're hoping to do with Stargate. Mark Horton
rec@mplvax.UUCP (Richard Currier) (05/02/86)
In article <790@mmm.UUCP> mkr@mmm.UUCP (MKR) writes: > > Usually a good point, but not in this case. Sweden provides >many au-pair "girls" to fill the jobs like the one mentioned, as >do many other countries. Re-location for such a job is not uncommon >by any means. > > --MKR How can I get a pair of those girls for myself??? -- richard currier marine physical lab u.c. san diego {ihnp4|decvax|akgua|dcdwest|ucbvax} !sdcsvax!mplvax!rec
gds@sri-spam.ARPA (Greg Skinner) (05/15/86)
I can attest to the fact that there are local distributions in Holmdel, where I used to work. The fact that they are unused is largely because there are only one or two people running news, and news administration is about the lowest priority on their long list of responsibilities. That combined with the fact that there are over 6,000 potential news posters makes it difficult to inform people what the correct ways to do things are. As far as getting software upgrades, I wouldn't count on it, for many of the same reasons as above. I had suggested that the at&t sites set the distribution to something more local as default (like 'ho', or 'ih'), but got no response. The last time I looked, the distribution arrangements for news were trying to be comp-center based. If you'll check Joe Buck's map, you'll see a path running from ihnp4 -- houxm -- whuxl -- whuxlm -- akgua, and another running from ihnp4 -- mhuxr -- mhuxn -- ulysses. In a former posting, this is what I referred to as the "critical path" through at&t which handles quite a lot of news. If you work at any of these places, and care about having local distributions set up as default, get in touch with the system administrators at your sites. --gregbo