mechjgh@tness7.UUCP (Greg Hackney ) (08/05/88)
Do you administer Netnews for a large corporation ? If so, my boss would like for me to ask your comments on a couple of things... We are starting to feed news to a lot of public sites, as well as sites within the company. Several folks are asking the question, what if a VP reads the news and runs across articles in the explicit newsgroups, i.e. alt.sex, alt.drugs, talk.*, etc. From a pure business standpoint, this might be construed as a waste of computing resources and employee time. Do you as a large company carry the alt groups and others? Do you feel that it is a bad reflection on the image of your company for allowing the groups to pass to public and business sites? Do you have any advice on how to justify the existence of netnews on your machines, the existence of public gateway machines, the existence of administrative positions for news administrators, etc. And finally, if you do administer news for a big company, could you email me a message so I can say, "Look, so-and-so company is an advocate of netnews, we should be too". Thanks in advance. -- Greg Hackney Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. Dallas, Texas postmaster@tness7.UUCP
bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) (08/05/88)
Before I start, I should point out that Greg runs my news feed. I did not know he was posting the article, nor does he know I am going to follow up. I was going to follow up anyway, I was just jarred for a moment when I saw the signature. In article <7047@tness7.UUCP> mechjgh@tness7.UUCP (Greg Hackney ) writes: > >Do you administer Netnews for a large corporation ? No, but the reputation of my microscopic organization is proportionately as or more important than that of a "large corporation". One irrate can ruin a "large corporation" day, but it can ruin my whole livlihood. >If so, my boss would like for me to ask your comments >on a couple of things... > >We are starting to feed news to a lot of public sites, as >well as sites within the company. Several folks are asking the >question, what if a VP reads the news and runs across articles >in the explicit newsgroups, i.e. alt.sex, alt.drugs, talk.*, etc. That's easier than it sounds. I don't, as one of the public sites you are starting to feed, feel that you have any obligation to carry anything you consider offensive. If your downstream neighbors don't agree with your opinion of what's offensive, let them apply elsewhere. I didn't mean refuse to carry something you're not interested in, ssbn carries groups that I don't read, but it doesn't carry anything that I consider offensive. It's my system, I pay the bills, if I think it's offensive, within the boundaries of my control, it's gone. I can't conceive that this policy violates anyones' rights, it's *all* voluntary, readers that want to read something I consider offensive (even if it's not) can hook up elsewhere. >From a pure business standpoint, this might be construed as a >waste of computing resources and employee time. Do you as >a large company carry the alt groups and others? Once again, not a large company, I won't waste a machine cycle on something that someone at or connected to ssbn will not use. I wouldn't consider it industrial espionage to feed alt.sex, etc. but I would not permit my resources to be spent doing it. >Do you feel that it is a bad reflection on the image >of your company for allowing the groups to pass to public >and business sites? No, and I don't think that your firm should be bashful either. It's completely voluntary. If my site (since yours feeds us) thirsted for rec.nerd.chip.discussion and you opted not to propagate it we would just go somewhere else to get it. >Do you have any advice on how to justify the existence of netnews >on your machines, the existence of public gateway machines, the >existence of administrative positions for news administrators, etc. Gosh, that's a tough one! There is certainly recreational value to netnews. Whether or not it provides intrinsic value to the business depends on the business. I look at Amdahl, Digital, and other Goliath's and it must make some sense. I look at my "teapot" business and I can *assure* you that it makes sense for this firm. I can assure you that ssbn will never become a public access site because that serves no business purpose here and, despite the appearance, this is a business. Do news administrators deserve separate status? Gee, I don't know. As usual I must hide behind the "teapot". Some sites have news adminitrators separated out. Tolerant Systems, Inc. does and the news.admin is Jane Medefessor ('scuse if I speld rong). That's not her only job, but it's in her job description. AT&T decided that Doug Price, Tim Thompson, and Jonathan Clark (going West to East :-) should be assigned full time. I think that Mel Pleasant runs news, mail, and uucp at rutgers. That's not a commercial venture but it's an important one. >And finally, if you do administer news for a big company, could >you email me a message so I can say, "Look, so-and-so company >is an advocate of netnews, we should be too". Isn't there a backbone address? I'm not scolding Greg, but I am looking for an easier way to get him some input. > >Thanks in advance. >-- >Greg Hackney >Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. >Dallas, Texas >postmaster@tness7.UUCP -- Bill Kennedy usenet {killer,att,rutgers,sun!daver,uunet!bigtex}!ssbn!bill internet bill@ssbn.WLK.COM
roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (08/05/88)
mechjgh@tness7.UUCP (Greg Hackney ) writes: > Do you have any advice on how to justify the existence of netnews > on your machines, the existence of public gateway machines, the > existence of administrative positions for news administrators, etc. We're a pretty small site who probably feed more than our fair share of other sites (about 5 or 6 at any particular time). Periodically I get people complaining about how slow the machine is when news comes in but in general people don't complain much because: 1) I'm constantly getting software off the net. Oddly enough, even though I'm a dedicated Unix hacker, I find that at least half the software I snarf is Mac stuff. It works wonders for "publicity"; I see something interesting, grab it, spend maybe 15 minutes assembling the files and unbinhexing them and then I go present a floppy to somebody as a present. The conversation goes something like this: Me: "Hey, remember you asked me N months ago about emacs for the Mac? Well, here it is; it doesn't come with any documentation, but it's free". Them: "Wow, that's nice, where did you get it?" Me: "Oh, I'm not sure who wrote it, but I saw it go by on the net." Do this enough times to enough people and you build up a groundswell of support. 2) We've been able to use the net to our advantage. We've found employees through the net. We "advertize" our various (free) seminars which are open to the public on the net. We use the net to communicate with other scientists (while most of that is mail, many people don't fully realize that mail and news are distinct and while I'll gladly explain the difference to people if they ask, I don't go out of my way to disabuse people of their misconception without prompting). -- Roy Smith, System Administrator Public Health Research Institute {allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers}!phri!roy -or- phri!roy@uunet.uu.net "The connector is the network"
reid@decwrl.dec.com (Brian Reid) (08/06/88)
In article <7047@tness7.UUCP> mechjgh@tness7.UUCP (Greg Hackney ) writes: > >Do you administer Netnews for a large corporation ? Yes. Digital. Paul Vixie also administers netnews here, but when push comes to shove, I'm the one who takes responsibility for the wrath of vice presidents. We pass almost all newsgroups. I think there are 3 that we don't pass, and those 3 were stopped by me and not by some upper-management type. Digital thinks that netnews is important. Rather than have the high-ranking administrators in the company make decisions about the details of how it is administered, Digital just puts a reasonably senior person in charge of it, and then holds him responsible in case of problems. Same way Digital handles almost everything else. We see no difference between frivolous newsgroups and frivolous newspapers or magazines. Our lunchrooms have copies of Business Week, but they also have copies of Metro (a local left-wing newspaper), Redbook, and the National Enquirer. Our computers have copies of comp.sources.unix, but they also have copies of talk.politics.mideast, soc.women, and alt.flame. We believe that how an employee spends his time is a matter between that employee and his supervisor, and that if the employee and the supervisor both believe that reading netnews is an acceptable thing to do, then it's available to them. Very few supervisors demand that their employees never go read magazines in the lunchroom; we expect that very few also demand that the same employees never go read random newsgroups. We do not believe that there is any reflection on the image of Digital for the newsgroups that we choose to pass or not pass to our news neighbors. USENET is a cooperative venture, and we are just doing our share. Just because we choose to pass misc.origins or alt.flame doesn't mean that we endorse anything contained in them. In fact, we believe that our willingness to pass virtually every newsgroup helps our image far more than the sophomoric content of some of those newsgroups might hurt our image. Brian Reid Consulting Engineer DEC Western Research Palo Alto, California
aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri) (08/07/88)
In article <7047@tness7.UUCP> mechjgh@tness7.UUCP (Greg Hackney ) writes: >Do you administer Netnews for a large corporation ? Well, a little one (50 people) >question, what if a VP reads the news and runs across articles I have to think that VP's would rarely have time to read news at all -- too busy golfing, chasing secretaries -- that sort of thing:-) Of course, if yours do, you can just make sure that rn (or whatever) never asks them if they want to read alt.sodomy or rec.whips-and-chains. >in the explicit newsgroups, i.e. alt.sex, alt.drugs, talk.*, etc. >From a pure business standpoint, this might be construed as a >waste of computing resources and employee time. Do you as >a large company carry the alt groups and others? Often you don't even get a choice of whether or not to carry the alt groups -- your feeds don't get them. Once you've got a feed going, the incremental cost of adding a few groups shouldn't be significant. >Do you feel that it is a bad reflection on the image >of your company for allowing the groups to pass to public >and business sites? I don't think many people think about news being connected to companies -- the article came from foo@freezlebloorp, not The Guy From Big Bad Company. Of course, there must be a reason for all the disclaimers around. I guess you do have to be careful not to be perceived as giving company policy, unless you really are, and are "authorized" to do so. I've had one person (in France, no less) who saw the name of my company in a news header and sent me mail asking about our products. For a computer-related company, at least, I sort of feel that a news presence can be important for the company's image. People from Sun, for example, sometimes respond to questions about Suns, and you can't help but get an impression that the company is contemporary, agressive, ... >Do you have any advice on how to justify the existence of netnews >on your machines, the existence of public gateway machines, the >existence of administrative positions for news administrators, etc. A news system, once running really doesn't seem to require all that much administration. I just keep an eye on the re-used nd partition where our news is spooled (grrrrr) to make sure it doesn't fill up like the rest of our re-used nd partitions. I find news valuable in my work as a system administrator. Most recently I was trying to get a couple of imagewriters to work on sun's, and within a day or two of posting, I got three responses that let me get them working within 5 minutes. Having news expands your information base by orders of magnitude. If you have to explain the effort to a suit, merely speaking of the reduction of duplication of effort could be enough to convince him (her). >And finally, if you do administer news for a big company, could >you email me a message so I can say, "Look, so-and-so company >is an advocate of netnews, we should be too". Well, until recently you could point to AT&T for that... >Greg Hackney >Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. >Dallas, Texas >postmaster@tness7.UUCP Bell, eh? Ironic, but I never claimed to understand the structure of "The Phone Company" -- @disclaimer(Any concepts or opinions above are entirely mine, not those of my employer, my GIGI, or my 11/34) beak is beak is not Anthony A. Datri,SysAdmin,StepstoneCorporation,stpstn!aad
aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri) (08/07/88)
In article <3422@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: > 2) We've been able to use the net to our advantage. We've found >employees through the net. Oddly enough, Stepstone found me because they posted on comp.jobs.offered. -- @disclaimer(Any concepts or opinions above are entirely mine, not those of my employer, my GIGI, or my 11/34) beak is beak is not Anthony A. Datri,SysAdmin,StepstoneCorporation,stpstn!aad
det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) (08/07/88)
In article <7047@tness7.UUCP>, mechjgh@tness7.UUCP (Greg Hackney ) writes: > We are starting to feed news to a lot of public sites, as > well as sites within the company. Several folks are asking the > question, what if a VP reads the news and runs across articles > in the explicit newsgroups, i.e. alt.sex, alt.drugs, talk.*, etc. Hmmm, i *have* thought about that. There is not very much support for anything related to unix here, therefore most of the employees and especially the management do not have an idea that such a thing as Usenet exists, much less read it. We also do not carry those groups which i consider offensive. This is more due to lack of disk space than anything else. I figure that "others" who may read and be offended by these groups are *not* going to attribute them to my company. > From a pure business standpoint, this might be construed as a > waste of computing resources and employee time. Do you as > a large company carry the alt groups and others? I carry the alt.sources group -- mostly, like i said, because of a lack of disk space more than any other reason, so far. > Do you feel that it is a bad reflection on the image > of your company for allowing the groups to pass to public > and business sites? No. we are providing a service which some sites are grateful for. > Do you have any advice on how to justify the existence of netnews > on your machines, the existence of public gateway machines, the > existence of administrative positions for news administrators, etc. I have used at least this reason to justify Usenet: "i personally have gotten useful information from usenet". Even one or two instances of this is enough to me to justify it. -- Derek Terveer det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG w(612)681-6986 h(612)688-0667
cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (08/10/88)
> > Do you have any advice on how to justify the existence of netnews > > on your machines, the existence of public gateway machines, the > > existence of administrative positions for news administrators, etc. > > I have used at least this reason to justify Usenet: "i personally have gotten > useful information from usenet". Even one or two instances of this is enough > to me to justify it. > -- > Derek Terveer det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG Misc.jobs.wanted is the most powerful reason of all (to beancounters) to be on USENET. We paid for at least a year's worth of phone time when we put an ad up for system administrator and within a week, we were besieged with qualified applicants -- one of whom lived within three miles of here. No headhunter fee, no relocation expenses -- a solid win, all the way around. Clayton E. Cramer
sullivan@vsi.UUCP (Michael T Sullivan) (08/11/88)
Along with the original poster's questions, I'd like to add one more:
When are users supposed to be able to read news and when is it forbidden
in your company? Are you allowed read comp groups during working hours
and can only read rec groups after hours? Stuff like that.
--
Michael Sullivan {uunet|attmail}!vsi!sullivan
sullivan@vsi.com
V-Systems, Inc. Santa Ana, CA I'm too young to have been married 1 year!brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (08/11/88)
In article <338@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes: >Misc.jobs.wanted is the most powerful reason of all (to beancounters) >to be on USENET. But I would think it would bother many firms that this is one of the most widely read groups. Aside from those taken from schools, each applicant hired from the net is hired away from another net company. No "net" gain. How many are taken from schools? Fortunately misc.jobs.resumes isn't much of a bother. Have more than a couple of people ever been hired because of that? Who wants an employee that would send a resume out to thousands of companies, in hope of any job? -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
vch@attibr.UUCP (Vincent C. Hatem) (08/12/88)
In article <338@optilink.UUCP>, cramer@optilink.UUCP writes: > > Do you have any advice on how to justify the existence of netnews > > on your machines, the existence of public gateway machines, the > > existence of administrative positions for news administrators, etc. > > I have used at least this reason to justify Usenet: "i personally have gotten > useful information from usenet". Even one or two instances of this is enough > to me to justify it. > -- > Derek Terveer det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG I took a job in Zuerich, Switzerland that I found over the net. I always wanted to live in Europe. :-) Unfortunately, my management over there left a lot to be desired. :-( Here I sit in NJ... Vince
haugj@pigs.UUCP (Joe Bob Willie) (08/14/88)
In article <1925@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >Fortunately misc.jobs.resumes isn't much of a bother. Have more than a >couple of people ever been hired because of that? Who wants an employee that >would send a resume out to thousands of companies, in hope of any job? >-- >Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473 i would hope that misc.jobs.resumes had a better reputation with the net at large. i think it would be a good thing if we could let each other know when we are looking for a job so maybe we could help each other out. if the time comes when i am ready to move on, i will most certainly post my resume if i don't already have a new position lined up. not out of desparately trying to find a job from one of the thousands of companies out there, but hoping to get a job with a company which has employees i already know. -- jfh@rpp386.uucp (The Beach Bum at The Big "D" Home for Wayward Hackers) "Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity" -- Hanlon's Razor
marv@grebyn.COM (Marvin Raab) (08/14/88)
>In article <1925@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >>Who wants an employee that >>would send a resume out to thousands of companies, in hope of any job? I see nothing wrong with someone just out of college trying to get a job anywhere he/she is able to... -marvin -- Marvin Raab Arlington, VA 22202 (703) 521-5449 ...uunet!vsedev!grebyn!marv +--------------------------------+ ...mimsy!umd5!grebyn!marv | Formerly: marv@vsedev.VSE.COM | ...marv%grebyn.COM@umd5.UMD.EDU | MFRQC@CUNYVM.BITNET |
cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (08/16/88)
In article <1925@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: > In article <338@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes: > >Misc.jobs.wanted is the most powerful reason of all (to beancounters) > >to be on USENET. > > But I would think it would bother many firms that this is one of the > most widely read groups. Aside from those taken from schools, each applicant > hired from the net is hired away from another net company. No "net" gain. > How many are taken from schools? Not necessarily. A friend of mine was just hired through the net, but he was currently unemployed. Also, someone who is unhappy with his current employer is probably not that much of an asset to his current employer. Consider also that if A hires X from B without a headhunter through USENET, it's a heck of a lot cheaper than A hiring X from B with a headhunter. The "net" efficiency of USENET hiring may therefore be higher than NOT having USENET. > Fortunately misc.jobs.resumes isn't much of a bother. Have more than a > couple of people ever been hired because of that? Who wants an employee that > would send a resume out to thousands of companies, in hope of any job? > -- > Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473 A deaf friend of mine was just hired that way. We hired our SA by posting the opening in misc.jobs.offered. At Kontron, I posted a request for someone to work on Kontron's QPDM based graphics card, and I got a consultant who had just finished writing software for the QPDM chip at AMD. I suspect a lot of hiring is going on. It would be interesting to keep statistics on it. Clayton E. Cramer
mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse) (08/24/88)
In article <279@execu.UUCP>, dewey@execu.UUCP (Dewey Henize) writes: > In article <785@vsi.UUCP> sullivan@vsi.UUCP (Michael T Sullivan) writes: >> When are users supposed to be able to read news and when is it >> forbidden in your company? Are you allowed read comp groups during >> working hours and can only read rec groups after hours? > I would also really like to see what other folks do on this. It > should, if nothing else, point up some real differences in workplace > styles. Are you interested in opinions from us academia types? (Didn't think so. Oh well, I'll go on anyway: I'm as egotistical as the next poster.) Is there really someone watching to see whether you're reading news? And what does "working hours" mean? Personally, I can't get anything done until six or seven in the evening. About the only restriction we have on reading news here is that it's not a good idea to be found reading alt.drugs during a site visit by funding agencies. :-) der Mouse old: mcgill-vision!mouse new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu
allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) (09/18/88)
As quoted from <1925@looking.UUCP> by brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton): +--------------- | In article <338@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes: | >Misc.jobs.wanted is the most powerful reason of all (to beancounters) | >to be on USENET. | | But I would think it would bother many firms that this is one of the | most widely read groups. Aside from those taken from schools, each applicant | hired from the net is hired away from another net company. No "net" gain. | How many are taken from schools? +--------------- How about the -- admittedly small, but rapidly growing -- collection of public access sites? Also, not all of the companies on the net are large, and advancement opportunities can be limited at small companies, so the net can be useful to people at such companies in finding openings at larger sites. (No, I haven't used this, nor am I likely to; for some of us, advancement opportunities aren't as important as enjoying our jobs.) +--------------- | Fortunately misc.jobs.resumes isn't much of a bother. Have more than a | couple of people ever been hired because of that? Who wants an employee that | would send a resume out to thousands of companies, in hope of any job? +--------------- People do that with paper mail, and once (sans business computer experience, and therefore fruitlessly) I hit on foot every company in Cleveland's "little Silicon Valley", a rather impressive array of places. The only difference is using the net is that it's easier (and often uses less postage!). ++Brandon -- Brandon S. Allbery, uunet!marque!ncoast!allbery DELPHI: ALLBERY For comp.sources.misc send mail to ncoast!sources-misc "Don't discount flying pigs before you have good air defense." -- jvh@clinet.FI
allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) (09/18/88)
As quoted from <279@execu.UUCP> by dewey@execu.UUCP (Dewey Henize): +--------------- | I would also really like to see what other folks do on this. It should, | if nothing else, point up some real differences in workplace styles. +--------------- I tend not to work in an office; more often, I travel to different clients, and aside from their probable response to my reading news on their time, most of them don't get netnews. (Most of them have neither disk space nor processor to spare, at least not until recently.) As a result, I read news on my own time here on ncoast. ++Brandon -- Brandon S. Allbery, uunet!marque!ncoast!allbery DELPHI: ALLBERY For comp.sources.misc send mail to ncoast!sources-misc "Don't discount flying pigs before you have good air defense." -- jvh@clinet.FI
dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) (09/18/88)
From article <338@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer),
as quoted by others, about misc.jobs.wanted:
Aside from those taken from schools, each applicant hired from the
net is hired away from another net company. No "net" gain.
I think there *is* a net gain. First, the same companies whose
employees get hired away can also hire new employees through the same
medium, so it at least balances out. Second, there is a net benefit to
the entire economic system. Each employee hired away from one company
to another becomes more productive, if productivity is measured by how
much the person is worth to the employer. (You don't hire away
people by offering them less than they are already earning.)
As people change jobs, they move up the ranks. Their position are
filled with people who are lower in the ranks. It's just like people
getting promoted within a single company, but on a much bigger scale.
Each time somebody moves to a higher-paying job, somebody *else* sees a
new opportunity open up (to fill this now-vacant position). We all
benefit. This is very far from being a zero-sum game.
This no longer belongs in news.sysadmin, so please note followups header.
--
Rahul Dhesi UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!dhesi