mis@Seiden.com (Mark Seiden) (03/31/91)
several people have asked about my suggested improvements to uunet's
service.
well, here's a copy of a note i sent to the usenix board, which
included the past history of correspondence, and ls -l says dec 18
1990. this is the note that resulted in the "go away little boy don't
bother me i'm too busy" response from rick adams, cited in my previous
posting <3625@dagobah.uucp>. although other usenix board members
managed to take it seriously, including producing thoughtful
responses, nothing seems to have happened... if you're just
interested in suggestions, look for the 4 numbered points in the
middle...
[i realize now on reviewing my initial posting that there were two
errors of fact -- sorry about that:
1. lori leonard spells her name "lori", not "laurie".
2. i actually spoke with her *twice*, not once.]
(how about a "clean government" slate next usenix election time?
RESOLVED: usenix association not have major entanglements with
businesses controlled by board members?)
**********************************************************************
i would like to raise the policy issue of usenix financing a
for-profit organization that has no accountability to its users for
failures in service, and in fact, has no service policy they are
willing to elucidate. i hope that uunet is more accountable to its
bankers than to its users. there should be some quid pro quo for
financing the setting up of such a service, and i would like to ask
not only what it is now, but why there isn't a process by which we can
change it, rather than having it work like a personal fiefdom.
without such policies, uunet could turn out to be as arbitrary in
their way of doing business as prodigy has been.
i gather that the "uunet board" is not an organization that actively
participates in policy matters. there is no uunet user group so
usenix arguably should function in that regard.
i should make clear that in general i have been happy with most
aspects of uunet's service (when it is up, which is almost all of the
time). however, i have had sent email several times in which i
complained about not knowing in advance when uunet would be down, and
not knowing *after* it was down why it was down, and not knowing
whether to report it was down or not, etc. making what i thought were
suggestions that would be well received, but receiving no response
whatsoever, beyond an occasional "yeah, we don't do that" from the guy
in the trenches that day.
eventually i sent the note below:
(note sent to rick and uunet!postmaster 12/10/90), copy sent later to mo.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
uunet has been down several times on saturdays without advance notice.
it was down a lot of saturday, 12/8. it was down as well on nov 24 as
i remember. (it was down several weekends during the sequent/pyramid
debacle, um, experiment...) (and then there have been the recent
problems with sprint echo suppression, and modem firmware upgrades.)
since the echo suppression problems appeared i *listen* to the
trailblazer transmitting data so i know how long it's been taking to
come up with the next spooled file to be transmitted recently. i am
completely sympathetic with the need to upgrade anything you might
find it appropriate or necessary to upgrade...
however, i have little sympathy with what seems to be the current
reality:
that a machine as central to things as uunet is, in a position quite
like a public utility and claiming to provide a full time,
professionally managed *service* should go down without any notice to
customers. you should be more responsible and if you aren't you
should be held more accountable). (it should be pointed out that the
psi people seem to do much better at public notification to their
customers of service outages, planned and unplanned.)
i can plan for any downtime that is scheduled, and of course can
have/get a life during any unscheduled downtime. what i can't cope
with is not being told what you presumably know hours or days in
advance will be going on, and not knowing whether you know your
own system is down.
so on 12/8 i called 703 876 5050 to find out what might be going on.
(uunet had been down for several hours). i got the answering service.
on the first call they didn't know what i was talking about when i
said the system seemed to be down, and didn't know if anyone was there
("i'm just the service"). on the second call (an hour later) i asked
whether they could get in touch with anyone in the event of service
problems. i gave them my name, site name, phone number (they wanted
my "address", but couldn't explain what kind of address they wanted...
usmail, perhaps?)
so i didn't know whether it was scheduled downtime, something's broken
or what, and whether anyone knew about it or not... nor do i know
whether the downage on nov 24 was scheduled or something broke.
this has been at least my third request for a policy of advance
notification of scheduled downtime. i think you should at least try
to tell people who *say* they want to know, even if you don't mail
customer-list. the last such notification i recall receiving was in
late march. (am i to presume that all downtime i've noticed since
then was unscheduled?) this would be to your advantage because
customers would promptly notify you of service problems, knowing that
anything not announced would represent a problem.
in addition, you might consider setting up a phone number that can be
called (with at least the intelligence of an answering machine) to
find out uunet-status in the case of downage. or train your answering
service, which is usually impossible.
while i have gotten some indications from uunet worker bees that a
lack of communication with the customers has been noticed and
mentioned by other customers (to you, rick) there has been no public
movement toward additional openness or information. am i correct that
there is no stated policy to inform customers in advance of service
outages or after they have occurred? customers seem to find out about
new modem offerings pretty promptly, though.
i know you're busy, but how about the courtesy of a reply? maybe you
don't think this is important?
(i composed this mail on saturday, and lest it be considered "just a
flame", let it sit for a day...) (and continued on sunday...)
well, uunet came up saturday night, some time, but is down again
sunday morning. of course, once again, i have no idea why or for how
long, scheduled or unscheduled. and there was no mail sent explaining
why the outage, even though it seemed that it was i who called your
attention to it, by a long distance call on my own dime. so i guess
it doesn't pay to report uunet down in any case, since you won't even
get a thank you.
so, to summarize, these are the service policies i propose you think
about implementing:
1. scheduled downtime should be announced in advance to all customers
who express interest in such matters.
2. the reason for and duration of unscheduled downtime should be
announced within a reasonable period after the system comes up again.
3. an 800 phone number with a voicemail system machine that reports on
system status when the system is down and to which service problems
can be reported, and which will beep the person providing coverage.
system failure (halt/panic etc.) should also result in the coverage
person being beeped.
4. general announcements of solutions to systemic problems (e.g. recent
problems with echo suppression and trailblazers). a recent piece of
mail dealing with duplicate netnews is a good example of the sort of thing
i hope to hear more often, and the sort of thing there should be an
announced service policy covering.
i will send these suggestions to the uunet board, to the usenix board,
and maybe even to the postmaster of all mapped machines if that is
necessary to increase the amplitude and frequency of communication
from uunet.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
after i sent this note, i got a call from laurie leonard at uunet,
who said she was the new customer relations person, and would be
working on issues like this. the following weekend, uunet was
down for a substantial part of sunday, and i sent this note:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From mis Mon Dec 17 15:34:06 1990
Received: by seiden.com (4.0/1.39)
id AA01905; Mon, 17 Dec 90 15:34:04 EST
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 15:34:04 EST
From: mis (Mark Seiden)
Message-Id: <9012172034.AA01905@seiden.com>
To: uunet!leonard
Subject: uunet down on sunday
Cc: uunet!rick
Status: RO
uunet was down several times on sunday. need i point out that i
noticed this downtime, that it impacted my work, and don't know why it
occurred.
since i have not received a reply to my note of the other day, other
than your phone call which i think i correctly summarize to have said
"we're thinking about it but don't expect anything soon", i will send
my note (amended to mention the sunday downtime) to the usenix board.
that is, unless you have thought about it and might be willing to
comment on the need or lack of need for a stated service policy.
"comment" means in email, not a phone conversation intended to placate
me without saying anything specific one way or the other.
i have heard through the grapevine that rick claims i'm the only person
who thinks this is important. i think i can show otherwise.
thanks for your consideration.
Mark Seiden, mis@seiden.com, 203 329 2722
----------------------------------------------------------------------
on tuesday morning i received another phone call from laurie leonard,
apparently pissed off that i had characterizing her phone call as
trying to "placate" me, and said she thought it was obvious that i
couldn't be satisfied with something or other, i forget exactly, and
since she didn't reply in email i can't quote it absolutely verbatim.
(well, so i'm a crank, i admit it, but she was wrong that i couldn't
be satisfied...)
but she did specifically state that, yes, there was currently no
announced service policy, and that there wouldn't be for the
forseeable future, that no uunet "internal policies" would be
announced to users (like me, who want to know about downtime, from
which i gathered that uunet insist on their god-given right to take
uunet down for any and all reasons without any notice whatsoever even
to people who say they depend on it) and that "uunet wouldn't be doing
anything i don't want to do". i asked her how long this process might
take. she said she didn't know and wasn't willing to guess. she
suggested that i use an alternate carrier. (hardly the response i
expected...)
************************************************************************
--
mark seiden, mis@seiden.com, 1-(203) 329 2722 (voice), 1-(203) 322 1566 (fax)rick@uunet.uu.net (Rick Adams) (04/02/91)
A few facts the Seiden is either unwilling or unable to comprehend: UUNET has been independent of USENIX since 1/1/89. His obsession with USENIX being responsible for UUNET is misguided and misplaced and only serves to harass the USENIX board. UUNETs remaining financial ties with USENIX consist of paying back USENIX the money that UUNET LOST in the early days when USENIX was running it. When the final payment is made on 11/1/91, USENIX will have received every cent it risked on UUNET with interest. A rather happy scenarion considering they were prepared to lose it completely if the experiment failed. USENIX did not finance a board members company. USENIX was financially involved with UUNET for well over two years before I was elected to the USENIX board. --- Seidens harassment of the USENIX board is typical of his tantrums when he doesnt get his way. I told him to go away because I found no value in his ranting and especially was annoyed by his repeated harassment of USENIX and his attempted harassment of the banks we are dealing with. I'm reminded of a child who when he isn't happy with what Daddy says runs to the grandparents hoping for a different answer.
chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) (04/02/91)
According to rick@uunet.uu.net (Rick Adams):
>I told [Seiden] to go away because I found no value in his ranting ...
What about the service policy, or lack thereof? Any rebuttal?
--
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT <chip@tct.com>, <uunet!pdn!tct!chip>
"All this is conjecture of course, since I *only* post in the nude.
Nothing comes between me and my t.b. Nothing." -- Bill Coderremis@Seiden.com (Mark Seiden) (04/05/91)
In comp.mail.uucp rick adams writes: >A few facts the Seiden is either unwilling or unable to comprehend: >UUNET has been independent of USENIX since 1/1/89. His obsession with >USENIX being responsible for UUNET is misguided and misplaced and only >serves to harass the USENIX board. thanks for your clarification of the business relationship. i am sure people (i among them) are interested in knowing the facts though i would have prefered that they be presented by some board member not so involved with uunet. (i've been called a few things, but never "the Seiden"... sounds like some sort of mythological monster...) if this followup constitutes a complaint, adams is the only one on the board who has so far complained, either in posting or in email. in december i received two notes from another board member commenting thoughtfully on the points in my correspondence with adams and disagreeing with me on a couple of them, but not objecting to the communication. i've called for adams' resignation as a board member, a position which i took only after enough data accumulated to persuade me that his attitude makes him incongruent with the sort of person i'd hope to see on the board of a membership organization like usenix. >UUNETs remaining financial ties with USENIX consist of paying back >USENIX the money that UUNET LOST in the early days when USENIX was running it. >When the final payment is made on 11/1/91, USENIX will have received >every cent it risked on UUNET with interest. A rather happy >scenarion considering they were prepared to lose it completely if the >experiment failed. (what's the interest rate on that loan?) what you say is true of any investment. take risk, get reward or maybe lose it. in this case, am i right that you get the future reward, and what does usenix, the organization, get? so now i understand that the usenix board, the usenix membership, and uunet customers have nothing to say about uunet policies. of course they can vote with their feet, if datacomm lines even have feet. say, is there any litigation threatened or been filed against uunet by a customer or ex-customer? i somehow doubt that usenix in originally making this deal had an objective anything like "set rick adams up in a family business", but rather "seed a solution to a problem consistent with the membership's needs". in my belief-system this would include some flexibility and respect for customer concerns, although i wonder how these could be specified contractually. as i see it, the solution has been heading far away from those objectives. >USENIX did not finance a board members company. USENIX was financially >involved with UUNET for well over two years before I was elected >to the USENIX board. (and i voted for you, too... have i ever changed my mind...) are you willing to go so far as to say no benefit has accrued to you personally by virtue of your sitting on the usenix board? perhaps some other board member would be willing to clarify - any modifications in agreements between usenix and uunet *since* adams was elected. - what the rules are about board members with interest in some business influencing usenix in a way that could benefit them. for example, i have heard that adams is not supposed to vote at board meetings in issues involving uunet. but is he permitted to (and does he) participate in the discussion leading up to a vote? is he present during that discussion, and the ensuing vote? if any of these are the case, there would be ample opportunity to exert influence. so why did uunet transform itself from a non-profit into a for-profit? did usenix somehow benefit by that transformation? i don't believe that the details have been made public... >--- >Seidens harassment of the USENIX board is typical of his tantrums when he >doesnt get his way. had the board authorized you to speak for them in this matter? (apparently not). "harass" is a strong term for sending a couple pieces of email to people who are presumably friendly with you and accustomed to receiving email anyway. "typical of my tantrums"... you're still not addressing any of the substantive points, and you won't, even if other people ask. you just attack me, and your attempts to belittle me demean you considerably. >I told him to go away because I found no value in his ranting and especially >was annoyed by his repeated harassment of USENIX and his attempted harassment >of the banks we are dealing with. interesting that the *we* in this sentence means uunet, and not usenix, and that "annoying rick" is equated with "harassment of USENIX". to my mind, USENIX is the membership, not rick adams. interesting how many people have sent me mail and told me that my experience is not unique, you saw no value in their "rantings" either. "repeated harassment"? it's true i sent you several notes at uunet. nary a reply, and plenty of opportunity to reply. then i sent a note saying that i hoped the specific points would and should be addressed, or i could send a note to the usenix board, who i thought would give you sage advice, maybe even *friendly advice* if anyone would. after your reply i sent the usenix board yet another note, asking them if you were speaking for them in representing "the board's view" that they were being harassed, and if so apologies would be forthcoming. and guess what, you are the only one (wearing your usenix board member's hat) who said he feels harassed! big surprise! how quickly and elegantly you can switch those hats, and how nice for you that you feel justified in representing the group when your personal interests are questioned. however, this response (which seems fairly definitive, as well as clever) came from kirk mckusick: "As a Usenix board member, I have no more authority over Uunet than I have over AT&T long distance. As such, I have no interest in problems that you may experience with either organization." i find it regretful that the current arrangement in fact seems to enforce the autonomy of the two organizations (hence no formal accountability) and adams has shown he won't engage in informally dialogue either. "harassment of the banks"? i referred to the usenix board in that same note as "your bankers" because they lent you money, and might even be able to influence your thinking, especially since they tend to be sensible folks. (and then in one subsequent note i cc:ed the board as a courtesy)... hardly repeated harassment by any interpretation. i neither know nor care who else lends you money, though i've got some interest in what usenix does/will do with my membership dues and what you have done with my email service. (but egads, you really say *banks* have lent uunet money? with *your* attitude?) look, first one tries the civilized, direct, constructive approach. i did that. but if one gets no result and are concerned enough about the issue or the process, one takes it further, and tries to be as persuasive as possible using whatever appropriate mechanisms are available. this is about communication, rick, not harassment, and there appears to be no appropriate mechanism for communicating with you, especially since you exhibit such nonlinear behavior (long period of total silence followed by explosive detonation, with no apparent rational intermediate state) and a total denial that there is a single substantive issue. >I'm reminded of a child who when he isn't happy with what Daddy says >runs to the grandparents hoping for a different answer. (actually, the kid will first go to Mommy...) but since you've brought up the family metaphor: you remind *me* of the Daddy who is so busy reading his newspaper that he ignores the kid asking the questions and finally the kid runs away from home and joins the circus. ("Don't bother me, kid, shut up and watch TV".) maybe adams thinks he's god, but i'm an atheist of long standing. that adams uses both roles (as the president of uunet and as a board member of usenix) in the same sentence, AND speaks for the Board without their authorization (but as if he represents them as a body) only reinforces my belief that he is inappropriate to have those two roles. rick, why don't you choose one role, and maybe you'll end up performing it better than now? mark seiden, mis@seiden.com, 1-(203) 329 2722 (voice), 1-(203) 322 1566 (fax)
waltje@minixug.mugnet.org (Fred 'The Rebel' van Kempen) (04/07/91)
mis@Seiden.com (Mark Seiden) wrote: > In comp.mail.uucp rick adams writes: Shit. Mark, is it too much of a bother to be polite and type people's names with the first characters in uppercase? > thanks for your clarification of the business relationship. i am sure > people (i among them) are interested in knowing the facts though i > would have prefered that they be presented by some board member not so > involved with uunet. (i've been called a few things, but never "the > Seiden"... sounds like some sort of mythological monster...) Probably as in "the Seiden guy" ... right Rick? >>UUNETs remaining financial ties with USENIX consist of paying back >>USENIX the money that UUNET LOST in the early days when USENIX was running it. > >>When the final payment is made on 11/1/91, USENIX will have received >>every cent it risked on UUNET with interest. A rather happy >>scenarion considering they were prepared to lose it completely if the >>experiment failed. > > (what's the interest rate on that loan?) > > what you say is true of any investment. take risk, get reward or > maybe lose it. in this case, am i right that you get the future > reward, and what does usenix, the organization, get? USENIX quit the "UUNET" project, so, being a financial administrator myself, I would say that USENIX do not get any future revenues. UUNET is "brave" enough to go on, for which they will also take the full responsibility. It is common economix that business people that dare take up a venture, will either lose their money or win some. I indeed am planning on requesting UUNET's balance sheets of 1989 and 1990, but I do not think that UUNET is truly a money maker (that is, on the pure USENET side.. their other ventures like the Telebit deal and the "books" stuff is something profitable for both UUNET and its customers) ! > so now i understand that the usenix board, the usenix membership, and > uunet customers have nothing to say about uunet policies. of course > they can vote with their feet, if datacomm lines even have feet. say, > is there any litigation threatened or been filed against uunet by a > customer or ex-customer? I just became a customer of UUNET. It is true, there were lots of problems with getting them to answer any calls, but thanks to the Sweet Voice of Laurie Leonard, all turned out well.... Just for people who do not read comp.os.minix: I am the founder of the (mostly Western Europe) "rebel" network called MUGNET ("MINIX User Group International Hobbyist Network"), which is now a fully world-wide network. Because of its size, we could no longer botther the people who are currently doing things like DNS and MX for us, so we started changing to UUNET. Contrary to common belief, UUNET _is_not_an_expensive_ service. In most European countries, the _starting_ fees for the same services we will be getting from UUNET are _at_least_ triple (to Piet: no, don't argue with me. We checked this very carefully in 6 countries...) !!! Anyway. I am also not very happy with certain things at UUNET (people suddenly stop replying to your messages, and such), but the telephone operators and customer service people are very helpful. Of course, this may depend on your own manners. I sometimes get flame-calls myself, to which I respond with a similar attitude. We're all human... About Rick Adam's presence and influence: I am the founder of MUGNET (yes, the ENTIRE thing), and I am also the founder of many MUG's in many countries. I am also the author of the software packages that are used to get people connected to the Net. Wow... Does this make me a tiran? Granted, I take STRICT rules when it comes to routing, poll times, domain names and such, and I even dare say I try to educate people a bit to "everlasting USENET happiness", since most of them come fresh from the non-NET MSDOS world.... The point is: I am in both NLMUG _and_ MUGNET boards, and have a leading role there. Rick Adams is in both USENIX and UUNET boards. He is also a very good programmer :-) Why can't people be in such circumstances without getting flames? I think it should be PROVEN first that Rick Adams is getting _personal_ revenues from being in both organizations, other than his salary as a board member. Rick, please comment on this, pref. via Email. I will summarize to get this piece of net.garbage down to the minimum. > so why did uunet transform itself from a non-profit into a for-profit? > did usenix somehow benefit by that transformation? i don't believe > that the details have been made public... Get real. UUNET _is_ a fairly large institution, which serves a great number of people in the world, NOT ONLY AMERICAN PEOPLE! I, being a customer, see nothing wrong with UUNET being for-profit. However, I _do_ reserve the right to ask for financial reports, since UUNET is a public corporation. Why do American Citizens always think that any amount of commerce in USENET, like UUNET going for-profit, is ugly? I had a similar fight with another person, who is probably reading this as well. I am sure he by now understands that not all people see commerce on the USENET network as a no-no. I do not know what the status with USENIX is, but, as far as I am con- cerned, UUNET has every right to go its own way. It shows that they "understand" that, being a for-profit org, they cannot be involved too much with a non-profit org like USENIX. I _do_ think it is time for UUNET, USENIX and Rick Adams to explain this situation in a separate posting, to get this out once and for all (or, in good Usenet tradition: until the next batch of people start to complain).. Can this be done without my Telebit getting overheated by the temperature of the postings? Flames are flammable... > i find it regretful that the current arrangement in fact seems to > enforce the autonomy of the two organizations (hence no formal > accountability) and adams has shown he won't engage in informally > dialogue either. Which is the ONLY thing I am in agreement with. USENIX and UUNET are going their own way, and that should be OK to all of us. However, as long as these orgs STILL have strings attached, they ARE more or less responsible for each other. Rick is a board member of both orgs, and general spokesman of UUNET, so he SHOULD post a decent, flameless explanation of what is going on. > mark seiden, mis@seiden.com, 1-(203) 329 2722 (voice), 1-(203) 322 1566 (fax) Fred `The Rebel' N. van Kempen, MUGNET Operational Maintainer (pheww!) waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org +31 252 230 205