norm@ontenv.UUCP (Norman S. Soley) (01/11/88)
In article <5411@zen.berkeley.edu>, spp@zabriskie.uucp (Steve Pope) writes: > Given the "no-commercialization" rules on usenet, starting > a newsgroup with a specific commercial purpose in mind (telebit product > support) seems like a notably bad idea. Actually no. This issue has been discussed before and there's another round of talk about it right now in news.groups. The concensus (which is also my opinion on the subject) is that "commercialism" is OK (brad@looking posted comments which could be quoted here to back this up) but direct profit from the use of the net is not. That is to say that anything Telebit (or any other company using the net for this purpose) posts has to be free to any and all (including their competition) and there is no restiction on their competition doing the same. USENET is essentially a mutual benefit society, Telebit providing support on the net makes it easier for telebit owning sites to justify the phone bills they pay. I also think that the 2 for 1 deal Telebit offered was a significant contibution to net resources, of course that's arguable. > Best to just sneak whatever you can into comp.dcom.modems. No for one reason, control. Use of comp.dcom.modems for telebit tech support would be uncontrollable (and generally PO the readers of the group) a separate newsgoups would allow the net-bosses and those who pay phone bills to keep an eye on these evil commercial entities :-). The same guidelines that apply to all news groups would hold for prod-support groups i.e. newsgroups should be of interest to a significant portion of the net readership (of course how does one define significant?) and have sufficient volume. A separate newsgroup would allow sites who disagree with this use of the net to choose not to carry it. It would allow the cost-per-reader numbers for the group to be monitored so they don't get out of hand. Someone has suggested that an alternative hierarchy be set up for product support. This too is a good idea. Although some poor sucker would have to administer it. -- Norman Soley - Data Communications Analyst - Ontario Ministry of the Environment UUCP: utzoo!lsuc!ncrcan!---\ VOICE: +1 416 323 2623 {utzoo,utgpu}!sickkids!ontenv!norm ENVOY: N.SOLEY {mnetor,utgpu}!ontmoh/
cutter@cutsys.UUCP (Bernie Hoffstadt ) (01/16/88)
I'm surprised that no one has suggested the proposed product-
support newsgroups be moderated. My reservations on the subject of
creating such a newsgroup consist mainly of what I consider to be the
enourmous potential for more noise on the net. Aside from the fact that
many systems are not going to want to pay for propogation of articles
that could benefit a competitor, there's also concern everywhere for the
increasing size of usenet. Now it seems to me that the proposed
newsgroups would be high on the scale of usefulness, but could easily
get out of hand, as many others suggested. However, this seems unlikely
if the newsgroups were moderated, which would not only hold down
spurious traffic, but help prevent unadvised usage of the network
resources (read advertizing hype). This idea of course has it's own
problems; where would we find suitable moderators?
--
Bernie Hoffstadt (503) 752-5929 *** Internet: cutter%cutsys.UUCP@CS.ORST.EDU
1437 N.W. 9th st. -or- 753-1646 *** -or- cutter@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU
Corvallis, Oregon 97330 ****** UUCP: {tektronix,hp-pcd}!orstcs!cutsys!cutter greg@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Greg Noel) (01/21/88)
In article <275@cutsys.UUCP> cutter@cutsys.UUCP (Bernie Hoffstadt) writes: > I'm surprised that no one has suggested the proposed product- >support newsgroups be moderated. .... >... where would we find suitable moderators? So far, we have been interested observers of this conversation; it's time we stuck in our two cents worth, since we are interested in the same thing..... At NCR, we know that there are quite a few Towers on the Usenet network, so we have been considering a moderated product-support newsgroup. We haven't settled on anything yet, but so far, the best idea seems to be to have the moderator be someone in the Product Support Department -- that is, the same people you would get if you called the NCR Product Support Hotline. The moderator's responsibility would be to simply post anything that wasn't a bug report. However, if it \was/ a bug report, they would search for the same problem in the data base of known bugs. If one was found, the resolution or work-around of the bug would be added to the article before being posted. If none was found, a new trouble report would be created and the TR number added to the article before it was posted so that progress of the fix could be traced. In all cases, the article would be posted; no censorship. (We might reserve the right to request that the poster revise inappropriate material or post it to a different news group, but that would be all.) In addition, new trouble reports (as well as trouble reports that had been received by telephone) would be circulated in an internal news group that would be read by developer personnel. This would make it possible for the fix to be quickly made available. An alternative we have considered is a mailing list that was gatewayed into an internal news group, but that doesn't seem as desireable. Another proposal has been for an unmoderated news group; this seemed to be too subject to abuse. The bottom line is that NCR is also interested in establishing a product support news group, and we would like to encourage the establishment of the ground rules so that they would be possible. Disclamer: I am not an official spokesman for NCR; the above is only my interpretation of an on-going discussion upon how we can best provide support to our customers. This particular suggestion may never become an available service. -- -- Greg Noel, NCR Rancho Bernardo Greg.Noel@SanDiego.NCR.COM or greg@ncr-sd
merlin@hqda-ai.UUCP (David S. Hayes) (01/22/88)
In article <275@cutsys.UUCP>, cutter@cutsys.UUCP (Bernie Hoffstadt ) writes: > [ ... deleted for brevity [ > many systems are not going to want to pay for propogation of articles > that could benefit a competitor, [ ... deleted for brevity ] There is no reason for anyone to worry about that. Support we created a group "comp.support.telebit". Naturally, US Robotics would not want to pay to carry that. Simple: They can do this now with the news sys file. Already we have some backbone sites saying they won't carry "talk.*". They do it like this: backbone:control,news,comp,soc,sci,rec,misc,!talk: US Robotics would look like this: usr:control,news,comp,...,!comp.support.telebit: Only the news admin at US Robotics need make this change - everyone else continues as is. The product support groups would be a great value for the money spent transmitting them. I think we should create them now. -- David S. Hayes, The Merlin of Avalon PhoneNet: (202) 694-6900 UUCP: *!uunet!cos!hqda-ai!merlin ARPA: ai01@hios-pent.arpa
hirai@swatsun.uucp (Eiji "A.G." Hirai) (01/24/88)
In article <611@hqda-ai.UUCP> merlin@hqda-ai.UUCP (David S. Hayes) writes: > > The product support groups would be a great value for the money > spent transmitting them. I think we should create them now. Yes, what are we waiting for anyway? Let's start counting votes to create the newsgroup now! I haven't been following the discussion too closely recently so I don't know what name it should be but... please, someone out there post an article to say that you are starting to count votes. We'll all mail votes to you then. It might be that people at telebit are afraid of collecting votes themselves. Perhaps they are waiting for someone outside of Telebit to start things. Please start, someone! -a.g. hirai "we don't have Trailblazers 'cause the college hasn't given us our money yet." -- Eiji "A.G." Hirai @ Swarthmore College, Swarthmore PA 19081 | Tel. 215-543-9855 UUCP: {rutgers, ihnp4, cbosgd}!bpa!swatsun!hirai | "All Cretans are liars." Bitnet: vu-vlsi!swatsun!hirai@psuvax1.bitnet | -Epimenides Internet: bpa!swatsun!hirai@rutgers.edu | of Cnossus, Crete