0004261818@mcimail.com (David Tamkin) (06/01/90)
In volume 10, issue 389, I had responded to two answers to some questions I'd submitted previously about REN's. When Tad Cook left me still wondering something, I wrote, DT> That question has been slid on past throughout this discussion under DT> the assumption that everyone must already know. but I still didn't know; and when Julian Macassey said, JM> I think I covered this in an earlier posting, but then I could have JM> glossed over it. I responded that maybe he did cover it earlier, but when something is stated in a way a non-techie cannot follow or is to be found so deep in a technical discussion that a non-techie will have given up reading it before getting to that part, it will reach only the other techies. I asked, DT> All you experts, please be tolerant if we ask for a re-explanation of DT> something in more common terms or if we don't realize that a question DT> is equivalent to one posed previously in thick jargon. Later in that same issue, Isaac Rabinovitch wrote, IR> My lack of experience in the telecom world leaves me without the IR> vocabulary to follow many of the interesting and important discussions IR> in this conference. Could somebody post a lexicon for the benefit of IR> folks like me? Pat Townson replied: PT> It would seem to me [that Isaac and David] have similar complaints, PT> and the answer for both may be to obtain copies of the glossary files PT> in the Telecom Archives. Look for the file entitled PT> 'phrack.glossary'. Providing definitions of the words and expansions of the acronyms cannot guarantee that everyone will understand the complete idea. In the questions I asked that led up to that submission and in the earlier articles that lost me, the problems were the concepts and assumptions, not the words or acronyms. I knew the words but the phrasing was ambiguous to my untrained eyes. As a result, I couldn't understand the answers as they were given. When I asked again, people repeated the same murky language. That didn't help. Finally (in one case very deep in other things I still couldn't follow) the answers arrived: (1) the frequency of a voltage meant the frequency at which the current is alternated; (2) REN's measure the line load for a device to detect an incoming ring signal, not the line load for its ringer to give out a sound, and therefore shutting the sounding mechanism off doesn't remove the device's REN load; (3) the REN limit of 5.0 per line is not a law and some lines can bear 6 or 7 REN's before ringer volume begins to weaken. Even at that, #1 and #2 came in only when I guessed them, asked whether that was what the writers meant, and was told yes. Pat's answer (pun unintended, but what the hell) applies to Isaac's problem but not really to mine. Both in TELECOM Digest and in comp. dcom.telecom, this forum is presented as a written medium. If we don't comprehend something, we can reread it until we've seen all the words a dozen times. If we still don't understand it, then the words need to be *replaced*, not repeated as if this were a spoken medium and perhaps we simply didn't hear you clearly the first time. So when someone doesn't follow the engineering or telephony jargon and asks for a re-explanation, it does no good to reuse the same type of phrasing that didn't get the point across the first time, nor does it help to fill the response with so much additional technical language that the answer, no matter how easy to read by itself, is drowned out by the new flood of jargon. At least please answer the question first (in different terms!) and *then* add the other highly technical thoughts that it brought to mind and which you'd like to say now. In the future, I'll try to make my requests for explanations multiple choice instead of essay if I can and, when I need something restated, to emphasize that I need it rephrased, not repeated. PT> The Telecom Archives are FTP accessible at lcs.mit.edu, using PT> anonymous login. ... or, for those of us without FTP access, through the BITFTP mail server at Princeton. David Tamkin P. O. Box 7002 Des Plaines IL 60018-7002 +1 708 518 6769 MCI Mail: 426-1818 CIS: 73720,1570 GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN +1 312 693 0591
wolfson@uunet.uu.net> (06/05/90)
0004261818@mcimail.com (David Tamkin) writes: >PT> It would seem to me [that Isaac and David] have similar complaints, >PT> and the answer for both may be to obtain copies of the glossary files >PT> in the Telecom Archives. Look for the file entitled >PT> 'phrack.glossary'. >Providing definitions of the words and expansions of the acronyms >cannot guarantee that everyone will understand the complete idea. In >the questions I asked that led up to that submission and in the >earlier articles that lost me, the problems were the concepts and >assumptions, not the words or acronyms. I knew the words but the >phrasing was ambiguous to my untrained eyes. As a result, I couldn't >understand the answers as they were given. When I asked again, people >repeated the same murky language. That didn't help. Help is here (sort of) from AT&T. I just received a mailing from AT&T Business Communications Services for the following classes: VOICE COMMUNICATIONS I: An Analysis of Voice Services and Applications Course Code 26A Audience: Communications managers, network adminstrators or communications analaysts/specialists. Topics: Communications Equipment (Key, PBX, Centrex, ACD) Local and long distance service (industry structure, jurisdiction, equal access, rate structure comparisons) Communications Services (WATS, 800, foreign exchange [FX], tie lines/trunks, off premises stations, remote call forwarding [RCF],T1.5) Networks (premises bases, enhanced private switched communications service, software defined network) Communications media (microwave, twisted pair, coaxial cable, fiber optics, satellite) Fee: $1195 for a 4 day class. Two other classes Data Communications I and II. Cover more lower level network type stuff. Cost/length is the same. The number listed for more info: 1 800 TRAINER (1 800 872-4637)