JOHNSON@NUHUB.ACS.NORTHEASTERN.EDU ("I am only an egg.") (09/21/87)
Come on people! I logged on today and had 158 mail message 85% of
which were info-vax. That was just over the week end. I know I have a
delete key but it takes time to find out if I want to push it or not. I
don't have that time any more. Two other people here were on this list,
one of them my systems manager who should be on it. They've gotten off
the list and ask me too forward anything newsworthy. I just don't have
the time any more.
I realize that we all think our own problems are important. Also,
please note that I'm not trying to discourage legitimate questions. BUT
PLEASE, can we lower the traffic here. Reading the manuals would help
with many of the questions I've seen on here. This is getting to be too
much!
USnail:
Chris Johnson
Academic Computer Services
Northeastern University 39RI
360 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA. U.S.A. 02115
AT&T: (617) 437-2335
CSNET: johnson@nuhub.acs.northeastern.edu
ARPANET: johnson%nuhub.acs.northeastern.edu@relay.cs.net
BITNET: johnson%nuhub.acs.northeastern.edu@csnet-relay
(Always vote. There may not be anything you want to vote for, but
there might be something you want to vote against.)JOHNSON@NUHUB.ACS.NORTHEASTERN.EDU ("I am only an egg.") (09/22/87)
>Here, here! It's high time this list spawned >info-vax.novice or some such. Problem is, the >distinction would be self selecting, and you KNOW >that novices would still post annoying messages >like "Gee, I don't know if this is the right place >to ask, but could you please add me to your >list?". Also, if no one knowlegeable sends out >replies _of course_ people are going to think that >their unanswered queries on Pascal OPEN's and such >are going to be important enough for the "low >traffic" list. Do you see any solution short of a >moderated list? We should convince DEC or DECUS >to devote a full-time staff member to sending out >replies.... > > --John Hanley Unfortunately, I see no way to control traffic short of a moderator either. If I could, I'd run for Congress. Still, something has to be done. I doubt that the relay machine for this list is very pleased about all the traffic either. If this keeps up all the wizards and near wizards will go away and only the novices will be left to share their ignorance. This wouldn't be a goodness. Admittedly, computer manuals aren't necessarily the easiest things in the world to read or understand. I've been stuck myself with problems that are obvious to other people. Sometimes we get too close to a problem and can't see the answer (how many times have we forgotten a comma or two in a system call, either VMS or UNIX/ULTRIX). I realize that it is sometimes very difficult to determine to source of a problem. Often problems cross over into vastly different areas of an operating system. However, there is an info-pascal list. There is also an info-c list. Maybe these lists are a bit more oriented towards language concerns than specific implementations but using a langauge is at least as important as defining one. Don't know what the solution might be or if there is one. I'm just pointing out what most people on info-vax already know, there's a traffic problem. USnail: Chris Johnson Academic Computer Services Northeastern University 39RI 360 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA. U.S.A. 02115 AT&T: (617) 437-2335 CSNET: johnson@nuhub.acs.northeastern.edu ARPANET: johnson%nuhub.acs.northeastern.edu@relay.cs.net BITNET: johnson%nuhub.acs.northeastern.edu@csnet-relay
zrgc002@DTUPEV5A.BITNET (Christoph D. Gatzka) (09/24/87)
How about making the subject lines a little bit more informative, thus after doing a DIR in mail, one knows which mails to read and which to discard. For instance it should be clear from the subject line, wether this is a question or an answer. We solved this problem by devoting a single userid (infovax) to receiving the mail. When I have time to read info-vax, I can do so, but my personal mails get through directly to me, so I don't have to read info-vax if I dont want to. Christoph D. Gatzka zrgc002@dtupev5a.bitnet Student of medicine University of Tuebingen Germany
kenw@noah.arc.CDN (Ken Wallewein) (09/25/87)
> >traffic" list. Do you see any solution short of a > >moderated list? We should convince DEC or DECUS > >to devote a full-time staff member to sending out > >replies.... > > > > --John Hanley (didn't see the original message) ... or maybe DEC should put TSC on-line? :-) It appears to me that the people who are having the greatest problem with the traffic might prefer an info-vax-digest which ran in parallel with info-vax. PLEASE, NO FLAMES ABOUT DIGESTS - I'm a digest-hater too. However, a true digest, in the sense of containing only only selected items (only those with a high signal-to-noise ratio) might be appropriate for those who are read-only participants, "too busy" to contribute. As I see it, the problems is: who would be the moderator? A point aside: DEC has a dial-in BBS-type thing that I haven't checked out yet, DECUS is experimenting with something similar, and then there's ARIS... And they say anarchy is dead :^). /kenw A L B E R T A Ken Wallewein R E S E A R C H C O U N C I L