news@Camex.COM (news) (02/07/91)
The Boston Computer Society NeXT User's Group proposes to create a
nationwide (or wider?) directory of personal, technical contacts for the
NeXT computer. The idea is that if you have a question a person local to
you could answer, the directory would help you find assistance quickly.
Quite often these kinds of lists, once produced, have been free, if
electronic, or at very low cost, if printed. For a long time, members of
the BCS have donated some of their time to answering questions.
Before we begin this project, what do you feel? Would such a directory be
useful to you? What kind of information should be included? How can we
protect volunteers from getting too many requests? Do you have concerns
about privacy, propriety, ethics, cost, completeness or timeliness?
Opinions RSVP to geoff@camex.com or to comp.sys.next.
Geoffrey S. Knauth geoff@bos.camex.com
Camex, Inc., 75 Kneeland St. geoff%bos.camex@uunet.uu.net
Boston, MA 02111, (617) 426-3577 x451 --standard disclaimers--cnh5730@calvin.tamu.edu (Chuck Herrick) (02/07/91)
In article <1773@camex.COM> news@Camex.COM (news) writes:
The Boston Computer Society NeXT User's Group proposes to create a
nationwide (or wider?) directory of personal, technical contacts for the
NeXT computer. The idea is that if you have a question a person local to
you could answer, the directory would help you find assistance quickly.
First, I'd like to support this idea.
Second, I'd like to ask a question. Would anyone like to share their
opinions about NeXT corporate tech support via the net? Fairly recently,
the magazine Digital Review covered the application by a computer
company asking for permission to offer some forms of technical support
via the internet. I'm sorry I don't remember the name of the company,
but I do remember that since the original request was motivated by
overwhelming demand on the part of the users, that this application
was subsequently approved by the net administrators. I take it that
this sort of arrangement has little precedence since commercial use of
"the net" has been regarded in the past as a big NO-NO. I must
admit that I have no idea if this type of arrangement would be
consistent with NeXT corporate's vision of tech support or if they
would be interested in this at all. Nor do I know how this could be
implemented in a workable way. It would seem to me that there are
several issues here:
1) Is there a groundswell of desire for this?
2) Is NeXT interested?
3) Would this necessitate a separate specific newsgroup?
4) How would this be structured?
5) Is the idea even worth pursuing?
I should point out that if this idea were not acceptable to NeXT, that
fact should not be interpreted in any way as a reluctance on their
part to offer support to their users. It might be, for example, that
organizational constraints would prohibit implementing net-tech-support.
--
The opinions expressed herein are mine and are in no way attributed
to any of the many people for whom I work. Who they are is irrelevant.