Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu!karl From: karl@cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: Results of sci.aquaria vote Message-ID: Date: 18 Nov 89 03:54:53 GMT References: <5831@unix.SRI.COM> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Organization: OSU Lines: 38 maslak@unix.sri.com writes: >Job descriptions are often vague and general. A simple phrase such as >"maintain electronic communications" covers newsgroup selection. Does it indeed, if what we're talking about is really one person inflicting his or her personal prejudices on an entire workspace? The personal prejudice of the staff at this site quite arbitrarily decided that the 3 MUAs we would support are Berkeley Mail, Columbia MM, and GNU Emacs RMAIL. Any others exist more or less by accident, and get no support. Similarly, we officially support rn and GNUS (sort of) with no NN or vn, and Gnews is installed but also gets no support, and I don't think I've ever bothered to make sure that readnews and vnews got installed on anything but the Pyramids. The entire workspace of email and Usenet communications is pretty much arbitrarily defined, just like that. My (just "my," not even "the collective staff's") personal prejudice determines what newgroup messages get honored around here. I don't hear much complaint about it; the once or twice someone has questioned my choice, I've explained my decision and the questioner has walked away apparently satisfied. Personal prejudice does that. No, it's not part of our job descriptions, other than "perform sysadmin duties" (y'know, I don't think my job description actually says one word about sysadmin in the first place, hm), but nonetheless that's how it gets done. One could consider at length how new system purchases get made, given that the selection criteria for such systems usually involve highly prejudicial outlooks on what sorts of features a new system must provide. The list is endless. Personal prejudice (which in such cases is really "personal experience and skill") is how most everything gets done. Describing it as "prejudice" is, to me, just using emotionally loaded wording. --Karl