Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Rich $alz is still alive ??!!!??!!
Message-ID: <14538@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Date: 5 Dec 90 17:18:30 GMT
References: <1990Nov24.163906.19793@chinet.chi.il.us> <971@iiasa.UUCP> <1990Nov26.170347.3198@decuac.dec.com> <972@iiasa.UUCP> <1990Nov28.020040.5518@looking.on.ca> <15169@cs.utexas.edu>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 61

In article <15169@cs.utexas.edu> werner@cs.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig) writes:
| In <1990Nov28.020040.5518@looking.on.ca> (Brad Templeton) writes:
| >People may pound on Rich, but perhaps he is the symptom and not the problem.
| >Source and binary group moderating is probably one of the toughest jobs.
| >you get what you pay for.  The people doing it should get some compensation.
| 
| 	yes, I see a symptom of the problem that we have not instituted
| 	a methodology of having multiple moderators share the load and
| 	to guarantee "continuity and reliability of service".  The idea
| 	of "compensation" is undoubtedly flourishing in the mind of people
| 	who make networking a income-generating enterprise;  I wish them 
| 	luck.

  I think it's fair to say that the majority of readers will not do
anything but complain. I tried having people test software for me and
write reviews for c.b.i.p.. It didn't work, very few worked without
constant prodding, and it took more time to get them to do it than do it
myself.

  As far as money goes, maybe some big companies will put up, but I
doubt it. I had a lot of complaints that some sites were getting a lot
of missing or mangled stuff, and I asked if people wanted to get a feed
directly from me. They were all for it, and almost everyone had a
Trailblazer.

  So I got another 320MB drive to support the spool for feed, and then
sent a little note saying that the cost of a new serial adaptor,
Trailblazer, and phone line would cost about $10/mo/site, or $100/yr.

  They were furious. They thought I should do this out of the goodness
of my heart. One admin said that if he was willing to distribute the
group, I should provide it to him and pay for the phone calls. Right.

  So now I have the disk space, and I'm going to use it for something
else. People who complain about the long backlog get rude answers, and
as long as the group stays in the tops 20 for volume, common sense and
phone budgets indicate it's going out in bunches, so if it comes in
faster than that, though.

  I wouldn't blame Rich for quitting with all the crap he gets, but I do
think he's falling down on the job. If he doesn't have time to do one
posting a week he should find a better way, even if it means letting
someone else do it. It's one thing to post 20--300k every day, another
to post 2-3 items a month.

  And of the stuff which has come down recently, at least one package
(can't remember which) was for BSD only and didn't say so (or didn't
list all the packages it would take to make your SysV look loke BSD). I
believe that these packages should be tested on pure BSD and SysV
machines to give an idea of the porting problems. I don't claim they
have to work, just that readers should be told.

  And while I'm complaining, I would like to see a regular posting of
those utility packages which are "widely available," because with uucp,
ftp, and a wide selection of back articles, I still can't always find
every package submissions use, and people with uucp only must be really
frustrated.

-- 
	- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com)
	GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8, KW-C206; Schenectady NY 12345


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