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From: woan@exeter.austin.ibm.com (Ronald S Woan)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.apps,comp.windows.ms,news.admin
Subject: Re: representation on the net (was MS-DOS v5.0 ...)
Summary: People unfortunately assume
Message-ID: <4002@d75.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jun 91 14:55:27 GMT
References: <6669@gssc.UUCP> <72917@microsoft.UUCP> <1991Jun15.180650.19010@midway.uchicago.edu>
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Reply-To: woan@cactus.org
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Organization: Austin School of Hardknocks
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In article <1991Jun15.180650.19010@midway.uchicago.edu> valley@gsbsun.uchicago.edu (Doug Dougherty) writes:
|>I've been reading these disclaimers for quite a while now, and after a
|>while they do get tiresome.  Does anyone really think they are necessary?
|>(I like the ones by people who are basically one man shops and they can
|>quite truthfully say that what they right does represent the views of
|>their organization/boss/whatever...)

The problem is even with the disclaimer, there are many that still
assume that all employees speak for their employer, and I have gotten
messages reflecting such an assumption.

>	a) People cease putting their corporate affiliations in their
>	signatures.  Then readers will never get the impression that
>	authors are speaking for their companies.  This notion is
>	consistent with the general fact that Usenet is a adamantly
>	non-commercial entity, and people are *never* speaking for their
>	companies here (except for the degenerate case mentioned above)
>	(Contrast this with Compu$erve or GEnie, which are commercial
>	entities, with company sponsored groups, etc)

People also assume that if the originating address of someone's email
is a corporate address, then they belong/represent that company... :-(

>	b) Failing this, can't we just change the default assumption to
>	be that whatever is posted here does not represent anyone else's
>	views or official positions (unless explicitly stated otherwise)

That's already the way it is supposed to be according to the newusers
info postings.

In any event, I think we'll be living with disclaimers for the
forseeable future.
-- 
+-----All Views Expressed Are My Own And Are Not Necessarily Shared By------+
+------------------------------My Employer----------------------------------+
+ Ronald S. Woan                woan@cactus.org or woan@austin.vnet.ibm.com +
+ other email addresses             Prodigy: XTCR74A Compuserve: 73530,2537 +