Xref: utzoo comp.org.decus:254 comp.os.vms:5681 comp.sys.dec:630
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From: ctp@ut-sally.UUCP (Clyde T. Poole)
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus,comp.os.vms,comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: New Pageswapper Editor
Message-ID: <11230@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: 13 Apr 88 14:46:11 GMT
References: <11155@ut-sally.UUCP> <141@titan.nmt.edu>
Reply-To: ctp@ut-sally.UUCP (Clyde T. Poole)
Distribution: na
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 50
Keywords: DECUS Newsletter

In article <141@titan.nmt.edu> hydrovax@titan.UUCP (M. Warner Losh) writes:
>
>I'd like to raise a point that may not have been raised before.  Why can't
>the Pageswapper be posted here (OR to comp.os.vms (aka INFO-VAX)) each month
>that it is published?  The volume of this news group seems low enough that
>one HUGE article a month wouldn't cause problems.
>
>Any body know why this isn't already being done?  They already have the
>text in a form that can be placed on DECUS tapes, why not do us the
>service of posting it here as well?
>

Hmmm....
You bring up two problems that I am currently struggling with.

1) Distribution of the Pageswapper electronicly
2) Distribution of the Pageswapper on the VAX SIG Symposia tapes

There are problems with both of these.  The DECUS Combined SIG
Newsletters is a subscription based publication that barely breaks even.
Subscriptions have been down in the last year and the Communications
Committee has been looking at ways to improve the subscription rate.  If
more people don't subscribe and if costs (like mailing) continue to go
up, it is possible that the newsletter will cease to exist.

If I posted the newsletter to the net, there are some people that would
stop subscribing.  That in itself is not too bad since the purpose of
the newsletter is to inform the reader and we would still be doing that.
But if as a result of the loss of subscriptions, the newsletter went out
of business as a publication, then there are a set of readers that would
no longer have a way of obtaining the information the newsltter
contains.  Not everyone is on one of the nets that INFO-VAX feeds for
example.  This is a sticky problem and I am open to suggestions.  As a
member of the DECUS U.S. Communications Committee, Long Range Planning
Committee the suggestions you give me will get to the right place almost
immediately.

A completely seperate problem is the format that the newsletter will be
taking from now on.  Unlike the previous editor, I will be "typesetting"
the Pageswapper using TeX (and soon LaTeX).  The embedded markup
language does not lend itself to readability.  This also brings into
question whether it will be on the SIG Symposia tapes in the future.
-----
Clyde T. Poole, Technical Coordinator, Facilities and Equipment (in real life)
 DECUS U. S. Chapter, VAX SIG, Newsletter Editor (in my spare time)
ARPA/CSnet: ctp@sally.utexas.edu               VOICE: (512) 471-9551
UUCP:       {harvard,ihnp4,uunet}!ut-sally!ctp   CIS: 75226,3135
Overland: UT at Austin, Department of Computer Sciences
          Taylor Hall 2.124, Austin, TX  78712-1188
"Life is a bitch ... and then you die"