Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ncar!noao!asuvax!hrc!rigel!barriost
From: barriost@rigel.UUCP (Tim Barrios)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: aliasing everyone within an organization
Summary: consistent, unique mail/user IDs
Message-ID: <421a3fa7.16e4b@rigel.UUCP>
Date: 18 Mar 89 20:08:02 GMT
References: <3498@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Organization: gte
Lines: 27

In article <3498@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>, bob@kahala.hig.hawaii.edu (Bob Cunningham) writes:
> I'm implementing, for an organization of several hundred people, a
> scheme where everyone can potentially receive e-mail via standardized
> ...
> If you've already done (or thought of doing) something like this, I'd
> like to hear how you treat:

when migrating to a new computing/mail environment (700 Apollos running
Unix mail), we spent a lot of time deciding on a user ID scheme that was
consistent across all users.  the basic idea was that you should be able to
send mail to someone if you know their name even if you don't know their
user ID.  what we decided on was <last name><first initial>.  the only
reason we went with the last name first was for sorting purposes.  in case
of a conflict (many 'smith's or even 'robert smith'), the user can use a
nick-name as the initial ('b' for bob) and/or an additional middle initial
id necessary.  we find that this scheme makes it so that you can send mail
to someone that you meet in a hallway or meeting at least 95% of the time.

Enhancements to this scheme might include using upper case letters to
distinguish name locations and/or some sep character (some users didn't
like this since it could involve hitting the shift key in a user ID) such
as: CunninghamRE, RECunnungham, Cunningham.RE, RE_Cunningham...


-- 
Tim Barrios                                       | "Integrate, Automate,
  UUCP: ...!ames!ncar!noao!asuvax!gtephx!barriost |          or Evaporate"