Conference 7.286::digital

    Hi Thomas, 
    
    I think your extract of such a long set of posts  from the internet
    really shows how rambling and divergent the topics can be out there. 
    That's why internet-watching takes time: one has to sift through a lot
    of chaff to find the occasional clear themes and clear questions that
    are worth answering.  
    
    Nevertheless, there are quite a few of us who do listen to internet
    feedback on our projects.  A while back, a customer asked whether
    anyone from DEC was listening, and that stream drew 21 responses from
    mumble.dec.com addresses -- and it can safely be assumed that there are
    many more who read but do not respond.
    
    Sometimes internet flames need to be discretely ignored.  You quoted in
    full one of my recent posts; I should mention that I only posted that 
    after the 5th time or so that I saw the issue mentioned about Alpha
    memory bandwidth and Dick Sites' talk on the subject.  Memory bandwidth
    is a tricky, and sensitive issue, and most discussions of it are
    clearly appropriate *only* For Internal Use.
    
    A suggestion: perhaps you might consider trying to distill the wheat
    from the chaff of the posts whenever that's possible (sometimes its
    not), then cross-post to the appropriate PRODUCT conference.
    
    	/john

>and it can safely be assumed that there are
>many more who read but do not respond.

like me, I didn't want to add another `me too' post!  (Of course nothing
to do with staying anonymous... :)

>    A suggestion: perhaps you might consider trying to distill the wheat
>    from the chaff of the posts whenever that's possible (sometimes its
>    not), then cross-post to the appropriate PRODUCT conference.
    
that lends another question; with the ever increasing traffic on the
Internet, I wonder what the next tool is going to be to organise the
data into something useable.  I mean, they've introduced killfiles,
article threading, selection on subject, etc, and even though I employ
all of these facilities I still find that the volume of traffic is often
too much to wade through... and it's getting worse.

Chris.

>Professional, paid moderator/editors.

not a bad idea, although I feel sorry for whoever may get landed with
the job with ever increasing numbers of juves on the 'net!  I don't
see it happening in the near future though, as Digital (DEC?!) still
doesn't even fund the running of internal news servers; I've had to
beg, borrow and steal all the components for mine (the infamous
Motorola system as mentioned in another note) and run the thing in
my spare time, as do all the other news server managers (some of whom
devote a *lot* more effort than I do, too)

Chris.

>Professional, paid moderator/editors.
    
    Like politicians, I'm sure that anyone applying for the position
    wouldn't, by definition, be fit to serve.

    I follow a few newsgroups and to assist me in filtering out crap, I use
    Pete Bailey's NEWS-NOTES tool. This tool accesses a newsgroup on a
    selected server, and creates (if required) and populates a VAXNotes
    conference locally. It makes a pretty good effort of following
    topic/reply formats, making it easy to follow conversations/threads. I
    use it, for instance, to follow the Visual Basic groups and to populate
    a shadow internally, as announced in the VB conference. I can recommend
    it.
    
    Unfortunately, there are a few areas that could do with improvement, but
    Pete has left Digital, and I don't know anyone with sufficient macro
    skills and time to take the product over.
    
    Cheers, Laurie.

    Hi Tom,
    
    This document would be quite handy but the file privs don't seem to be
    set up right, and I can't grab it. Can you help?
    
    Cheers,
    Daniel

>>  that lends another question; with the ever increasing traffic on the
>>  Internet, I wonder what the next tool is going to be to organise the
>>  data into something useable.  I mean, they've introduced killfiles,
>>  article threading, selection on subject, etc, and even though I employ
>>  all of these facilities I still find that the volume of traffic is often
>>  too much to wade through... and it's getting worse.
>
>Professional, paid moderator/editors.
    
    Very, very BAD idea.  As soon as a professional, paid moderator
    is introduced, then the newsgroup/whatever becomes a publication,
    which can be successfully sued for libel.  This is exactly what
    happened to one of the large computer services last week.
    
    					andrew

    Tom,
    
    Thanks!
    
    Cheers,
    Dan

    I question the use of "deliberate" when it comes to libel cases.  It
    normally comes down to the case of editorial control.  If there
    is editorial control, then the publisher SHOULD have known not to
    print the material.  By not having editorial control, you are just
    a common carrier and not subject to legal action for the content.
    
    				-John

re .10,

oh gawd, there goes the neighbourhood.  Watch those apostrophe's Dan!

Chris.


Yes I know Laurie, it was a feeble `joke'.