🚀 go-pugleaf

shaver@convex.com (Dave Shaver) writes:
>The question: If your management questioned the value of your news,
>what would you say?  What if they said they wanted to turn the whole
>thing off or eliminate 90% of it?  (The "non-business" newsgroups.)
>What arguments would you use to maintain your feed?

       Discovering which non-DEC peripherals had good reputations,
which DEC peripherals had bad reputations, and being able to compare notes
on what DEC reps were saying to various customers was immensely helpful
back when I was buying and installing DEC systems, and later Sun machines.
(It was a real culture shock for the DEC salespeople when they discovered
we had a way of checking up on what they were saying to different customers.)
Reduced our hardware costs considerably in the early 1980s.
     
					John Nagle

In article <shaver.722015212@convex.convex.com> shaver@convex.com (Dave Shaver) writes:

  [about justifying news to managment]

   Take the line that news is a perk that the employees have gotten used to.
Therefore, removing it will take away a real (if difficult to quantify) part
of thier benifits. Managment would then have to justify this move to the
employees or risk alienation.
   There may be good reasons for removing news (I suspect not). Maybe they
need to cut costs, or can't afford a new disk to carry the ever expanding
flow. But it has to be balanced by the effect on morale. If they want to do
it, get them to broadcast thier intentions. If enough people complain, they
may not do it.

DanZ

-- 
This article is for entertainment purposes only. Any facts, opinions,
narratives or ideas contained herein are not necessarily true, and do
not necessarily represent the views of any particular person.  

Dave> == Dave Shaver <shaver@convex.com> 

 Dave> The question: If your management questioned the value of your news,
 Dave> what would you say?  What if they said they wanted to turn the whole
 Dave> thing off or eliminate 90% of it?  (The "non-business" newsgroups.)
 Dave> What arguments would you use to maintain your feed?

Certain companies have basically "made" their reputation with me by
having highly technically literate members of their staff participating
in USENET.  Convex (in the person of Tom Christiansen) is one of those.
This is an argument to keep at least the "business" newsgroups.

That said, the kind of person that is likely to participate heavily (and
meaningfully) will probably want a full newsfeed (in fact they are
likely to choose their employers based on net access).  These people are
invaluable technical resources, both because they export technical
knowledge to the net (returning goodwill) but also because they import
technical knowledge (and sources, and techniques) *from* the net.

Netnews is a cheap draw for some *very* good staff.  The cost of a 3/60
and a couple gig of disk is pretty far down there; even if you buy, say,
a SPARCstation ELC and a couple gig of disk that's only going to run you
$7500, and it'll last for years.
--
Christopher K. Davis      | ``Usenet seems to run much like the Kif (or,
<ckd@eff.org>   EFF #14   |   for the TV generation, Klingon) high command.
System Administrator, EFF |   Whoever takes action and can be heard wins.''
+1 617 864 0665  [CKD1]   |   --Peter da Silva <peter@ferranti.com>

While it's not our favourite reason to get a subscriber, we do have some
subscribers who have said one reason they get our service is to legitimize
and justify the netnews servers and costs at their site.   Getting professional
information, news and computer industry info to the employees is something
that higher managers can understand.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Sunnyvale, CA 408/296-0366

We do not receive a full feed.  Our unofficial policy is that we
receive any newsgroup which adds value to the company.  We assume that
anyone who requests a new newsgroup is doing it for the value, and add
it without question.  We remove newsgroups which are not read.  Some
employees have commented that unrestricted netnews is a condition of
their continued employment, and is therefore of value to the company
simply by virtue of keeping valuable employees.  Nobody here has
questioned the effects of netnews upon productivity.  We assume that
it enhances productivity by providing timely technical information.

If management questioned the value of netnews, I would study myself
over a week period and produce a report.  I would include the time I
spent reading news (and news-related mail) and discuss the benefits to
the company.  I would discuss how these benefits could have been
gotten without news, and what the cost might have been.  I would also
discuss historical anecdotes about how news added value to the
company, and discuss how my week's study was or was not representative
of my overall news reading pattern.  I would discuss how posting
information is the activity which generates these benefits, and
include my time spent writing articles as an overhead cost along with
telephone charges, spool space cost, etc., required to participate in
news.  I would relate my experience with what I would expect for other
news readers.  Based on the study I would make a recommendation to
management.  If I found that news wasn't worth it to the company, that
would be my frank assessment.  However, I assume I would recommend
continuing the news feed.
-- 
Ed McGuire                   1603 LBJ Freeway, Suite 780
Systems Administrator/       Dallas, Texas 75234
 Member of Technical Staff   214/620-2100, FAX 214/484-8110
Intellection, Inc.           <ed@intellection.com>

We just get news.*, comp.* and from there we go to specifically requested
groups.

This is mainly for bandwidth (UUCP feed) and disk space reasons, but
you could probably use the "we only want the comp groups <innocent grin>"
argument w/ upper management....

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
But I am frightened for you, children,		|
that the life that we are living is in vain,	|	-Richard Hartman	
and the sunshine we've been waiting for		|	hartman@uLogic.COM
has turned to rain....				|

In article <shaver.722015212@convex.convex.com> shaver@convex.com (Dave Shaver) writes:

>While some companies budget entire machines to be net gateways and news
>servers, other companies argue that news should be eliminated.

>The question: If your management questioned the value of your news,
>what would you say?  What if they said they wanted to turn the whole
>thing off or eliminate 90% of it?  (The "non-business" newsgroups.)
>What arguments would you use to maintain your feed?

I can itemize times when news has saved us time and money. It is
fairly easy to do this for the technical groups, of course, but it
isn't that hard to do for the rest.
  How much work time is saved by being able to find a list of
auto mechanics on the net, instead of spending company time on the
telephone? Has a posting in rec.pets.dogs allowed a worker to not take
an afternoon off to visit the vet? Have you gotten any office
furniture cheap from misc.forsale?
  Of course, netnews DOES lead to users spending some company time for
entertainment purposes. That is hard to deny and your company might
legitimately decide not to provide this service. Fortunately,
commercial services are proliferating, so soon anyone who wants rec.
soc., alt.binaries should be able to buy access. 
--
System Administrator                  Internet: betsys@cs.umb.edu
MACS Dept, UMass/Boston               BITNET:ESCHWARTZ%UMBSKY.DNET@NS.UMB.EDU
100 Morrissy Blvd                     Staccato signals
Boston, MA 02125-3393                      of constant information....

In article <BETSYS.92Nov18143114@ra.cs.umb.edu>, betsys@cs.umb.edu (Elizabeth Schwartz) writes...
>In article <shaver.722015212@convex.convex.com> shaver@convex.com (Dave Shaver) writes:
> 
>>While some companies budget entire machines to be net gateways and news
>>servers, other companies argue that news should be eliminated.
> 
>>The question: If your management questioned the value of your news,
>>what would you say?  What if they said they wanted to turn the whole
>>thing off or eliminate 90% of it?  (The "non-business" newsgroups.)
>>What arguments would you use to maintain your feed?
> 
>I can itemize times when news has saved us time and money. It is
>fairly easy to do this for the technical groups, of course, but it
>isn't that hard to do for the rest.
>  How much work time is saved by being able to find a list of
>auto mechanics on the net, instead of spending company time on the
>telephone? Has a posting in rec.pets.dogs allowed a worker to not take
>an afternoon off to visit the vet? Have you gotten any office
>furniture cheap from misc.forsale?
>  Of course, netnews DOES lead to users spending some company time for
>entertainment purposes. That is hard to deny and your company might
>legitimately decide not to provide this service. Fortunately,
>commercial services are proliferating, so soon anyone who wants rec.
>soc., alt.binaries should be able to buy access. 
>--
>System Administrator                  Internet: betsys@cs.umb.edu
>MACS Dept, UMass/Boston               BITNET:ESCHWARTZ%UMBSKY.DNET@NS.UMB.EDU
>100 Morrissy Blvd                     Staccato signals
>Boston, MA 02125-3393                      of constant information....



<*>  I feel confident I can speak for most other folks at NASA when I 
say that much has been gained by having VNEWS available.  On the subject 
of research alone, many experimentors in the technology community have
been able to share a wealth of information in the quickest amount of 
time, without having to tie-up: land lines; satellite feed; or the 
waste of FAX transmissions.  Not to mention all of those notes stuffed
into courrier bags and FedEx and alike.  I really appreciate the above
posting.  

     Sure, people are going to be people, and yak yak about what some
might percieve as gossip or alike.  However, just having a medium like
VNEWS to get opinions for workers from all ends of the spectrum is the
essence of what "Quality Circles" are all about!  Think about it, if
you would.  Many dollars have been spent in this one area alone..to
incorporate the Japaneese theorys of business into the Amercian workplace.  
Here, we are doing just that..all because of the medium of VNEWS!

     As with all responces folks (like me) make to either the right or
left, on any particular issue, I'll probably have my share of flames.
But befor you flame me on the benefits of having VNEWS, remember on
'what' you are using to voice 'your' "opinions"!

     I lift my glass to Betsy and Dave for their insights to enlighten
the rest of us.  May you continue to bring-up lively issues like the 
above, which makes us (users of VNEWS) stop and think about those 
technologies we (in development) create.  Praise to those programmers
also.  A lot of work went into the development of VNEWS and alike.  
May noone take for granted, that which we now use daily.  - Bill -
AKA: Topcat.  Best Wishes.

In article <EMCGUIRE.92Nov18113627@fuller.intellection.com>, emcguire@intellection.com (Ed McGuire) writes...
>We do not receive a full feed.  Our unofficial policy is that we
>receive any newsgroup which adds value to the company.  We assume that
>anyone who requests a new newsgroup is doing it for the value, and add
>it without question.  We remove newsgroups which are not read.  Some
>employees have commented that unrestricted netnews is a condition of
>their continued employment, and is therefore of value to the company
>simply by virtue of keeping valuable employees.  Nobody here has
>questioned the effects of netnews upon productivity.  We assume that
>it enhances productivity by providing timely technical information.
> 
>If management questioned the value of netnews, I would study myself
>over a week period and produce a report.  I would include the time I
>spent reading news (and news-related mail) and discuss the benefits to
>the company.  I would discuss how these benefits could have been
>gotten without news, and what the cost might have been.  I would also
>discuss historical anecdotes about how news added value to the
>company, and discuss how my week's study was or was not representative
>of my overall news reading pattern.  I would discuss how posting
>information is the activity which generates these benefits, and
>include my time spent writing articles as an overhead cost along with
>telephone charges, spool space cost, etc., required to participate in
>news.  I would relate my experience with what I would expect for other
>news readers.  Based on the study I would make a recommendation to
>management.  If I found that news wasn't worth it to the company, that
>would be my frank assessment.  However, I assume I would recommend
>continuing the news feed.
>-- 
>Ed McGuire                   1603 LBJ Freeway, Suite 780
>Systems Administrator/       Dallas, Texas 75234
> Member of Technical Staff   214/620-2100, FAX 214/484-8110
>Intellection, Inc.           <ed@intellection.com>


<*>  No offense intended to Mr. McGuire, but I would expect a lot more
coming from Dallas.  Lockheed is pretty big in neighboring Fort Worth
and Houston.  Many folks there wouldn't do without VNEWS for the same
reasons I've outlined in a previous post..namely Quality Circles.

shaver@convex.com (Dave Shaver) writes:

> The question: If your management questioned the value of your news,
> what would you say?  What if they said they wanted to turn the whole
> thing off or eliminate 90% of it?  (The "non-business" newsgroups.)
> What arguments would you use to maintain your feed?

- It's a cheap way to get education to people who need it; especially info
  on leading edge stuff that hasn't made it into texts yet, and can only
  otherwise be discovered by hiring someone who's already experienced in
  it, or going to pricy seminars or conferences.

- It's a perk.  It's like having company-provided coffee, or bottled water.
  It's like having "minesweeper" on your PC, but more educational.

- It's nearly free, because it fits in the bandwidth and CPU cycles that we
  need anyway (we do most news processing in the evenings).  The total cost
  is for about 600 MB of disk on various systems.  There's some admin
  overhead that doesn't really amount to anything because if I weren't
  taking care of the news (and reading it), I'd just leave earlier.

- It gives us a bit more name recognition.  (No, we haven't gone out of
  business.)  Occasionally, people even post questions about our stuff.

- It's a great way to find pointers to tools, free software, documentation,
  or whatever.  Half the software we run is from the net in one way or
  another.... even stuff we can ftp, we probably wouldn't find out about
  except for the news.

- It's a good place to ask stupid questions and get them answered by people
  who really know the subject.  (You'll also get answers from people who
  don't know squat, but figuring out which is which will teach you a bit
  more about the subject than you would have learned with only the right
  answer.  Some wrong answers are wrong for interesting reasons.)

-- 
Tom Fitzgerald   Wang Labs       fitz@wang.com   "I went to the universe today;
1-508-967-5278   Lowell MA, USA                   It was closed...."

In article <EMCGUIRE.92Nov18113627@fuller.intellection.com> emcguire@intellection.com (Ed McGuire) writes:
>it without question.  We remove newsgroups which are not read.  Some
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

How can I tell which newsgroups are read?  Can I also tell how often?


-- 
Luis P. Caamano                        |         lpc@dickens.com
Dickens Data Systems, Inc. Atlanta, GA |         uunet!dickens.com!lpc
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If I think I know it all, I'll stop learning. -myself
The more I learn, the more I know I know nothing. -somebody else

In article <1992Nov20.144619.21143@dickens.com> lpc@dickens.com (Luis P Caamano) writes:
   In article <EMCGUIRE.92Nov18113627@fuller.intellection.com> emcguire@intellection.com (Ed McGuire) writes:
   >it without question.  We remove newsgroups which are not read.  Some
			  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   How can I tell which newsgroups are read?  Can I also tell how often?

I believe the arbitron program is for this.  It's posted every month
with the results in news.lists and other places.
--
J Lee Jaap <J.L.Jaap@LaRC.NASA.Gov> +1 804/864-2148
    employed by, not speaking for, AS&M Inc, at
         NASA LaRC, Hampton VA 23681-0001

Our two main reasons for keeping a news feed (including rec, etc.) are
  
  1) We get valuable technical info from comp and sci, in some cases
     well before it appears in journals.  I make a point of mention-
     ing these little tidbits to my boss and the CEO, so they're well
     aware of the importance of netnews to our R&D lab.

  2) Rec, alt, etc., are a nice perk which helps keep valued employees 
     around.  News is addicting.  Admittedly, with the current economy,
     a lot of companies are looking to cut perks, but you have to 
     consider the long-term effect, especially in industries where
     people move freely between jobs.  

One thing we've done to keep company time from being wasted is to have
a couple of low-speed modem lines for employees to call in on after
work hours.  That way, we can say, "you can read rec.music.misc, but
please try to keep it on your own time."  Of course, this might be an
expensive solution for a larger company.  

-- 
Larry Spence
larry@cs.com
uunet!csccat!larry 

In article <CKD.92Nov17170306@loiosh.eff.org>, ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis) writes:
> Dave> == Dave Shaver <shaver@convex.com> 
> 
>  Dave> The question: If your management questioned the value of your news,
>  Dave> what would you say?  What if they said they wanted to turn the whole
>  Dave> thing off or eliminate 90% of it?  (The "non-business" newsgroups.)
>  Dave> What arguments would you use to maintain your feed?
> 
> Certain companies have basically "made" their reputation with me by
> having highly technically literate members of their staff participating
> in USENET.  Convex (in the person of Tom Christiansen) is one of those.
> This is an argument to keep at least the "business" newsgroups.

Also it is a good way of seeing which way the market is going, what 
products people are buying etc etc.

How do you find out other people's experience of using some software
tool you are about to buy? 

Is there any other way of finding out whether C++ (say) is merely
the latest bandwagon that academics have dropped onto and people
go round nodding their heads saying "oh yes we use it" or if it really 
is a useful product. Some of us remember the days of flowcharts,
everyone used them, or so they said at the time. Now they all say
``Oh we only ever used them for documentation''.

Question: do people actually use C++ as an object oriented language
or do they just use it as its name implies, increment the variable C
and use the *old* value.

How to find out the answer: Look at the questions in the comp.lang.c++
group, look at the FAQ. Apply the cynicizer at level 2(b) and get the
result "Yes they do, but half of these people will use Eifell next year
and Blodkin V, which has inline coffee percolation methods as builtin
functions."

How do we find out about Blodkin V? Well we go to comp.lang.blodkin
and look at the FAQ which list the best coffee bean suppliers.
 
> That said, the kind of person that is likely to participate heavily (and
> meaningfully) will probably want a full newsfeed (in fact they are
> likely to choose their employers based on net access).  These people are
> invaluable technical resources, both because they export technical
> knowledge to the net (returning goodwill) but also because they import
> technical knowledge (and sources, and techniques) *from* the net.

One of the disadvantages of small companies is the lack of a wider social
circle that joining (say) IBM would provide. One of the disadvantages of
large companies is the incestuous nature of the social circle and the
complexities caused by the importation of private affairs into the office.

Fact is that net news is just about the only mechganism that is practical
for making a widely distributed company with large numbers of out workers,
work from a socialogical point of view. $7500 is probably a reasonable 
investment in an important future social technology.

Hell what do companies think they exist for anyway? Most of them are
ultimately owned by their employees through pension funds. Macho 1980's
style neo-Manchester school capitalism may seem attractive from a financial
setting, only what is the point in screwing the workforce when they are the
shareholders?

There is a place for examining the harsh ecconomic realities and a place
for ignoring them. Most companies work from the wrong angle, it is
easiest to cut out the obvious `pork', the free coffee trolley and cakes
at break time, the creche and the net-news.

Then these same executives will decide not to purchase a machine to 
automate the production line because they don't want to have to give
their workers their cards. They miss out on the major savings but look
for the minor ones, then they suddenly realize that the operation
down the road or over the water has mechanized and will beat them and it's
panic stations so they sack half the workers.

If they had planned ahead they could probably have managed to gradualy
introduce new technology and use it to expand output and not needed to
sack anyone.
 
> Netnews is a cheap draw for some *very* good staff.  The cost of a 3/60
> and a couple gig of disk is pretty far down there; even if you buy, say,
> a SPARCstation ELC and a couple gig of disk that's only going to run you
> $7500, and it'll last for years.

No! don't *buy* a machine for news. Use an old Vaxstation 2000 or Sun-1
or whatever that isn't much use for interactive work. All you need is
a processor and a lot of disk, SCSI helps make the disk cheap.

You buy the nice new machine for yourself - eg just a box upgrade and the
old box serves news.

Hell you can often even manage to "trade in" the old machine as well :-)

For political groups: Encouraging community/political involvement, enhancing
employee's political/civic awareness.  It's likely your company gives money
to charities that aspire to less lofty goals than this.  What better way to
give to the community than making the folks in your employ better citizens?

   Thanks awfully,
             Patrick

In article <EMCGUIRE.92Nov18113627@fuller.intellection.com> emcguire@intellection.com (Ed McGuire) writes:
>We do not receive a full feed.  Our unofficial policy is that we
>receive any newsgroup which adds value to the company.  We assume that
>anyone who requests a new newsgroup is doing it for the value, and add
>it without question.  We remove newsgroups which are not read.  Some

You receive Email from one of your employees, demanding the following
newsgroups be added:

comp.os.linux,alt.sex.*,alt.binaries.*,talk.politics.misc,alt.fan.monty-python,
comp.databases.*,rec.bicycles.

(Incidentally, the same he read at his former employer's machine with
full feed.)

You would not look at their names, contents, or remember the name of
the employee who sent the mail, you simply would add them, right?

olaf
-- 
| Olaf Titz - comp.sc.student  |   o     | uknf@dkauni2.bitnet | old address |
| univ. of karlsruhe - germany |  _>\ _  | s_titz@ira.uka.de   | is still    |
| +49-721-60439                | (_)<(_) | praetorius@irc      | valid       |
   "Stop talkin' and start chalkin'!" - Eight Ball Deluxe