🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <geraghty-2710951932570001@geraghty.clark.net> geraghty@clark.net (P.J. Geraghty) writes:
>In article <46qmum$eic@zippy.cais.net>, packer@cais.cais.com (Charles
>Packer) wrote:
>
>> Last week officials at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
>> ordered that the rec.humor newsgroup hierarchy be removed from
>> the Center's news server. After protests, they allowed one of
>> the newsgroups, rec.humor.funny, which is a moderated
>> newsgroup, to be restored.

And I must commend NASA on its wise decision to reinstate such a fine
newsgroup...

>I say delete all the rec.* and alt.* from the NASA (and .gov) hierarchy. 
>Read them on your own time and your own ISP.

I agreed with most of what you said, except for the sentiment expressed here.
Admittedly, the rec.* and alt.* newsgroups are a luxury.  So is free coffee.
So are vending machines.  So are showers for employees who want to work out.
But many/most employers out there offer the exact same services to their
employers for free, and NASA has to offer a certain amount of bennies just
to remain competitive in the industry.  I just started a new job four
months ago, and when I was interviewing, I explicitly asked every potential
employer if they offer their employees Internet access, if they offer USENET
access, and if so for either, how complete?  In my particular case, I don't
need that access, since I have it at home.  But that kind of thing says a
lot about the mentality of a high-tech company, and I consider any answer of
"no" to be a sign that this might not be the company for me.

So I see three real "faults" here.  The original NASA author should have
had a little more sense, although if it were posted strictly internally, then
he had a reasonable expectation that it would stay internal.  I never post to
USENET on any scale unless I'm willing to live with the article showing up on
the 5:00 news, but I'll be pretty critical of my own company in internal memos
if the situation calls for it.  The person who forwarded the article outside
of NASA displayed poor judgement (and may have even violated the law,
depending on NASA's policy on transmitting information).  And the general
public (and in particular, the government officials who took offense
originally) can be faulted for not understanding the role USENET plays in the
industry and overreacting to the incident.

				Jim

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Selected by Jim "The Big Dweeb" Griffith.                Email submissions to
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