From: linimon@nominil.lonesome.com (Mark Linimon)
Subject: Misc.jobs.contract: Welcome to misc.jobs.contract
Followup-To: poster
Organization: Lonesome Dove Computing Services
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 08:10:08 GMT
Supersedes: <contract_welcome_722751615@nominil.lonesome.com>
Summary: a first introduction to the job contracting group on Usenet
Expires: Thu, 4 Feb 1993 08:09:48 GMT
Reply-To: linimon@nominil.lonesome.com

Archive-name: contract-jobs/welcome
Version: 1.01
Last-Modified: Thu Dec 10 23:04:21 EST 1992

This periodic posting serves as an introduction to newsgroup misc.jobs.
contract for new readers.  A companion posting, "Misc.jobs.contract:
Frequently Asked Questions" <contract_faq_725184616@nominil.lonesome.com>,
summarizes some of the past discussion in the group.

Misc.jobs.contract is a Usenet newsgroup created to foster exchange of
information about employment on a contract basis, as opposed to employment
on a full-time basis.  Postings of interest to full-time employees should
instead be directed to misc.jobs.misc.

Although the group is not _specifically_ dedicated to computer-related
contract work, most of the discussion in the group has related to it.

Postings of contracts WANTED, contracts OFFERED, and general discussion
are welcomed.  To help readers distinguish between these, please consider
using descriptive Subject: lines (and other headers).  For instance,
examine these examples:

    Subject: OFFERED: X Windows contract @ Frobozz, CA, USA
    Summary: 6 month contract offered

    Subject: WANTED: contract involving Unix internals, device drivers, C++
    Summary: CA or MA, USA, 4 months or up

    Subject: What experiences have you had with Section 1706?

Past experience in misc.jobs.offered may be relevant to the OFFERED
postings.  An excerpt of the periodic posting to misc.jobs.offered
follows:

    Experience has shown that the following style of "Subject:" line
    is found to be most useful to many potential readers:

    Subject: Systems Administrator @ Someone's Computers Inc, CA, USA

    The style shown above has a number of features.  The first field gives
    a 2 to 3 word job description: this summary phrase allows the readers
    to skip the offer if there is an obvious talent/aspiration mis-match.
    The second field announces the company name, which also gives the
    potential reader some idea of the flavor of the contract.  The third
    and fourth fields give the approximate geographic location, and allow
    the reader to skip those offers which have an obvious geographic
    mismatch.  The fields are separated by punctation characters ('@'
    signs and commas) to help the reader to spot the four fields quickly
    by eye.

Also please consider setting the Followup-To: line to another group
whenever conversation drifts away from contract work; and also consider
reading the periodic postings in news.announce.newusers before posting.
As a final note, frequent repostings of a single article (contracts wanted
or available) may be considered weak net.etiquette by some readers.

This posting is subject to comment and improvement by sending email to
linimon@nominil.lonesome.com.
-- 
    Mark Linimon / Lonesome Dove Computing Services / Roanoke, Virginia
   {chinacat,uunet}!nominil!linimon   ||    linimon@nominil.lonesome.com     
     "I keep my fingernails long, so they click when I play the piano."