HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
Subject: Re: EXECUTION of DECUS Standards
From: tp@mccall.com (Terry Poot)
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 15:36:59 CST
Reply-To: tp@mccall.com (Terry Poot)
Distribution: usa
Organization: The McCall Pattern Co., Manhattan, KS, USA
Nntp-Posting-User: tp


In article <18DEC199210451163@rover.uchicago.edu>, frank@rover.uchicago.edu
(Frank - Hardware Hacker - Borger) writes:
>In article <lj24alINNrln@lisboa.cs.utexas.edu>, ctp@cs.utexas.edu (Clyde T.
>Poole) writes...
>
>>DECUS is made up of LOTS of different "kinds" of people.  Some of
>>those people like VAX Notes, some like All-In-One, some like e-mail
>>and some like USENET news.  The unfortunate part is that as far as I
>>know only a very few of the operating and administrative units of the
>>Society (U.S. Chapter) can agree to consistantly use any one of the
>>mediums as a way of communicating.  
>
>	BINGO Clyde hit the nail on the head. ('cept he left out a couple
>	of people I know who don't like any of the above.) You can't please
>	'em all. Example. Should an electronic version of the newsletter be:
>
>	A/ Posted to USENET
>	B/ A NOTES stream on DECUServe
>	C/ A NOTES stream on DCS
>	D/ E-mailed automagically to subscribers every month
>	E/ Available via anonymous FTP from DECUS.ORG

The answer is YES. All of the above, each to his own preference (and more as
time goes on, probably). Why not? Gateway the news and notes systems together,
and gateway them to a mailing list as well. Archive the groups automatically and
make the archives available via FTP. Using, for instance, MX as the archiver and
mailing list manager, the archives will even be available via mail response
server. All of this technology exists.

>	F/ (Insert your favorite suggestion here)

If the software is there and it will serve enough users to make it worth doing,
sure.

>	G/ (Repeat A-F above for each SIG in DECUS)

Just create another mailing list. MX and similar software makes this quite
simple. Create a new notes conference and newsgroup, and gateway it all
together.

This is not difficult.

>	Send that question out to 10 different DECUS members, and you will
>	get 11 replys back, each arguing why THEIR way is the ONLY way that
>	that member can truly take advantage of our product.

What is this fixation on the "One True Way"? Why does DECUS seem to feel that a
product or service should be delivered in exactly one way, and if someone
doesn't like it, tough?  This is just like the desktop wars. Just as there is no
one machine that will sit on everyone's desktop, there is no one true interface
to group-wide conferencing. And just as the industry is learning to deal with
making all these things work together anyway, DECUS should work on tying
together these different interfaces so that everyone can access the underlying
information and interact with one another. I prefer news. I don't care if you
read it in news, notes, or mail. It shouldn't matter to either of us.
--
Terry Poot <tp@mccall.com>                   The McCall Pattern Company
(uucp: ...!rutgers!depot!mccall!tp)          615 McCall Road
(800)255-2762, in KS (913)776-4041           Manhattan, KS 66502, USA
From: ctp@cs.utexas.edu (Clyde T. Poole)
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
Subject: Re: EXECUTION of DECUS Standards
Date: 18 Dec 1992 17:12:21 -0600
Organization: Univ. of Texas at Austin
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: lisboa.cs.utexas.edu

In article <1992Dec16.074932.1066@beckman.com> dsroberts@beckman.com writes:
>My, this discussion has gotten far afield of standards, hasn't it?

Ah but such an interesting discussion. :-)

[lots of stuff deleted]

>participants in electronic forums.  DECUServe's efforts to get their small part
>of the newsletter (the DECUServe Journal) electronically published had been
>stonewalled by small minded, petty members of leadership who have no desire to
>serve the membership, but rather protect their own prejudicial notions of what
>is "right for DECUS".

Interesting that you would say this when as far as I can tell, no one
has stone walled this publication.  Legitimate questions have been
asked and as far as I can tell a reasonable compromise has been
reached that addresses the problems that were raised.

I find it interesting that people continue to use degrading and
belittling terms when talking about unnamed people.  Calling people
"small minded" and "petty" with no justification attached is sure to
make the people you are talking about listen carefully to what you are
trying to say. :-)  Since I suspect I am at least one if not all of
the people you are referring to here, it certainly makes me want to
pay attention to you. :-)

>On standards:

>I, for one, am one member who really doesn't care that much that DECUS
>participate in standards.  But I would not presume to put my opinion over that
>of the rest of the membership.  However, we should all recognise that DECUS is
>VERY short on cash and there is NO SUGAR DADDY waiting in the wings to pay our
>bills.

This is exactly correct.  DECUS (U.S. Chapter) can not continue to
"soak" the Symposium attendee and Digital certainly is in no condition
to increase its support of the Society.  In fact, for those of you
that have not heard, during the most recent set of Digital layoffs,
the Digital/DECUS staff was reduced by 6 positions.

ctp
-----
Clyde T. Poole - Actually has a new job beginning January 4th (in real life)
 DECUS U. S. Chapter, Management Council Vice-Chair and Member of the Board of
  Directors (in my spare time)
P.O. Box 7352                   Internet: ctp@cs.utexas.edu  DCS:  POOLE
Austin, TX 78712-7352           UUCP: uunet!cs.utexas.edu!poole!ctp
                                BITNET: ctp@UTXVMS  SPAN: UTSPAN::UTADNX::CTP
                                VOICE: (512) 331-4776

Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
From: imhw400@indyvax.iupui.edu
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
Subject: Re: EXECUTION of DECUS Standards
Date: 15 Dec 92 16:06:33 -0500
Distribution: usa

In article <1992Dec14.151045@mccall.com>, tp@mccall.com (Terry Poot) writes:
[deletia]
> Maybe I'm a minority, but the newsletters were my one regular contact with the
> society. And what I read the most were the standards reports. I will miss both.
> Now I hardly feel like I have a connection to DECUS.

That makes two of us.
-- 
Mark H. Wood, Lead Analyst/Programmer    +1 317 274 0749   [@disclaimer@]
Internet:  IMHW400@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU     BITNET:  IMHW400@INDYVAX
Celebrate freedom:  read a banned newsgroup.
From: jms@carat.arizona.edu (A virtually vegetal non-entity)
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
Subject: Re: EXECUTION of DECUS Standards
Date: 16 Dec 92 22:06:00 GMT
 <1992Dec15.192557.13119@cpu.com> <1992Dec15.174907@mccall.com>
Reply-To: jms@Arizona.EDU
Distribution: usa,local
Organization: University of Arizona MIS Department - Mosaic Group
X-Lunar-Date: 5 days, 11 hours, 46 minutes since the full moon
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.50A

In article <1992Dec15.174907@mccall.com>, tp@mccall.com (Terry Poot) writes...
>>	You are very much a minority.  The news letter subscription was about
>>2% of the membership and a good number of subscribers had/have either or both
>>DECUServe or DCS accounts.
> 
>Do you know the percentage, by any chance? That's something I've been curious
>about from time to time. 

Depending on how you look at it, approximately 400 of the 2800 subscribers
were also DECUServe subscribers.  

jms

Joel M Snyder, 1103 E Spring Street, Tucson, AZ, 85719 
Phone: 602.882.4094 (voice) .4095 (FAX) .4093 (data)
BITNET: jms@Arizona  Internet: jms@arizona.edu  SPAN: 47541::telcom::jms
Yow!  I'm imagining a surfer van filled with soy sauce!
From: frank@rover.uchicago.edu (Frank - Hardware Hacker - Borger)
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
Subject: Re: How DECUS does business (Was Re: EXECUTION of DECUS Standards)
Date: 18 Dec 92 22:35:00 GMT
Reply-To: frank@rover.uchicago.edu
Distribution: usa
Organization: Joint Center for Radiation Therapy
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Dec18.113310.1073@beckman.com>, dsroberts@beckman.com writes...
>In article <18DEC199210451163@rover.uchicago.edu>, frank@rover.uchicago.edu (Frank - Hardware Hacker - Borger) writes:
>> 	BINGO Clyde hit the nail on the head. ('cept he left out a couple
>> 	of people I know who don't like any of the above.) You can't please
>> 	'em all. Example. Should an electronic version of the newsletter be:
>> 
>> (various options here)
>Actually the problem I see, and it occurs every time discussions like this come
>up, is that the ONLY acceptable solutions (be it newsletters or leadership
>communication or whatever) are those that satisfy everybody.  This is an
>attitude problem on the part of leadership.  You're asking the wrong question
>here, Frank.  The question should be why don't we provide what we can now with
>the resources we have available and provide more as we can?

	No, but I do think a solution should satisfy a reasonably large portion
	of the membership, without putting a large load on the existing people.
	Your answer provides a beautiful example. You want the NEWS version
	because you have access. If we do that we gore the users without a news
	feed. (Personally I feel most for the little guys, who can't read news
	and FTP to 47 godzillion other places to get the latest software.)
> 
>IF it can be done at little or no cost, but it satisfies the needs for SOME
>DECUS members, why not do it?  Why should the fact that this solution doesn't
>address some OTHER members needs stop this solution from being implemented?
> 
	Nothing can be done at "little or no cost." The MAJOR cost is always
	our shortest commedity, volunteer time. Don't tell me "It's easy to
	do that, I can set it up in no time..." You must tell me, "I will
	provide volunteer so-and-so to do it, and my SIG/NLC/whatever will
	promise to provide a continuing series of volunteers to run this after
	mr/mz so-and-so gets tired of doing it."

>DCS to NEWS is another example of this.  This can be done only for the cost of
>running a newserver on either DCS or DECUServe.  

	Who's gonna run it? Who's gonna fix it when it breaks? Who's gonna
	decide what to feed to NEWS? (Feed all DCS messages? or only DCS
	notes?) How will you set up the feed? Dump everything into one
	large .vms.DECUS.DCS group?)

	Ok folks, it ain't the cost, its the upkeep that's the bummer.

   Frank R. Borger - Physicist    __       Internet:  Frank@rover.uchicago.edu
Michael Reese - Univ. of Chicago |___      Phone : 312-791-8075 fax : 567-7455
  Center for Radiation Therapy   | |_) _   
                                   | \|_)  The covers of this book are too far
    "Birthplace of Softball"          |_)  apart. Book review by Ambrose Bierce
From: killeen@spcvxb.spc.edu (Jeff Killeen)
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
Subject: Re: EXECUTION of DECUS Standards
Date: 20 Dec 92 17:08:08 GMT
Distribution: usa,local
Organization: SPC Community Access System

In article <18DEC199222520174@spades.aces.com>, gavron@spades.aces.com (Ehud Gavron 602-570-2000 x. 2546) writes:
> 	OH MY GOD!!!  Two Hundred and Fifty lines of HORSE MANURE
> 	courtesy of number one DECUS Management Council Bigmouth
> 	Jeff Kileen.  
> 
> 	Please, Jeff, learn the word BREVITY.
> 
> 	I won't debate you word for word because you drone incessantly.
> 	You're not only out of touch, you've forgotten what DECUS is
> 	for, whom the MC really ought to represent, and who the audience
> 	you should appeal to.

Another nice mature, well thought out, professional response.  Ehud I have
heard about your non-professional contributions to other newsgroups and how
your immature behavior managed to offend a large part of the VAX Magic
audience including just about every female present.  Frankly, I have been
pleasantly surprised by your absence on both DECUServe and comp.org.decus.
Your reputation for non-professional behavior and communications proceeded
your arrival in this group and it is interesting to see it was well deserved.
Even before your arrival here many folks were telling me they are now
filtering you out of other newsgroups.  I also will now be joining that group
of folks who will be ignoring you - so don't be surprised when your future
postings don't get a response.  Not solely because of the childishness of the
name calling but because they are devoid of intellectual content.  So far not
one of your postings have any substantive material to backup the point of view
you are taking.  Any idiot can stand on a street corner a shout names at
anyone who walks by.  At least Joel supplied rationales to back up is point of
view.  If I was interested in this name calling form of debate I would go
visit a 4th grade class during recess in a school yard. 

If the maturity level follows Ehud will now throw a tantrum or post your
mother wears army boots or some other equally mature and insightful
response... 

-- Jeff Killeen - DECUS U.S. Chapter NLC Chair |Email:killeen@eisner.decus.org 

DECUS is for folks who are responsible for delivering computing technology.
The NLC is the national council for DECUS's Local User Groups - come join us!
From: gavron@spades.aces.com (Ehud Gavron 602-570-2000 x. 2546)
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
Subject: Re: EXECUTION of DECUS Standards
Date: 19 Dec 92 05:52:00 GMT
Reply-To: gavron@ACES.COM
Distribution: usa,local
Organization: ACES Consulting Inc.
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1


	OH MY GOD!!!  Two Hundred and Fifty lines of HORSE MANURE
	courtesy of number one DECUS Management Council Bigmouth
	Jeff Kileen.  

	Please, Jeff, learn the word BREVITY.

	I won't debate you word for word because you drone incessantly.
	You're not only out of touch, you've forgotten what DECUS is
	for, whom the MC really ought to represent, and who the audience
	you should appeal to.

	Please, for the sake of bandwidth everywhere, learn to condense
	your arguments, or shut the hell up!

#Jeff Killeen - DECUS U.S. Chapter NLC Chair | Email:killeen@eisner.decus.org

	BZZT, make that "Jeff Killeen, DECUS big mouth and doesn't know
	how to summarize or make a point in less than a dissertation
	sort of guy".

	Shees

#DECUS is for folks who are responsible for delivering computing technology.

	Yes, not for those who drone!

	Ehud

--
Ehud Gavron        (EG76)     
gavron@aces.com
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
From: jms@carat.arizona.edu (A virtually vegetal non-entity)
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
Subject: Re: EXECUTION of DECUS Standards
Date: 16 Dec 92 22:04:00 GMT
Reply-To: jms@Arizona.EDU
Distribution: usa,local
Organization: University of Arizona MIS Department - Mosaic Group
X-Lunar-Date: 5 days, 11 hours, 38 minutes since the full moon
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.50A

I just wanted to point out some errors in Lester's note of 15-Dec:

In article <1992Dec15.192557.13119@cpu.com>, gwlester@cpu.com writes...
>In article <1992Dec14.151045@mccall.com>, tp@mccall.com (Terry Poot) writes:
>>
>>It should perhaps be made clear to the membership that they only get to vote on
>>the membership of the BOD. Other representative units of DECUS are elected
>>solely by the leadership. 
> 
>	It might avoid some confusion, but the statement is **WRONG**!!
>At least the L&T and 3P SIG chairs are elected by the general membership at
>their respective Open SIG Steering Committe meetings members (not restricted
>to leaders) present.  

Nonsense.  An election has to have some basic elements to make it other
than a fraud.  This would include pre-notification (i.e., "there is going
to be an election") and open voting at least.  Having an election which
no one knows about and only people who happen to be at a particularly
uninteresting meeting at a national Symposium is NOT an election.  It's a
farce.  Now, if there were pre-announcement, nominations, campaigning,
and an ability to absentee-ballot, that would be different.  

Gerald: face it.  Terry is right, and you're wrong.  No amount of
nit-picking (as I'm sure will continue in this conference) is going to
change the facts: the leadership is a small number of people in a society
which cannot even decide what it means to be a member.  Decisions are made
by the leadership, not by the as-yet-undefined members of the society.  

You can make a value judgement about whether that's good or bad, but the
point is it's true.  And asking Terry to become an active leader just to
express his opinion is complete nonsense.


>	You are very much a minority.  The news letter subscription was about
>2% of the membership and a good number of subscribers had/have either or both
>DECUServe or DCS accounts.

2%?  Where did you get that number?  If we figure that the membership is
composed of the entire DECUSCOPE mailing list, put it back at 15%.  Which
doesn't count pass-alongs.  But does include about 20,000 people who are on
the mailing list but have no current (or probably even past) interest in
DECUS.   

jms

Joel M Snyder, 1103 E Spring Street, Tucson, AZ, 85719 
Phone: 602.882.4094 (voice) .4095 (FAX) .4093 (data)
BITNET: jms@Arizona  Internet: jms@arizona.edu  SPAN: 47541::telcom::jms
Yow!  Am I having fun yet?
From: gavron@spades.aces.com (Ehud Gavron 602-570-2000 x. 2546)
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
Subject: Re: EXECUTION of DECUS Standards
Date: 17 Dec 92 18:12:00 GMT
Reply-To: gavron@ACES.COM
Distribution: usa,local
Organization: ACES Consulting Inc.
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1

In article <16DEC199215294682@carat.arizona.edu>, jms@Arizona.EDU 
tells it JUST like it is:

#In article <1992Dec15.143628.4673@spcvxb.spc.edu>, killeen@spcvxb.spc.edu
#(Jeff Killeen) drones and then finally concludes...
# 
#>Does it happen - no not really mainly because the
#>1000 or so leaders really aren't that far out of the main stream with the
#>10,000 or so active members...

Joel explains to him:

# 
#Au contraire, my good MC representative, responsible for supporting my
#interests as a LUG member and speaker.  In fact, the highest levels of
#DECUS leadership are strongly at odds with the consumers of DECUS products. 
# 
#Pay attention and you'll begin to figure it out:
..
# 
#Now, you can argue that spending a week in Las Vegas playing backroom
#politics is a good experience.  It prepares you for the vigors of real
#business, and trains you in the art of backstabbing, compromise, meeting,
#and consensus.  However: this is not why the "10,000 or so active" members
#come to the event.
..
#There are many leaders, myself included, who would be happy to take a
#greater role in DECUS products---if doing so didn't require sitting on MC. 
#The MC has so far forgotten what the goal of the society is that they
#deliberately interrupt the REAL activities of the week for their own
#business.  Witness the way a seminar speaker was pulled out of a
#seminar---filled with PAYING ATTENDEES WHO WERE INTERESTED IN WHAT HE HAD
#TO SAY---so that the MC could grill him in person.  Or the way a chair was
#forced to spend an entire afternoon in MC meetings, fighting backroom,
#secret politics---while the sessions he was supposed to give fell to
#unprepared pinch-hitters during that time.  Sure, the PAYING ATTENDEES lost
#out on an experience, but how could the MC relate to that?
# 
#Sure, MC could do all of their meeting after 5PM.  But why bother?  No one
#in MC is missing that many sessions, and after 5PM is when all of the
#DECUS-funded suites and dinners begin to start.  

	Well said, Joel.  The Management Council has successfully
	demonstrated their ability to represent their own self-
	interests and an ability to voraciously spend money.  Nothing
	else.

#Jeff, here's a challenge: "survey" the MC (after all, research is the new
#methodology) and get a list of sessions they attended.  Or gave.  Then,
#let's see who's out of touch with whom.

	Joel, again you hit the nail right on the head.  If you're
	ever around my neck of the woods, let me buy you a drink!

#Joel M Snyder, 1103 E Spring Street, Tucson, AZ, 85719 
#Phone: 602.882.4094 (voice) .4095 (FAX) .4093 (data)
#BITNET: jms@Arizona  Internet: jms@arizona.edu  SPAN: 47541::telcom::jms
#Yow!  I'm imagining a surfer van filled with soy sauce!

	Ehud

--
Ehud Gavron        (EG76)     
gavron@vesta.sunquest.com
PARDON me, am I speaking ENGLISH?
From: arthur@ais.com
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
Subject: Re: EXECUTION of DECUS Standards
Date: 16 Dec 92 08:37:36 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Applied Information Systems, Chapel Hill, NC

In article <1992Dec15.143628.4673@spcvxb.spc.edu>, killeen@spcvxb.spc.edu (Jeff Killeen) writes:

stuff deleted
> 
> Terry most of upper level DECUS leadership has become very interested in input
> from the customer.  In fact we have some very solid organized research efforts
> going on right now.  However if we are going to be honest most of the postings
> on this subject have been from DECUS Leaders/insiders trying to incite a riot
> to reverse a decision they did not agree with.  Very little has been heard
> from the membership/customer.  Prior to yours - the one membership type
> posting was so vitriolic, so full of obscenities, and so much a general knee
> jerk attack that did not relate to the issue at hand IMHO I am surprised
> anyone responded to it. 
As one who responded earlier on this meeting, I take offense.  I do not
consider myself an insider (yes I helped activate the RTP LUG many, many years
ago, but have not been in any kind of "leadership" role in about ten years),
and my response contained no obscenities, and was not knee jerk.  It did
represent considerable frustration with the situation and the process.

Much of my frustration is centered around the fact that DECUS grew in a way
very much similar to how DEC did.  It went from being very much a grass roots
effort with local and/or technical focus to something more centralized, less
responsive, and more bureaucratic.  That may partly just reflect how the
industry and DEC changed during the corresponding period.  Now the industry is
changing rapidly, often becoming more like it used to be.  DECUS is faced with
that same mandate.

While I consider myself an active member of DECUS, I don't attend every
symposium like I did for a while, now only one every couple of years.  I also
partcipate in the Unisys and HP user groups and that gives me a little
different perspective.   My organization does attend the national symposia more
regularly than I do.

Maybe the thing most disturbing about this entire discussion is how obvious it
is how great the chasm is between DECUS leadership and the general membership. 
Nearly every posting by someone from the leadership side reinforces that view.

[more stuff deleted]
> -- 
> Jeff Killeen - DECUS U.S. Chapter NLC Chair | Email:killeen@eisner.decus.org
> 
> DECUS is for folks who are responsible for delivering computing technology.
> The NLC is the national council for DECUS's Local User Groups - come join us!

Arthur Coston
Applied Information Systems
arthur@ais.com
From: brantley@cerritos.edu (Douglas Brantley)
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
Subject: Re: speaker recognition
Date: 16 Dec 92 19:52:43 PST
Organization: Cerritos College, Norwalk CA

In article <1992Dec16.135829.29641@umbc3.umbc.edu>, themos@umbc5.umbc.edu (Mr. Themos Pentakalos; ADMIN-COMP) writes:
> Hello everyone.
> 
> I was wondering if all the hundreds of speakers that come to DECUS
> to present their ideas, get some type of recognition. (eg. a "thank-you"
> letter, a certificate of participation, etc.)
> 
> For the first time, I gave two sessions last week and now I am back
> to work and noone believes me... :-)
> 

         The 4GL SIG places a note in the Session Chair packet given to
         each Session Chair.  The note requests information for a "thank
         you" letter to be sent to your boss or any person you designate.

         We have given out volunteer gifts at past Symposia but now with
         the reduced budget gifts are hard to come by.

         Which sessions did you chair?

         If you tell me which sessions I can attempt to have the SIG Chair
         write a letter to your boss.

         Doug Brantley
         DECUS 4GL SIG Symposia Rep

         Brantley@cerritos.edu