Organization: Computing Center, Mississippi State University
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Wed, 8 Apr 1992 09:21:03 CDT
 <WORDS-L%UGA.bitnet@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU>
From:         Frank Peters <fwp%CC.MSSTATE.EDU@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Hello???
Comments: To: words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu

I've taken ten deep breaths (and a nice nap :-).  Now lets see if I
can respond calmly.

In article <01GIL1UGNUTCAXEOJ6@ACFcluster.NYU.EDU> "Aaron Dickey, The Happy
 Spore" <AXD7104%NYUACF.bitnet@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU> says:
>a) A vague bit of help is better than none at all.  I didn't know that someone
>of your Oracle-like Wisdom would be around to reply.  If I had known, I would
>never have stooped so low as to try to help someone.

Nonissue.  I never said that your comments were useless.  Just that your
(perceived) tone was innapropriate given your lack of detailed knowledge.

>b) The term 'sys.nazis' is common amongst us young arrogant hooligans who take
>valuable CPU time away from the important users such as yourself.

This is a clearer expression of the atittude that annoyed me in your
first post.  You seem perfectly willing to assume the worst about
system administrators.  I'm an administrator so its safe to assume
that I don't care about 'unimportant users'.

I do a lot to make my system more useful for young hooligans like
you (and more mature hooligans like Natalie).  I also allow resources
to be used for things like a words-l anonymous FTP archive.

The only user I object to is that damned beaglemutt.

>                                                                  The term is
>about as serious as calling someone a 'nerd,' if that.  To some, it is
>actually a term of endearment.  Perhaps you find it to be politically
>incorrect.  If so, I can't help that.

Here is the core of our problem.

When I was in high school I had a friend who I had occasion to jokingly
refer to as an 'uppity nigger'.  As I used it in that context it was
actually a term of endearment.   Similarly, many blacks have occasion
to refer to each other as niggers.

See, I consider some terms to be dire insults which can only be used
in a friendly way among friends.  Among these terms I count nigger,
faggot, shit head, asshole and nazi.  All of these terms can, potentially,
be used as humerous endearments in specific context.

I wouldn't dream of calling a random black person a nigger.  Or of
calling a random homosexual a faggot.

And I can't imagine using 'nazi' to refer to a random stranger in
a position of authority...unless, of course, it was my intention
to insult.

I don't consider 'nazi' to be about as serious as 'nerd', if that.
Rather, I consider it to be only slightly less serious than, say,
faggot.  Perhaps I'm just overly sensitive in that regard.

>c) I was using the term as a GENERALIZATION.  It was not in reference to any
>PARTICULAR person or any PARTICULAR group of administrators at any one site.
>However, I do know one sysadmin at one certain site. You might be surprised at
>the drawing on the wall of his office of a himself hacking away while wearing
>an SS uniform.

The fact that you used the term as a GENERALIZATION is precisely what
upsets me.  You seem to be adopting a term which I consider to be a
dire insult as a generic term to refer to a group of which I am a
member.

As for the sysadmin with the drawing of himslef in an SS uniform, see
my reference above to blacks referring to themselves and each other as
niggers.  Doesn't make it any less rude to use the term to refer to
strangers.

Personally, I go with the sword motif.  I call it my 'hacker tool'
and occasionally my 'user services aid'.

>d) Rude bastard? I'l leave that up to everyone who read my original message
>and your reply to make the decision as to which message is ruder.

I am content with that.  I rather expect them to be relatively silent
about it actually.  Some will no doubt agree with each of us.

>> together.  Building this database is too time consuming to do on the
>> fly so a separate nnmaster process is in charge of keeping up with this
>> database.  Alas, there is some sort of quirk in this program that seems
>> to cause it to just go to sleep.  It's still running and still using CPU
>> but it doesn't seem to actually update the database.  The only way to
>> tell that anything is wrong is to specifically go looking for it.
>
>If said 'quirk' isn't something that requires an administrator to perform
>maintenance on a regular basis, then I don't know what is.  Thank you for
>confirming my original theory.

Said 'quirk' is VERY irregular.  I don't think it has happened here in
months.  Yet I have had it happen twice in one day.  Such broadly
intermittent problems are hard to catch in a timely manner if they
affect a subsystem that the system administrator doesn't use.

As it happens, the real problem was something else entirely and
both of our guesses were irrelevant.

>> The problem happens here from time to time and I am dependent upon
>> users to tell me that something is wrong (if nobody tells me then the
>> problem lasts until I check it each weekday morning).  Yet I can
>> provide ample witnesses that I am neither lazy nor a sys.nazi.
>
>Good! I'm glad that you regularly check it.  I've been on systems where
>the admins DON'T!  I said it "depends on whether" they do or not.

But I check it once a day.  If my nnmaster went to la la land early
yesterday and people just started using rn without reporting it I
wouldn't have caught the problem until this morning.  Meanwhile one of
my users might have mentioned the problem on a list.  And some random
stranger might have replied with a posting referring to laziness and
sys.nazis.

--
Frank Peters  -  UNIX Systems Programmer  -  Mississippi State University
Internet: fwp@CC.MsState.Edu  -  Phone: (601)325-7030  -  FAX: (601)325-8921
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU