SUMMARY: Opinions on this list..

From: Trevor Paquette (tpaquett@aec.ca)
Date: Wed Nov 27 1996 - 17:23:23 CST

Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]

I'd like to thank all 124 people who took the time to responded to my
message. I am including a short summary, the original message and all the
replies.

Remember this survey is in no way trying to bash this list.. This is the
best list that I have seen for helpful hints and genuine problem solving.

But please remember..

Read the FAQ!
Use the Web!!
Search the Archives!!!

Have fun all..

------- Summary:

Here is the breakdown out of 124 replies received

Option Number Percent ------ ------ -------

1 50 34.7% 2 14 9.8% 3 54 37.5% 4 5 3.4% 5 7 4.8% 6 14 9.8% ------ ----- ------- TOTAL 144 100.0%

NOTE: there are more then 124 "points", due to the fact that some people choose more then one option. Option 6, is for the people who did not choose any of the above, or it was not clear from thier mail what answer they gave.

Read the answers for yourself to see if you agree with any..

----------------------- Original Message:

Quick survey:

Preface: Sun-managers charter points 3 and 6

3: This list is intended to be a quick-turnaround trouble shooting aid for those who administer and manage Sun systems. Its primary purpose is to provide the Sun manager with a quick source of information for system management problems that are of a time-critical nature.

6: If it is not specifically related to Sun system management, then it does NOT belong on this list. Requests for vendor recommendations are tolerated, provided that the hardware in question is something that system managers normally purchase.

Now, with that being said.. I ask the following:

Is it just me or do the questions being posted to this list seem to be getting more and more at the "user-level"? I am not knocking this list in any way. This is a VERY valuable resource to the Sun admin community.

I have been noticing lately that some of the levels of questions being posted to this list are not of (what I would call) the "Systems Administrator" level. I would expect any self-respecting systems admin or "sun manager" would know the answers to alot of these questions off the top of thier head.

I am in no way trying to point fingers at anyone, just making observations. I have seen many very basic questions being posted here that, in my opinion are in not way related to sun-management.

Please choose one of the following and email back to me:

1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted to more sun-manager questions. 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe user etc.. 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions. 4) I don't care what gets posted or by whom. 5) Get a life!

Comments welcome...

--------------------- Answers:

From: "Tom.Ballingall" <ballint@sasked.gov.sk.ca>

Get a life.

-- From: Nina <nina@tumble.com>

> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

However, I'd like to add that the occasional query on hardware preferences is very helpful.

Nina Burns Pomeroy VP Information Technology Tumble Interactive Media, Inc. nina@tumble.com www.tumble.com

-- From: clg@csph.psu.edu (Craig L. Gruneberg)

> Please choose one of the following and email back to me: > > 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions. > 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems > admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe > user etc..

Hi Trevor,

I have found the service offered by this list to be invaluable. I have also found myself in a position, a few times, where it would have been easier to just fire off a question to the list but I persevered and "stumbled" upon the answer myself. I think this is what is happening in some of the recent posts- "Let's ask the list, it is easier and could save time." It also appears that unfortunate folks out there are getting job duties shoved on them that they are not qualified for as a result of downsizing- really not their problem.

It would be great to have a sysadmin based list and a user based list!

It also would be great to filter out the "how do I get on" and "how do I get off" chatter that is ALWAYS present.

I am sure the administrators of the list would like to see less spurious traffic too. :-)

My $0.02.

-Craig

From: Rahul Roy <roy@bluestone.COM>

Hi !! I wholly agree with you that this list is going to the dogs - all kinds of things are being posted here, with no relevance to SunMgrs. questions....I would choose either option 1 or 2 depending on the implementation of the restriction....

Rahul

============================================================================ Rahul Roy Voice: (609) 727-4600 Ext.2650 Systems Consultant Fax: (609) 727-1318 Professional Services Group Mobile: (908) 202-5029 Bluestone Consulting Inc. Pager: (800) 631-4621 1000 Briggs Road Email: roy@bluestone.com Mt. Laurel, NJ 08054 Web: http://www.bluestone.com/people/roy.html ============================================================================

From: popp@luey.redars.ca.boeing.com (Jeff Popp )

My response: 4

Even though some of the questions may be "low-level", chances are very good that a lot of people can learn from them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- .....UNIX for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. - Matthew 19:12

Jeff Popp Boeing REDARS popp@luey.redars.ca.boeing.com

voice (206) 237-7391 pager (206) 541-ALKI

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Why my friend, what you need is Dr. Bullroarer's gulibility tonic! It's made with so much pure hooey, that it won't just suspend your disbelief, it'll have you floating in mid-air!"

The Snake Oil Salesman - King's Quest VII

From: Tom Schmidt <tschmidt@micron.com>

> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

My choice. I see a lot of "new admin" questions that to most of us the answer is so obvious that we don't reply because if we all did we would flood his mailbox. Then again, somebody needs to reply so that he/she does get the answer they need.

From: Waqar Hafiz <whafiz@london.micrognosis.com>

3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

Waqar Hafiz email : whafiz@london.micrognosis.com

From: Arthur Gaer <gaer@sdac.harvard.edu>

On Tue, 19 Nov 1996, Trevor Paquette wrote:

> Please choose one of the following and email back to me: >

> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

On occasion the "user level" questions tell me something I didn't know, otherwise the `D' key is always close at hand.

-------- Art Gaer Unix Systems Analyst gaer@sdac.harvard.edu (617) 432-2521 Statistical & Data Analysis Center, Dept. of Biostatistics Harvard University, School of Public Health

From: Gerald Combs <gerald@unicom.net>

On Tue, 19 Nov 1996, Trevor Paquette wrote:

> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

I have to admit, though - this list has a MUCH better signal-to-noise ratio than other lists I've been on (aix-l, bsdi-users, various Linux lists, etc.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** ***** Gerald Combs gerald@unicom.net *** *** System Administrator http://www.unicom.net * * Unicom Communications, Inc. (913)383-1983 Ext. 101 ***** 7223 W. 95th St., Ste 325 (913)383-2399 Fax *** Overland Park, KS 66212 (913)383-8466 Client Support * The Internet causes acne. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Andy Mitchell" <afm@biotech.ufl.edu>

For what it's worth...

1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted to more sun-manager questions.

Cheers, Andy

------------------ Andrew F. Mitchell, Network Systems Administrator, afm@biotech.ufl.edu The University of Florida Biotechnology Program, (352) 846-1733

"I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it." - Erwin Schrodinger

From: weber@ash.crd.ge.com (Markus Weber)

IYFG Trevor Paquette,

> 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems > admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe > user etc..

With some mods. Allowing only root to subscribe is IMHO not an option. It might be worth of splitting the ml, but then is still the question, 'where' to split it and maybe the majority will refuse to vote 'yes' for a split.

I think prefixing the subject would be a better way. Everyone who missed it, gets a couple of mails ...

Under prefixing I understand something like [NET],[MISC],[HW] or similiar stuff used in some newsgroups net/software,hw/ultra

Just a few thoughts -FvD- -- [ fvd@ira.uka.de (UNI Karlsruhe, Germany) (GE CRD, USA) weber@crd.ge.com ] [ IYF[FDS] FvD = Markus Weber ]

From: jjenson@ect.enron.com (Jarod Jenson)

Trevor Paquette was heard to say: > 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

I too have noticed that sun-managers has also become the personal forum of a few individuals who seem to post their everyday common (easy) problems.

Thanks, -- Jarod Jenson Information Technology mailto:jjenson@ect.enron.com Enron Capital & Trade Resources voice: (713) 853-1783 1400 Smith Street fax: (713) 646-3010 Houston, TX 77002-7361

From: vqh@dwrock.dw.lucent.com (D461-Viet_Q_Hoang(0)82572)

my choice is 1

Viet Hoang Lucent Technologies/ISSC vhoang@lucent.com

From: rsm@idc.tandem.com (R.SrinivasaMoorthy)

> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

Thanks Srinivasa Moorthy (rsm@idc.tandem.com)

From: jnapier@soemail.ucsd.edu (Jim Napier)

While I agree with you in principle, there is nothing in the FAQ that diallows more simplistic questions. You're using the term "System Administrator" to define a somewhat arbitrary level of expertise. The FAQ only says "those who administer and manage Sun systems". It does not say "If you're a Systems Administrator". If I'm a grad student with little or no sys admin experience who's been given the job of managing my group's workstations in addition to doing my research, then I'm a person who administers and manages Suns, even if I'm not a real Systems Administrator. And I'd likely be a person who might ask simpler questions.

You're also overlooking the fact that the "new" Internet has created so much need for technical people, that there are many novices amongst the ranks of support people who are calling themselves sys admins. In general, the level of technical expertise has dropped dramatically, and these folks have no notion that the job of systems administrator used to be something of an exclusive esoteric club. This new administration community has grown up with the idea that if you don't know the answer, you don't try and figure it out yourself, you just ask someone else. They have no idea, nor do they probably care, whether their question may be a dumb one.

Finally, assuming enough people want to create a more technical, exclusive mail list, who will manage it? Perhaps the answer is to not answer questions that could easily be resolved by reading a man page or utilizing a little experimentation. And I would never answer any question where the submitter did not make it clear what avenues of resolution (s)he had already tried. You don't want to reinforce the idea that the list is a substitute for your own initiative.

<-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-<*>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-> Jim Napier jnapier@soe.ucsd.edu Systems Administration 2516 EBU1, MC 0405 Office of Engineering Computing 534-5212 <-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-<*>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=->

From: Craig Ledbetter <cledbett@homeaccount.com>

Trevor,

2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe user etc..

I feel this way because the list as it stands does have its uses. If the list were to be limited to only pure high level admin questions, many of the people who now use it would be ineligible. It would be unfair to remove that resource from them. Having said that, I do feel that the current level of questions to the list are a bit elementary, and true admin level questions need a different forum. Just my two cents.

Craig Ledbetter Systems Engineer Home Account Network Inc. cledbett@homeaccount.com http://www.homeaccount.com --MIME Multi-part separator--

From: jsutton@nko.com (John Sutton)

Hi Trevor,

I can see your point in a lot of these areas, however, being semi-new to Sun SA work, I find this list invaluable. I am sure I have asked some basic questions(haven't we all) that could have been found with some research, but, sometimes I am not sure where to start or if I am going in the wrong direction. Many of the responses I get to my questions may not tell me the answer, they simply point me in the right direction(man page, 3rd party reference, etc.) which is still an unbelievable help. Many people respond with both the answer and a place to look which is really great. As for the basic SA questions, we all have to start somewhere. I don't want to do anyone's job for them, but I don't mind lending a hand when I can or when it is needed.

Thanks John jsutton@faxjet.com

From: santha@nmrsun.ncrr.nih.gov (Attanagoda K.S. Santha)

I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted to more sun-manager questions.

May be that we have a bunch of people who are sys admin beginers. I feel that the amount of traffic is little too high. If some filtering is applied, it would be better.

Santha

From: Davin Milun <milun@cs.Buffalo.EDU>

3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

-- Davin Milun Internet: milun@cs.Buffalo.EDU milun@acm.org Fax: (716) 645-3464 WWW: http://www.cs.buffalo.edu/~milun/

From: Alex Finkel <afinkel@pfn.com>

At 07:43 AM 11/19/96 -0700, you wrote: > 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

At this point I don't think it has gotten out of hand, although I agree that more questions are coming across that are non-critical. I usually get about 30 or so messages a day from the list and if I don't want to answer a question I just ignore it. There a many I can not answer, but in the spirit of the list I try to help when I can.

I would suggest that as the best way to handle it. It takes a second to hit the delete button. I would hate to see this list have to deal with the kind of petty bickering I saw on the Firewalls mailing list - which I long since unsubscribed myself from.

Another argument I would pose for consideration:

There are some subscribers that seem to ask many questions a week to this list, and many of them may even be on-topic or of a critical nature. Should we then fault a subscriber who once in a while asks a non-critical question, yet may be an active participant when it comes to responding to others? I don't think there is a simple answer. That is why I suggest simply ignoring messages that you don't feel belong.

I also feel I have learned quite a bit from the variety of questions and summaries posed to the list. I've also been helped a few times in the past by this list, so I'd hate to see it change.

I agree with your concern - I just don't have a good alternative.

- Alex

From: nobroin@esoc.esa.de (Niall O Broin - Gray Wizard)

Trevor, My answer would be

1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted to more sun-manager questions.

I tend to deal with this by not answering stupid questions - in hindsight, I ignored my own rule today when I answered a very stupid question about gcc and cc but I do generally stick to it. I don't feel it's become unmanageable yet, but it could. However, I do wonder if changing to a new "subscribe by root only" list would work.

Kindest regards,

Niall O Broin

UNIX Network Administrator, Stations and Communications Engineering Department European Space Operations Centre nobroin@esoc.esa.de Darmstadt, Germany Ph./Fax +49 6151 90 3619/2179

From: Brian Stormont <brian_stormont@corfu.projo.com>

1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted to more sun-manager questions.

There are newsgroups for more basic sun admin questions.

From: djohnson@nbserv2.dseg.ti.com (Danny Johnson 0172547)

I think you have valid opinions, however you probably should also make some allowance for the sites who have people would otherwise make no claims as being system administrators except that they got stuck with the job because management was unwilling to hire anybody qualified. it [often] isn't really the fault of the clueless administrator-wannabes.

From: ahill@lanser.net (Alan Hill)

I seem to be blind, but where did you see the charter?

I agree with your complaints, but at 2am, even I forget that it's not /etc/hosts but /etc/inet/hosts.

3) I feel the same but I tolerate ALMOST all questions.

Please keep on this task, you may be able to drop the noise level. . Alan Hill in Montreal, Canada SUN&cisco&networking stuff . ` LanSer, for Wireless Financial Transactions, www.LanSer.net '

From: CO Thomas Esser (101) <thomas@jetson.usi1.com>

Hi,

Number 3

thanks

Thomas \:")

From: Ian Beaudry <Ian.Beaudry@Matrox.COM>

> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

Definitely!!

> 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems > admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe > user etc..

I would go for that, except that in my case, and probably in other large organisations, there are VERY few people that have root access, but a bit more that do system admin tasks... Hence, limiting the list to root only is a bit too restricting (in my opinion).

Ian. ,,, (o o) +------------------------oOO--(.)--OOo------------------------+ / MATROX GRAPHICS Inc. \ \ Ian G. Beaudry, Ing. stag. | 1025 boul. St-Regis / / Systems Administrator | Dorval (Quebec) \ \ ASIC Technology Group | Canada H9P 2T4 / / | Tel: (514) 969-6300, 2704 \ \ Email: Ian.Beaudry@matrox.com Fax: (514) 685-7030 / +-------------------------oOO-----OOo-------------------------+

From: Dan Pritts <danno@fv.com>

On Tue, 19 Nov 1996, Trevor Paquette wrote: > 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

The demise of the net is upon us. :-/

danno

From: martin@mednuc.hsr.it (Martin Achilli)

Hello, I just sent this yesterday to the guy who posted the question asking about opinions on the mechanics of this group wanted. I think I agree with point 1). Having said that I think that there should be some kind of mechanism whereby a posting to the group should only be accepted if you have been on the list at least one week. I think there are too many people who send postings to the list without being on the list (people you say "please reply to me since I am not on the list") and also educate people in understanding the amount of messages per day that one receives from this list. So hopefully they would understand that before posting to the list they should USE other individual sources of information (manuals etc.). I also think that Suns have become more and more cheaper, so they are now in the hands and in environments without too much sysadmin knowledge.

Please read this below, it SUMMARizes some of my opinions :-). It refers to a message send to the list by this person yesterday, I'm sorry but I deleted it so I can't quote it.

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From martin Mon Nov 18 10:37:03 1996 To: rsk@itw.com Subject: Re: Opinions on the mechanics of this group wanted Content-Length: 2631

I have been on this list for about three years now, but I am more and more inclined to get off the list lately. The list, I reckon, has become more and more "horizontal", in the sense that there are lots of postings to the list but the level of the postings has gone down with the increase in the number of people on the list. In my recent experience you also get few responses to a posting, which means that many people simply delete the messages they receive from the list without reading them.

My last opinion is probably biased by the fact that one gains more experience as times goes by and judges the postings in a different manner. I must say though that many people send very basic questions to the list, and often from the text of the posting one realizes that the person has not done too much investigation through other methods (manuals, FAQ, search engines). I don't exactly know how many people are on Sun-Managers now but it must be in the range 3000+ so sometimes it is a bit annoying to see postings of this type. Personally I have found that the internet search engines (Altavista, Yahoo etc.) are GREAT instruments to find information and answers to specific problems, once you get good at using them they are great. Boh, I really don't know what to say, except that there are many people using up 15-25 minutes per day on reading the messages from this list, and whilst it is true that those who know more should be tolerant since they themselves learn from using the list it is also true that the main purpose of this list is getting more and more missed, and that is (from the FAQ):

the point here is "time-critical, so you can't complain about the fact that someone flames you for sending a message like yours (especially if you add that "not enough time to read" !) unless you justify the fact that it is time critical. The price for having the knowledge of so many people at the touch of a mouse click is that sometimes you come across people who aren't as patient as you would hope. Overall I reckon that you should be more careful and especially use other sources. I figured out this same problem using AltaVista.

Martin

Martin Achilli - martin@mednuc.hsr.it Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - I.N.B. c/o Medicina Nucleare, Osp. San Raffaele 20132 Milano, Italy tel: +39/2/26433648 fax: ../26415202

----- End Included Message -----

From: Weldon S Godfrey 3 <weldon@excelsus.com>

From: Gary Lee <rgl@xdiv.lanl.gov>

> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions. Gary Lee Los Alamos National Laboratory

From: Eric Parr <eparr@gsscwest.com>

As long as the questions are related to Sun hardware/software it shouldn't matter whether you feel the person should already know the answer. This forum should not be limited to "only experienced system admins" but should help anyone in need. There are not that many "basic" questions being posted anyway. Besides "basic" is relative.

From: gwh@stat.nielsenmedia.com (Hap Hinrichs)

I pick between 2&3. Some administrators out there are not that experienced and don't have anyone in their own organization who can help and may not have access to News so that they can post there. I've been there.

Hap

From: "Michael R. Zika" <zika@oconto.tamu.edu>

That would be 3...

Way back when I was starting out as a Sun Admin those questions that I could answer "off the top of my head" was a very short list indeed! I tried to sift through all of the documentation available before posting to Sun Managers, but I'm sure that a couple of my questions probably fell into your category...

IMHO, the delete key is only a mouse-click away (or an rmm away for us MH zealots)...

--Michael Zika Nuclear Engineering System Administrator Texas A&M University (409) 862-1158 zika@trinity.tamu.edu

From: irac@gate.comdata.com (Ira Childress)

For myself, I would vote number 1. However, I have several junior people working for me and the list is distributed to all of them for their edification. Therefore, overall, I would have to vote for for number 3.

Furthermore, in the interest of bandwidth and a reduced volume of mail, I would have to say that a second group probably should be created.

How's that for being decisive?! Honestly, I don't mind helping out someone that is totally lost when it comes to UNIX. I also feel that my people are getting a good benefit from the list and would prefer that it stay just about the same.

Ira

. . \\ // \\^ ^// ( o o ) oOOo __O__ oOOo ******************************************************************************** * Ira Childress * Integrated Systems Solutions Corporation * * Systems Manager Integrator * An IBM Subsidiary * * ISSC/Comdata * * * Off 615/370-7662 ******************************************** * FAX 615/371-3167 * * * irac@comdata.com * Comdata Corporation * * Ira.Childress@nashville.com * Transportation/Finance/Gaming * ******************************************************************************** * There are two major products to come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. * * We do not believe this to be a coincidence. * ********************************************************************************

From: azhang@ect.enron.com

0) I feel strongly that this group should be restricted to more sun-manager questions.

Anchi

From: wrpfarn@csua35.sandia.gov (Wes Pfarner)

Hi Trevor --

You're correct of course in what you are observing, but a little tolerance is also needed. If this list can get a person out of a jam in short order then it has accomplished its purpose, no matter whether the question was strictly systems admin-related or not. I'm sure that we have a lot of "newbie" sysadmins tuning in, so we need to accommodate them as well. The off-the-wall subjects that I have noticed don't seem to repeat from the same questioner - apparently they get an answer and disappear as in the cases where folks want to find out where to go for AIX or HP or Linux info.

So far the problem has not been very serious. If it begins to increase, which is what prompted you to write, then some amount of control needs to be exerted. I suspect peer pressure from some of the sun-manager flamers will take care of the more flagrant problems.

At the moment, I vote for "3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions."

Thanks for keeping an eye on the list,

Wes

Wes Pfarner Sandia National Labs Dept. 6532 MS 1138 PO Box 5800, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185-0655 wrpfarn@sandia.gov 505-844-0684 FAX 505-284-3850

From: "Michael O. Sedore" <mosedore@it.stlawu.edu>

Trevor,

I appreciate the thoughtful tone of your piece, and I largely sympathize with its intentions. At the same time, many (of us) who are managing Sun systems are doing so as just part of a larger job and often on a shoestring. While the questions might sometimes be basic, the list serves an important role in helping people to grow along. In the long run I think the community is best served by bearing with its less advanced members.

(I think that's roughly option (3) on your list.)

Regards, -Mike

----------------------------------------------------------------- Michael O. Sedore Instructional Technology Department mosedore@it.stlawu.edu St. Lawrence University http://it.stlawu.edu/~mosedore Canton, NY 13617 -----------------------------------------------------------------

From: Stephen Harris <sweh@mpn.com>

> I have been noticing lately that some of the levels of questions being posted > to > this list are not of (what I would call) the "Systems Administrator" level. I > would expect any self-respecting systems admin or "sun manager" would know > the answers to alot of these questions off the top of thier head.

You're right, it is :-( It's beginning to annoy me. And people don't seem to use the archives much either. A real pain :-(

> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

rgds Stephen

From: applix!cobra!charles@uunet.uu.net (Charles Homan [ext 422])

> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

Actually, I should say all sun-management questions. I say this because even if the question is something that a "self-respecting sun manager" should know, there are people out there who have never been unix admins before, but have sort of "slid in" to sun management, and for whom managing their group's machine is a very small part of their work. Because of these cases, I don't mind more basic questions from time-to-time, as long as it isn't at the "How can I tell if two files are the same?" sort of level. All I ask is that people read the man pages and check the archives (http://www.latech.edu/sunman.html) before posting.

Besides, it's pretty easy to delete messages based on their subject line. :-)

Regards, Charles

From: fpardo@tisny.com (Frank Pardo)

Mr Paquette:

My choice is #3: "I feel the same but I tolerate all questions." Since you explicitly said "Comments welcome", here are some comments; which may not be welcome after all, but...

Point 3 in the charter says "those who administer", not "those who KNOW HOW TO administer". Lots of people have sys admin responsibilities they can't really handle dropped into their laps by benighted or impoverished management.

You're right about the level of the questions, but this is nothing new to me. In the years (29+) that I've been in this business, most of the people I've met have been just barely able to do their jobs (or worse). Ever heard of Sturgeon's Law?

You should either just ignore the questions you regard as foolish, or try to help those poor souls. They're having a hard enough time as it is; they don't need a scolding from you on top of their other worries.

-- Frank Pardo <fpardo@tisny.com> Transaction Information Systems New York City

The scholar's ink outlasts the martyr's blood. -- Irish proverb

From: "Marc L. Summers-SysAdmin" <marcs@tdd.hbo.nec.com>

I choose 5) Get a life!

The issue is this, there are at any given time, many different SysAdmins on this list, some with a great deal of knowledge, and some that have just started. I think that we must be more tolerant of the ones that are just getting started. In my case, I have a lot to learn even though I have been in this business for over 15 years, you never get to the point where you know everything, I am always learning something new. So I say give the others a break, and live with it. And if you don't happen to like the email, it is a very simple thing to click a mouse button and blow it away.

-- + ------------------------------------------------- + + +++ N E C +++ +++ A M E R I C A +++ + + ------------------------------------------------- + + Marc L. Summers System Administrator + + 3100 N.E. Shute Road Hillsboro Oregon 97124 + + PH: 1-503-681-3338 FAX: 1-503-681-3304 + + Email: marcs@tdd.hbo.nec.com + + ---------- Sic transit gloria mundi. ------------ + + --- "Thus passes away the glory of the world." -- + + ------------------------------------------------- +

From: Gene Rackow <rackow@mcs.anl.gov>

"Trevor Paquette" made the following keystrokes: > 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions. It should be limited as posted. How to restrict it is near impossible. Anytime someone posts something totally off topic, don't feel bad about telling them so. Many people don't read the policy of faq. Many others won't learn unless they are told (repeatedly).

> 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems > admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe > user etc.. I don't read mail as root, nor do I want mailing list traffic directed to the root account. I have more machines than just Suns and cluttering the root account with sun list traffic would be painful at best. The current list has only 6 addresses of root@ in it.

I can only see the list staying compelete on track if it was moderated, but then it looses the quick turn around portion of the list. The moderator goes to a meeting or travel or ?? and things sit for way to long. The origins of this list came from a moderated version and it suffered from moderator burnout.

> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions. ^insert "reasonable" For the most part, else how do people learn.

> 4) I don't care what gets posted or by whom. I care about relevance and complain about "test" messages or other spam.

> 5) Get a life! Hmmm, maybe. I haven't worn out the "delete message" key yet, then again I auto-file incoming mail so as to not see these until I want to. Then I go through them en mass. > >Comments welcome... In some recent publications it came out that last year there were 1800000 new unix boxes sold last year from various vendors. You have to assume that some of these were replacements for older machines, but the vast majority were new machines. Now to play some funky numbers games. If you make the grand assumption that 1 admin can handle 100 machines, then you now have 18000 new admins needed for last years sales. Note that not all sites are going to have 100 machines so the number is going to be much larger. Now with that in mind, you get the feeling that a number of these really are admin questions, it's just that the admins are rather new. Now to bring this close to reality, chances are that most of the new machines are being sold as expansions on sites that already have one or more machines so the number of new admins is much smaller, but still considering the number of ISP's that are popping up, and other ma&pop shops, there are a staggering number of machines that are running without qualified people to maintain them. They are being treated much like a PC or Mac, where the catch phrase is "no power, no problem".

--gene (current maintainer of the sun-managers mailing list operations)

Gene Rackow email: rackow@mcs.anl.gov Math & Computer Science voice: 630-252-7126 Argonne National Lab FAX: 630-252-5986 9700 S. Cass Ave. / Argonne, IL 60439

From: cj@mssl.ucl.ac.uk (Colin Johnson)

3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

From: Jim Harmon <jim@telecnnct.com>

I think this is being a little dramatic, but hey, that's cool ;)

I tend closer to number 3, but I feel differently on the basis of the issue.

> Comments welcome...

Here's the thing, and it's from my perspective and is based entirely upon my own opinion and experience:

There is such a thing as a neophyte Sys Admin.

That being said, here's the repercussion:

In this economy, it's more and more likely that a talented, trained, experienced, and EXPENSIVE professional administrator who thought he had an untouchable position in his organization will be laid off and replaced with a snot-nosed punk kid from the campus computer class -- or just a self-taught young person who was in the right place when a company/organization needed to dedicate a position.

What that means is that a growing number of System Administrators has no real-life experience to draw upon.

What THAT means is that you're going to see many so-called "simple/no-brainer" situations and questions on this resource, as all these inexperienced individuals are trying desperately to live up to the expectations created by professionals like many of the subscribers of this list.

If everyone begins feeling that these neoAdministrators are wasting their time, they will stop asking questions, and they will begin drowning in the overwhelming sea of new technology and sophistication of users, until they fail, get fired, or at worst destroy their systems out of ignorance.

At the least, with a growing population of Junior Administrators, increasingly being isolated from Senior Talent, such as on this mailing list, the entire profession can be sullied by uneccessary errors occuring with higher frequency at those lower levels.

The drawback is that the industry will continue, and will reach a point where the expense of a Senior Administrator in terms of salary and benefits will not be necessary as the technology gets more intuitive and simpler to administer.

The Computer Industry has been moving that direction for as long as there has been an industry. The way Professional System Administrators can counteract the rapidity of their own obsolescense is to embrace the new, educate the young, and expand their horizons.

If that means answering basic questions to help new admins get a solid level of basic confidence and competence, then why not answer basic questions?

I appologize profusely to all of you subscribers for expending so much bandwidth on this, and I mean no offense to you, Trevor, or the the others who have recently voiced their very valid and very strong opinions on the abuses of this medium.

I invite direct commentary/rebuttal, and I promise not to publish a summary on this personally. I will, however forward such a summary to anyone who specifically requests one.

Thanks, and thankyou all for the help and advice I've received from this list.

It's an invaluable tool, and I hope that it's use continues, perhaps with a little more direction, but certainly with a little more understanding and concern for the industry and the population it affects.

-- Jim Harmon The Telephone Connection jim@telecnnct.com Rockville, Maryland

From: "Wojciech Mikanik" <WMIKANIK@star.iinf.polsl.gliwice.pl>

> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions. > 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems > admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe > user etc.. > 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions. > 4) I don't care what gets posted or by whom. > 5) Get a life! > > Comments welcome... 6) The level of admins varies very much. Some of them have many years' experience, while others (including Wojciech Mikanik) have quite limited experience, but *have to* admin Sun computers.

Personally I don't feel that the level of "noise" is acceptable.

Regards

Wojciech Mikanik

Silesia University of Technology Institute of Computer Science Akademicka 16 44-100 Gliwice, Poland Phone: +48-32-37-27-05 Fax: + 48-32-37-27-33 http://sun_zo.iinf.polsl.gliwice.pl/pub/wmikanik/html/

From: "Ken Picard" <Ken.Picard@ska.com>

1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted to more sun-manager questions.

The noise level is getting higher, but it is still tolerable (at the moment). I have never seen a usefull mailgroup that this did not happen to (sigh). -- Ken Picard IT5 Client Server 212-238-2591 Credit Suisse Support ken.picard@ska.com

From: Matthew Kelly <matt@freenet.hamilton.on.ca>

I've only been reading the group for about three months now. That said, I generally find it an informative resource. However, some people just have a disregard for the members of the list. Some specific examples include asking about running Linux on a Mac to get an XServer going.... The only relation I could see was that you could use it to log into your sun. In another instance the message was addressed to sun-managers, and cc'd to a list at washington (probably their mail group) and the greeting was to "mail guru's". I think the list is in danger of becoming a basic system admin course where people learn basic things like how to boot their system frmo another disk to retrieve the root password, or install tools like op/sudo to divest root power.

Another thing that would help would be having the mailing list software filter our the delete and subscribe messages, and send the user back an 'educational' note.

> > Please choose one of the following and email back to me: > > 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

I would like to see more questions related to sun management, but I think its important to allow advanced questions relating to unix system management, since sun managers are unix managers, BUT I don't want sun-managers to be a support group for aix,hpux,sendmail,yadda yadda.

> 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems > admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe > user etc..

If I'm not mistaking you here, you want only "root@" each site to be eligible for subscription? I think its a mistake to think we can judge a user's appropriateness for a list based on whether they have a password. Given the disasters many root users inflict on their systems, I don't think root@ is any sort of guarantee.

> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

I tolerate, and I think that we should tolerate some, but even over the past few months the "weak" material has been on the rise...

-Matt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Matthew Kelly matt@freenet.hamilton.on.ca

From: Reto Lichtensteiger <rali@meitca.com>

Trevor Paquette wrote:

<> I have been noticing lately that some of the levels of questions being posted <> to <> this list are not of (what I would call) the "Systems Administrator" level. I <> would expect any self-respecting systems admin or "sun manager" would know <> the answers to alot of these questions off the top of thier head.

And when I provided one of 'em with the answer ("uncompress(1)") I got a snippy reply too. harrumph ... OK, so it was the >short< answer ...

<> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted <> to more sun-manager questions. <> 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems <> admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe <> user etc.. <> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions. <> 4) I don't care what gets posted or by whom. <> 5) Get a life!

In general, "1", but how does one enforce it? Honor system or moderation: If the latter then it's no longer a "quick turnaround" list, the former is what we have now.

"2" Won't work as any number of clueless people have root +somewhere+

Remember, too, the "d" key works well for messages that aren't worth the trouble of responding to ...

Regards,

Reto -- R A Lichtensteiger rali@meitca.com -or- rali@world.std.com http://www.meitca.com/ITA/People/rali "Yes, you're doing things right, but are you doing the right things?" "Nope. I'm just doing something dumb fast."

From: "Christopher L. Barnard" <cbarnard@cs.uchicago.edu>

> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

I think I'm in this camp. I agree that some people are "abusing" our hospitality with their questions, but the simple fact remains that we all have bad days and sometimes a really stupid question will elude us. I just have a mental bozo filter installed and I know to delete Mr. Haim and other people's questions as soon as I see the Subject: line. I don't think that starting another list would help, becuase it would shortly start to suffer from the same problems and confusion would spread wrt which mailing list to subscribe. (As it is people subscribe duplicate times, once to the news feed and once to the mailing list.)

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Christopher L. Barnard O When I was a boy I was told that | | cbarnard@cs.uchicago.edu / \ anybody could become president. | | (312) 347-4901 O---O Now I'm beginning to believe it. | | http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/~cbarnard --Clarence Darrow | | Cyber Rights Now: Accept No Compromise. | +----------PGP public key available via finger or PGP keyserver---------+

From: Richard Butler <richard@biocell.irmkant.rm.cnr.it>

3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

> Comments welcome...

While I basically agree with what you say, I would like to point out that many of us managing Sun systems are NOT trained experts or even engineers. When I (a chemist) first started I didn't know about Sun Managers or I would probably have asked a lot of very simple (simple=easy + simple=stupid) questions.

I think not enough people are reading the FAQs, or checking out their question on the Sun Managers' archives before posting. It is a bit annoying to see the same questions asked again within a month of a relevant summary.

========================================================================= Richard Butler Cell Biology Institute, C.N.R. tel +39-6-86090360 viale C.Marx 43 fax +39-6-8273287 I-00137 ROME, Italy richard@biocell.irmkant.rm.cnr.it =========================================================================

From: "John C. Pavao" <pavaojc@rixix.sod.eds.com>

Trevor,

I'd like to weigh in with "3" with an explanation. I do agree with you that this list should be for admins only. What kind of questions would you expect from a beginning admin, though? And wouldn't you agree that beginning admins need this list the most, giving the sometimes daunting complexity of some of the problems a Sun installation can present?

Let me explain my position. I am a beginning Sun admin. I have considerable experience in shell scripting, some Perl, a little (very little) C, etc. As to learning Sun admin skills, though, my employer is apparently so impressed with my self-starter learning skills that my entire training regimen consists of impressing them more by figuring out how to fix things as they go wrong. This is fairly difficult when you don't know even where to start looking. Sure, there's the man pages and the doco, but imagine if you aren't even sure where to look in the doco?

If subscription to this or the next list is limited to root@, I will not be able to continue to receive the benefits of the list. Not because I cannot subscribe from root, but because I am one of three sysadmins here and the other two are not necessarily interested in getting this much e-mail. They know that I will pass along anything I feel is pertinent.

Quite a few times already, the answer to someone else's question solved a problem for me. I'm keeping fairly quiet, mostly reading. I have seen a few posts that I thought were really no-brainers, but they still seem to be much in the minority.

Hope this helps! John Pavao pavaojc@rixix.sod.eds.com ----------

From: "Marcus Pless" <mpless@ljswc.ucsd.edu>

Trevor,

I am voting for:

1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted to more sun-manager questions.

I completely agree with your sentiments. When people post questions like "I need a script to ...", it is apparent that they have not even attempted to find an answer on their own. These are the same people who don't really have an interest in learning something, they just want you to tell them "what to type".

In the two years I have been on this list, I have seen it go through a number of these cycles where a new person subscribes and then immediately starts firing off questions as fast as possible, because it is faster and easier than reading and solving the problem on their own. This trend does not appear to be diminishing. But my biggest complaint is with the people who preface their question with "I know this isn't a Sun question, but ...", and procede to ask specific details about their httpd, or their SGI, or their PC.

OK, I'm done complaining. So, how would you propose to limit the list? While I agree something should be done, I can't really see how it could be reasonably controlled and still provide the quick turn around people need. If you set up an alternate list, the clueless herd will simply wind up there once they figure out where all the expertise went.

So while I do care about the quality of the list, I am afraid that I don't see any viable solutions. As long as there are mailing lists, there will be clueless subscribers who are incapable of even getting themselves unsubscribed, much less figure out the complexities of the "man" command.

Thanks for listening.

Marcus Pless UCSD Academic Computing Services mpless@ucsd.edu (619) 534-7872

From: Robert Jennings <rjenning@informix.com>

Number 1

NOT 2

People shouldn't answer the user-level questions, then wouldn't get as many asked in the long run.

RJ -- ======================================================================== Robert Jennings Informix Software (Ireland) Ltd Voice: +353 1 405 1046 Switchboard: +353 1 4561000 Fax: +353 1 4564365 mailto:rjenning@informix.com ========================================================================

From: Michael Ramchand <mpr@fj-icl.com>

Trevor Paquette wrote: > > Quick survey: > Stuff Deleted

Michael Ramchand Systems Integration and Networking Manager Fujitsu-ICL Caribbean

From: rjcronin@uop.com (Robert J. Cronin)

> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

Regards,

Bob Cronin (RJCronin@uop.com)

From: Mike Varney <mlv03@health.state.ny.us>

> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

Option #2 may not be as possible as you would hope - - I'm behind a firewall, so you cannot email root at my machine, nor can root email out. I could receive the list at this user account though.

Regardless, I say #1 as shown above. I don't have time to weed through dozens of user questions. I subscribe to the list because of the highly informational sun-manager questions&answers.

-- Mike

------------------------------------------------------------------------ MIKE VARNEY Systems Administrator, Health Research, Inc. (518) 431-1232 / (518) 436-3812 Fax MLV03@HEALTH.STATE.NY.US

From: Fedor Gnuchev <qwe@ht.eimb.rssi.ru>

Dear Trevor,

Sorry for longish reply :-)

> Is it just me or do the questions being posted to this list seem to be > getting more and more at the "user-level"? No, it is not just you :-) Some of them are helpfull too - making one aware of unsaid user problems

> I have been noticing lately that some of the levels of questions being posted > to this list are not of the "Systems Administrator" level. A lot of people are learning "on-the-fly" - so the mileage is expected to vary. > > have seen many very basic questions being posted here that, in my opinion > are in not way related to sun-management. OK, losing root passwd is in FAQ - yet that [Q] is repeatedly posted - a man in panic sometimes need just a moral support. THAT is what makes this list just great - you get it when you are down, management starts pointing thumbs down, clients frown, etc.

Another point about not "sunny" is that lots of people have very mixed environments - so there only to be expected lots of inter-OS {Q]'s.

Hmm, yet questions like "what ls does?" are a bit confusing :-)

> Please choose one of the following and email back to me: > > 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions. the list is NOT moderated - Thank Lord and ANL SysAdmins !!! > 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems > admin people need to be created. --->>> (Only root@machine can subscribe What about pesky PeeCees - you can make anything in W'95 :-) > 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions. YES :-) > 4) I don't care what gets posted or by whom. > 5) Get a life!

> Comments welcome...

You've triggered long-pending suggestion: one of the answers about "why sun-managers sometimes seem to be off?" is ~" it runs on donated 4/100 and serves ~50,000 recipient so if you want to heal - think of donating Ultra :-)"

Okay - I cannot donate Ultra - but maybe it is possible to persuade someone on the list (preferably from ANL nice folks :-) to take on responcibility of collecting "royalty fee" (voluntary!) from interested and grateful readers :-) to get new host for the list.

Since that list bailed me out of numerous gotchas - among them at least 3 "disputes" with management - I'm wondering where should I send "my 2 cents"

With best regards

Fedor Gnuchev (hm, or Ted - in this English-typing world...) # NB: Advice - ignore all advice by this author. mailto:qwe@ht.eimb.rssi.ru

From: rene@iusti.univ-mrs.fr (Mr Rene Occelli)

Hi,

1 and 2

By,

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Rene OCCELLI + + I.U.S.T.I. C.N.R.S. U.M.R. 139 + + Technopole de Chateau Gombert + + 5 Rue Enrico FERMI + + 13453 MARSEILLE Cedex 13 France + + Tel: (33)04 91 10 69 37 + + Fax: (33)04 91 10 69 69 + + Email: rene@iusti.univ-mrs.fr + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

From: dav@litronic.com (David L. Markowitz)

1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted to more sun-manager questions.

---

David L. Markowitz Litronic Industries David.Markowitz@litronic.com

From: joe@ns.hunter1.com (Joe Johnson)

Yes it would appear that a large number of questions are user level or about hardware totally unrelated to Sun management.

> > I am in no way trying to point fingers at anyone, just making observations. I > have seen many very basic questions being posted here that, in my opinion > are in not way related to sun-management. > > Please choose one of the following and email back to me: > > 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

How can the list be restricted in such a way that it will not prevent people who have a legitimate need from using it. (See below)

> 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems > admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe > user etc..

Unfortunately I feel this would be unacceptable to many people on the list who use it correctly and for the correct reasons because of the ISP connections. If a company cannot cost justify a high speed dedicated link to the net root@machine will not be possible as the mailing address.

> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions. > 4) I don't care what gets posted or by whom. > 5) Get a life! > > Comments welcome... >

-- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Johnson jbj@hunter1.com 1(405)920-0411 (Voice) 1(405)920-0415 (Fax)

From: john benjamins <johnb@Soliton.COM>

6) all of the above:-)

just kidding. i guess i might lean towards 1), with 2) being too fascist for my tastes. if pressed though, i have to say i go with 3). i have been getting a little more verbal about admonitions to RTFM, RTFF (ie. RTF FAQ:-) or even to check the sun-managers archives.

my rationale for going with 3), is that i want to actively promote UNIX systems. helping neophytes with simple questions helps to dispel the myth that UNIX is difficult to administer. reminding people to look in the manula, the FAQ or the archives may not be a direct answer for a lot people, but it may help them more in the long run. i definitely try to not flame people, regardless of their question. people should definitely read the FAQ more, and DO WHAT IT SAYS.

hope this helps, -john

p.s. there are some who feel your question is WAY out of line, so you're just a hypocrite for posting this. while they are correct in a very pragmatic sense, they are not correct in a practical sense. ie. i don't personally have a problem with this posting. hopefully, you don't get too many nasty messages for posting this question/survey.

From: iv08480@issc02.mdc.com (Colin Melville)

Trevor,

I go with option 1, all others should either RTFM or RTFAB (AnswerBook)!

Colin

%)====================================================%) %) Colin Melville | cmelville@bigfoot.com %) %) UNIX Systems Administrator| NTS Technical Services %) %) UNIX Server Support Team | http://www.ntstech.com %) %) %) %) Views expressed are my own. %) %) %) %) Supporting: McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Corp. %) %) http://www.mdc.com %) %)====================================================%)

From: cwarner@slpma8.ED.RAY.COM (Caleb Warner)

Well, I have to say my response is not as harsh as #5 (get a life!), but probably falls between 3 and 4. Having asked my fair share of stupid questions I appreciate people's tolerance. Also I know that in these desperate times (at least in the North East USA) anyone (and I mean anyone!) can become or be made a system administrator. Therefore, I hope that before people send a question to the mail list they look in the FAQ or the archives available on the WWW, but after they have tried those, they feel free to post to the mail list.

Thanks

Caleb Warner

From: "WRAY" <DES95@KYDES.DMA.STATE.KY.US>

3 for my count.

From: foster@bial1.ucsd.edu

> * 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

From: jwf@ccuc.on.ca (John W. Funk)

1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted to more sun-manager questions.

I also have suggested to another member that QUESTIONS and SUMMARIES contain a topic, as amny other mail lists do, and each of us can choose the topics we care to follow. Presumably the novices would subscribe to the topic BASICS, and novices could answer their own questions.

Just my $0.02

jwf

John W. Funk, P.Eng CAD/CAM & Unix Consultants Inc. P.O. Box 61024, Maple Grove P.O. Oakville, Ontario, L6J 7P5

voice: 905-829-5028 fax: 905-929-0517 email: jwf@ccuc.on.ca

From: mjohnson@Wilton.com

From: billt@dat.com (Bill Townsley)

3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

From: Keith.Willenson@sunny.health.state.mn.us (Keith Willenson)

In responding to a non technical question which does not require a time-critical response and does not specifically relate to Sun System management from someone who is not "root@aec.ca" I would have to answer 8 (3 + 5).

There are too many clueless people out there with root access for me to worry about who posts what to this list.

Hope this helps,

Keith

From: hsie@al.noaa.gov (Eirh-Yu Hsie)

Hello:

XXX (2) -------------------------------------

Hsie

From: Pritish Shah <pritish@iocenter.net>

Actually I should point out that the base of Sun machines have grown bigger due to the penetration of Internet in the business community. So you have more *new* administrators like myself. I am a network engineer and I can deal with Ciscos. I was thrusted into managing suns and I have done a good job at it.

I believe that your email was most probably because of my email. Well I did search the archives before posting the question.

If I don't get a chance to learn, how am I going to figure out what questions are good and what are not. I do go through the whole archive and see the questions asked before asking.

Pritish

From: runde@mlode.mms.com (Aline H. Runde - MicroModule Systems)

Dear Trevor,

To answer to your question, I pick #3

3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

because there are different levels of System Admins in this group, so the most junior ones will benefit from the gurus, and I learned a lot from this group.

Regards,

Aline...

From: jworache@uns-dv1.jcpenney.com (John R Worachek)

============================================================================== John Worachek - Technical Specialist JCPenney Company, Inc - Unix Network Systems 12700 Park Central Place - Mailstop 6021 - Dallas, TX 75251 voice: 972-431-7396 fax: 972-687-9615 email: jworache@jcpenney.com ==============================================================================

From: Wis Macomson <wis@sequent.com>

Hi,

I think you're seeing a lot of newbie administrators asking honestly. Unfortunately, many of them are asking before R'ing the F -M or -faq, which I think is bothersome to more people than just you. In addition, some of the experience-challenged aren't lurking for a couple of weeks (paying their dues?) before posting, which seems to have the effect of repeating questions on the same subject.

I have learned a lot by just reading, and I respond (by mail) to those questions that I can. I think I have yet to post a question, because they all seem to get answered in the fullness of time. Therefore, I would strongly disagree with a strictly limited list (ala "root@machine"), since then I wouldn't be able to watch this stuff fly by. I do think that new arrivals should be conditioned to read the manuals and keep their ears open before posting, but I'm sure they are coming in with a Usenet mentality.

Maybe a regular (weekly, even?) reminder about content. Also, when responding to the obvious queries, a firm injunction to check the man pages would help. There's no better way to learn than having to dig the answers yourself, and there's no reason for the list readership to have to do the basics of sys-admin for every beginner.

I think you are sensing an increase in the noise level in the list, and I appreciate your pointing it out, well before it becomes a problem.

-wis -- Wis Macomson c/o wis@sequent.com

From: "Alfredo Sola" <asola@intelideas.com>

> 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems > admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe > user etc.. > 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

I am between those two. I find it valuable as it is now, but a more restricted approach would benefit us all. I have myself asked one or two questions that would fit better in a more general "sun-admin" mailing list. I'd subscribe that list too. OTOH, I don't think the level of the list has reached rtfm...

Saludos,

Alfredo Sola.

From: "Eric William Burger" <ericb@telecnnct.com>

I agree. However, this is an unmoderated list. The people that ask "How do I edit a file?" also probably won't read the FAQ.

Maybe another list is the thing to do. The only "Get a life" part is that knowledgeable people probably would stay as far as they could get from the "basic-users" list. There wouldn't be anyone on the list that could respond to the questions posted. If I were a "basic-user", I'd probably end up back here.

[I'm living this on the mac-managers and mac-wizards lists. They're virtual duplicates at this point.]

-- - Eric

From: "Mark L Roberts" <mlroberts@dow.com>

3,5

-- Mark L. Roberts Phone 517-636-7570 Comprehensive Systems Inc. Fax 517-636-1952 --at Dow Chemical Company-- email mlroberts@dow.com Computer Modeling & Information Management (CMIS) 1776 Building, Midland, MI 48674 Open Systems forever Christianity is an open system not proprietary all are welcome who acknowledge Christ and his specs and try to follow them!

From: obryhimk@gecmc.gecmc.ge.com (Kerry O'Bryhim)

I vote for #3.

Most "Systems Administrator" on this list are at the top of the field. But there is always a bottom. I agree some of the posts are very basic. I hope that by tolerating a low level question it will make it to the SUMMARY archives and the person posting it will be able to pop it off the top of their head the next time. We all started at the bottom and some people just fake a better resume.

Just a side note - I see more subscribe and deletes from people who can't figure out the majordomo than I do stupid questions.

From: tomp <tomp@bitstream.net>

This has been bothering me too lately. I've been thinking of asking the list mom to make a similar post. My vote is 1. Half of my in box belongs in comp.sys.sun.admin

tomp

From: Rich Kulawiec <rsk@itw.com>

>Is it just me or do the questions being posted to this list seem to be >getting more and more at the "user-level"? I am not knocking this list in any >way. This is a VERY valuable resource to the Sun admin community.

Yes, I've noticed. I tend to ignore any question that can be answered by (a) reading the manuals or (b) reading the FAQ. Increasingly, I'm starting to ignore any question that can be answered by (c) browsing the Sun-Manager's archives or (d) using a web searching engine like Alta Vista and a couple of relevant keywords. I use all four of those, plus SunSolve and the AnswerBooks, before bothering people on Sun-Managers, and I expect everyone else, from guru-level system geniuses to newbie admins pressed into service without warning, to do the same. Those who are unwilling to do this are not suitable to be Unix system administrators, and should do us all a favor by getting into another line of work. Yes, that's pretty tough -- so is being a Unix sysadmin. The decision for each person is, as they say, to run with the big dogs or stay on the porch.

I suppose that's because I've been doing Unix for 16 years: I started at a time when there were no books, no FAQs, no mailing lists, no newsgroups, no web, no nothing -- the sum total of Unix documentation in the world was (1) the two inches of manuals that came with your tapes and (2) the single issue of the Bell Systems Technical Journal that had a dozen-or-so papers on Unix in it. We learned to be self-reliant, individually, and to not bother each other, collectively, unless we had *really* well-considered questions.

Some people see this as an elitist attitude -- I think it's nothing of the sort. I'm willing to help the greenest of sysadmins with the simplest of problems IF they are willing to show some evidence that they've tried to help themselves. But I'll refuse to help anybody who doesn't even try, who just throws their hands up, and mails Sun-Managers with easily-answered questions whenever they're stuck. *And* I expect every single one of those people to try, however much they can, to return the help to the community. Those people who are just starting today will be very experienced in five years, and it will be their turn to help others. (And of course, I expect them to help now by sending along well-written summaries.)

>Please choose one of the following and email back to me:

> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

There you go. :-)

BTW, I may use some of the above in my own summary about the mechanics of this mailing list -- I've gotten some interesting mail in that regard as well.

Cheers, Rich

From: sagray@amp.com (Steve Gray)

> Please choose one of the following and email back to me:

Well, I'm kinda in between these, so let's see...

> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

Being a real grass-roots user, who's into free exchange of useful information, I'm not happy with restricting anything. If the questions from the users/subscribers are trending away from the original puspose of the list, maybe we need to examine/re-evaluate the charter.

> 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems > admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe > user etc..

All well and good, but one thing I can't do from behind my lovely corporate firewall is mail out as root@anywhere. The mail forwarder wants to know who I really am...

> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

I feel somewhat the same, and I tolerate all questions, with the exception of the occasional spam.

> 4) I don't care what gets posted or by whom.

See #3.

> 5) Get a life!

I wouldn't go THAT far...

But, today of all days, we seem to be getting a lot of the flakey posts. Some days are better (or worse) than others, I guess... :-)

______ / __/ /____ _ _____ Steve Gray (sagray@amp.com) _\ \/ __/ -_) |/ / -_) AMP Incorporated, Hbg PA /___/\__/\__/|___/\__/ (717) 986-5722

From: manderso@neon.mitretek.org (Mark S. Anderson)

> > Please choose one of the following and email back to me: > > 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted

From: Ray Brownrigg <Ray.Brownrigg@isor.vuw.ac.nz>

> Please choose one of the following and email back to me: > 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted to more sun-manager questions.

One way I think this could be done is to allow postings to come only from subscribers to the list, with an automailer to all others describing how to subscribe as well as a copy of the FAQ. The only noise this will not suppress is "How do I unsubscribe?" :-)

Regards Ray Brownrigg <ray@isor.vuw.ac.nz> http://www.isor.vuw.ac.nz/~ray

From: Ray Brownrigg <Ray.Brownrigg@isor.vuw.ac.nz>

I just said:

> One way I think this could be done is to allow postings to come only > from subscribers to the list, with an automailer to all others > describing how to subscribe as well as a copy of the FAQ. The only noise > this will not suppress is "How do I unsubscribe?" :-)

Better still would be to autorespond with just the FAQ. Then if they cannot be bothered to read it, they will not find out how to subscribe!

Ray

From: "Andy `speed-racer' Wagliardo" <awagliar@hubcap.core-dump.com>

Hmmm... I agree with you to a *large* extent. There are many questions that appear to be a bit too simplistic for the average (or perhaps even a sub-par) admin (I often feel sorry for the companies that some of these posters work for!), but then again there are those questions that are beyond my scope and knowledge. I would tend to align myself most with Option #1. Option #2 is a good idea, but probably wouldn't work for two reasons: a) on many machines, <root> mail is forwarded to several people, some of which may not want to receive mail from this list, and b) even people with <root> access can ask dumb questions. I can understand Options 3 & 4, because it is an open list, and it isn't all that difficult to delete messages that I don't care to read.

If you think this list is bad, you should see the UNIX-Wizards list! Rarely do I see something worthy of a "wizard".

Thanks for the thought-provoking message...

.-. Andy "speed-racer" Wagliardo <awagliar@cs.vt.edu> .-. / \ .-. Virginia Tech .-. / \ / \ / \ .-. _ .-. / \ / \ /-------\-------/-----\-----/---\---/-\---/---\-----/-----\-------/-------\-- \ / \ / `-' `-' \ / \ / \ \ / `-' Computer Science `-' \ / \ `-' http://www.core-dump.com/~awagliar/ `-' snail://USA/VA/Blacksburg/202 Barringer Hall/Andy Wagliardo/

From: Robert <tel1rxn@is.ups.com>

From: Marina.Daniels@ccd.tas.gov.au (Marina Daniels)

I don't think it hurts to have pretty basic questions, as long as they are technical ones and restricted to sun systems. We've all got to learn some time.

Often in smaller companies, there may be only 1 computer support person who is supposed to know everything, administer sun systems and never given any training or any help.

It is in our best interests (from a security viewpoint) for these people to know as much about how their system works as possible, otherwise "crackers" could more easily use these systems as a jumping-off point from which to attack other systems. (use their resources for cracking passwords etc.)

Marina

From: gcarr@lanl.gov (Gary Carr)

This answer is closest to my own opinion, but not a perfect match.

3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

I don't really mind an occasional "dumb" question, I've asked a number myself at one time or another. I would get upset it I saw one person continuously asking "dumb" questions that he/she could easily find in a man page or other documentation. I haven't seen that sort of abuse on this mailing list.

It seems to me that there is a hidden assumption behind your choices, namely that a "system administrator" should be an expert or "Unix Wizard". I suspect that anyone who does system administration for any length of time will eventually become a "Wizard", but many system administrators don't start out that way.

Where I work it isn't at all unusual for a relatively inexperienced person to be initially assigned to a full time system admin job, with the expectation that they will become expert over time.

It is even more common for some one to be assigned as a system administrator (possibly of several different types of systems) as a part time job. This will be in addition to their full time job as a scientist, engineer, or programmer. They don't have time to become an expert system administrator, they just need to do enough to keep their systems running. You could argue that this is not the best way to manage systems (and I would agree with you), but it is a very common approach here.

I would guess that many of the "novice" questions you see on this list come from people in the previous two categories.

From: popelka@cnaindex.mtb.phil.mop.com (Glenn Popelka)

The major problem is that the list has been gatewayed to the newsgroups, allowing the unwashed masses (Al Gore's legions of internet weenies) access to the list. This more than anything has contributed to the decline in quality of the group.

The list is vastly different from what it was 5-6 years ago, and it will never be the same again. Just a few minutes ago somebody asked if there was something special about the 'b' partition on a disk. I think there is a certain minimum body of knowledge that one should be acquainted with before posting to the group, but it's a hopeless cause to fight them. I'll probably unsubscribe when the irritation gets to be too much. It's too bad; at one time this list was of the highest calibre.

I think a variant of #2 is the way to go. Subcriptions can go to any address (eg mail-exploders) but the request (and a subsequent confirm) must come from root. Also, a special list for Vic Germani aliased to /dev/null.

glenn

From: comp-sun!randy@uu6.psi.com (Randy Styka)

I'll pick option 3.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Computronics Randy Styka, randy@computron.com | | 4N165 Wood Dale Road Phone: 630/941-7767 | | Addison, Illinois 60101 USA Fax: 630/941-7714 | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+

From: Simon Gibbons <simong@aifs.org.au>

Hi Trevor,

None of the above. Please don't forget the learners. The diversity of questions aids the beginner enourmously. I do care what gets posted and I respect your right to question the content of the list. However it is very rare that I find a posting which is beyond the scope of a Sun System Manager's daily tasks.

I'm happy with the current content and I'm also happy that members such as yourself are willing to question the status quo.

Regards, Simon

Simon Gibbons Technology Services Officer Australian Institute of Family Studies Melbourne, Australia Tel: 61-3-9214 7880 Fax: 61-3-9214 7839 simong@aifs.org.au

From: david@sisters.salem.edu (David H. Dezern)

3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

~~~ David H. Dezern david@sisters.salem.edu Administrative Computing, Salem Academy & College (910) 917-5460

From: Mary Lou Hinman <maryh@cea.Berkeley.EDU>

1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted to more sun-manager questions.

Mary Hinman Center for EUV Astrophysics U.C. Berkeley

P.S. Frankly, I have started to filter what I consider less administration level questions just by the title. I won't read something that just says HELP!!!

From: Sher <sher@quantum.time.com.my>

i choose 1

From: szh@zcon.com (Syed Zaeem Hosain)

My response is:

1) I feel the same and would simply like people to read and adhere to the stated charter of the list. Which to ask for help on time-critical problems, not stuff they can get from Usenet newsgroups or from Sun sales critters.

Zaeem ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Syed Zaeem Hosain P. O. Box 610097 (408) 441-7375 | | Z Consulting Group San Jose, CA 95161 szh@zcon.com | -------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Francis Liu <fxl@pulse.itd.uts.edu.au>

On Tue, 19 Nov 1996, Trevor Paquette wrote:

> > 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

I think this would be a waste of the listadministrator's time.

> 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems > admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe > user etc..

This is not good enough. Some administrative teams don't ever login as root. Some places have root@machine aliased to a bunch of people so that they all get notified of errors, thus sending mail to root@machine might be considered a spam.

> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

I ignore the questions that I feel are too user-ish, but occassionally I will answer one for the hell of it.

I like option 2, ie there should be a list for admins and a list for users, much like comp.unix.questions and comp.unix.wizards, I don't know what would be the easiest way of changing sun-managers culture to support the two groups. Also, who is going determine who can join each group? We may find that the newbies join both groups. Sometimes, the administrator is not a "professional" administrator, but is someone who has been roped into lokking after a couple of machines, these people are not admins, but are engineers, or scientists or something, but these sort of people deserve our help.

In the too hard basket for me.

Francis -- Francis.Liu@uts.edu.au Talk: +61 2 9514 2091 Systems Programmer Fax : +61 2 9514 1999 University of Technology, Sydney - Information Technology Division

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.

From: cgo@dsi.elis.fr (Cyril GODON)

3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

Cyril

From: Herbert Wengatz <hwe@uebemc.siemens.de>

+> Is it just me or do the questions being posted to this list seem to be +> getting more and more at the "user-level"? I am not knocking this list in any

You seem to be right.

+> way. This is a VERY valuable resource to the Sun admin community.

Of course it is!

+> I have been noticing lately that some of the levels of questions being posted +> to +> this list are not of (what I would call) the "Systems Administrator" level. I +> would expect any self-respecting systems admin or "sun manager" would know +> the answers to alot of these questions off the top of thier head.

OK. I think I'd like to tell you a little about "real life". I've been working now for about 8 years as consultant and Unix (especially Sun) Supporter and Administrator.

You are right in what the appearance of this list seems to go to, but - let me tell you, that I very often have seen people, which had absolutely nothing to do with good systemsadministration, even not with DOS or Networking, even don't dare to mention Unix. - And these poor guys were "made" (by proclamation of their bosses the new "UNIX-Administrator".

They are obviously in desparate need for our help, and they are asking the stupidest questions you can imagine. They do nearly everything wrong!

But most of them are willing to learn and make their way. - But they all need someone to ask! - It's true, most of these questions are answered in the FAQ, so you should tell them, to read the FAQ the next problem arises, first. - But when that fails, they should be allowed to ask.

It's often this way: The poorer the question, the higher the need for help!

So have a heart and give from your rich knowledge. - Think back at the time, when you didn't knew, what a pipe is, how to set your own prompt, or how to revoke a system, after you failed editing the /etc/fstab.

Many people which are new on that list are from very far and strange countries. They VERY often have absolutely nobody, not even a FAQ! - The only thing they have, is that list.

Save them their lives! - You will feel better and they will for sure, too!

Don't be too selfish!

+> I am in no way trying to point fingers at anyone, just making observations. I +> have seen many very basic questions being posted here that, in my opinion +> are in not way related to sun-management. +> +> Please choose one of the following and email back to me: +> +> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted +> to more sun-manager questions.

Yes. - By telling them to use the FAQ, first!

+> 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems +> admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe +> user etc..

So we do build up a new elite-group? A new, clean Aryan Reich in the Internet? "Sieg Heil !?" :-(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( (I don't even have enough "(" for that case! )

BTW: In many larger companies it's not allowed to use "root@" for postings in the Internet. Too many internal people involved. - That's the WRONG way. - Defintely!

+> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

I vote for 3 !

+> 4) I don't care what gets posted or by whom. +> 5) Get a life! +> +> Comments welcome... +>

Regards,

Herbert

_____________________________________________________________________ Herbert Wengatz GABO mbH Munich |Office mailto:hwe@uebemc.siemens.de Private mailto:hwe@rtfact.muc.de | This mail is my own opinion, not http://www.muc.de/~hwe/rtfact | that of my employer! "Laugh, and the world will ignore you.- Crying won't make it better!"

From: " Rogerio Rocha - BVL - Lisbon Stock Exchange -I.S." <rogerio@bvl.pt>

<fixed>> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

</fixed>Best regards,

Rogerio Rocha

rogerio@bvl.pt

BVL - Lisbon Stock Exchange

Information Systems

From: vahsenr@ce.philips.nl (Rob.Vahsen)

Hi Trevor,

You address a very good point. I agree with you on restricting the list to deeper sysadmin questions.... So I 'vote' for 1). I don't know if 2) is good because we have a lot of root users here and do not want to put a script between root's mail !

Greatings, Rob V

============================================================================== Rob Vahsen | Tel : +31 (0)40 27 37305 PHILIPS Consumer Electronics B.V. | Fax : +31 (0)40 27 36540 Origin Information Technology SK-451 | Email: Rob.Vahsen@ehv.CE.Philips.COM PO-box 80002, 5600 JB, Eindhoven, NL | Seri : vahsenr@nlcecss1 ==============================================================================

From: nsp83273@cae091.ed.ray.com (Neal S. Pressman ex 2317)

3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

as i see it most of us admin's were at one time users. as users we had questions and were very apreciative of help given to up by those more qualified the ourselves.

if you dont wish to read the postings of "user-level" problems look at the subject and delete them.

also keep in mind you may someday have a question that other people on this list feel is trivial but you will get answers to the question.

the only postings the bug the hell out of me are the delete me, remove me, how do i get off this list postings.

\\|// (0~0) ----------------------------oooO-(_)-Oooo---------------------------- Neal S. Pressman Raytheon Electronic Systems System Administrator (MCAE) 528 Boston Post Road phone: (508) 440-2317 Sudbury, MA 01776 fax: (508) 440-2684 ms 4-1-283 E-mail: nsp@cae091.ed.ray.com ____________________________________Oooo.____________________________ .oooO (___)

From: mshon@sunrock.East.Sun.COM (Michael J. Shon {*Prof Services} Sun Rochester)

3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

From: Systems Administrator <sysadmin@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu>

Trevor,

I can't merely reply with one of your preset answers. Although I do care what goes on in this group I don't just tolerate simple or off beat questions...I welcome them. I'm sure you will find a lot of people who disagree, this is just my opinion.

I manage a network of about 70 Sun workstations plus several high end Sun servers. I have just about everything here and things are getting added every day. One day I might encounter a new part of the Sun system that I have never encountered before. As we all know, the documentation is not always easy to use. If I feel like I will be shunned for posting a "basic" question to this group then how good of a resource is it???

I don't come specifically from a computer background. I have learned a lot just by doing it and from talking to other people. There are many aspects of admin that I still have no idea about. I find all too often that there are more people than not telling everybody that they know so much about UNIX/admin that they don't need any resources BUT they are rarely willing to help others. This group has proven to be EXTREMELY different. Although there have been a few rare cases of flames to simple questions or overlooked answers, overall everybody here has been more than willing to help. I don't think we need to turn this list innto another elitist UNIX group where the only time people are willing to talk is when they all band together and flame some poor unsuspecting soul who ventures to ask what may be a basic question.

I may be the minority here but this group has basically been my schooling and support. At first I asked a lot of stupid questions and I will probablly continue to ask them at times, but I now know how to start to solve the problems before I come to this group. If this group gets moderated too much and people put more effort into policeing the group than they do answering the questions, who will really be left out? If everybody already knows everything then they don't need this group.

IMHO...If you think something is too simple, the wrong subject, or whatever then don't read it!

I mean no offense to you or to anyone in the group. I just value this list and don't want to see it destroyed by segregating the heck out of it!

Respectfully,

Vic Germani

-- *************************************************************** Systems Administrator ----------------------- Space Sciences Building Vic Germani Cornell University (607)-255-3434 402 Space Sciences sysadmin@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu ***************************************************************

From: "Louis C. Liao" <liaol@edsug.com>

> 3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

However, the charter also states that everyone must post summaries. That is not true in some cases.

-- \\\// oOOo |o -| || http://www.ug.eds.com +-------oOOo+-U-+--//------------------------------+ | Louis Liao,ASE (liaol@edsug.com) W:714-952-6485 | | EDS - Unigraphics F:714-952-5758 | +--------------------------------------------------+

From: "Matt Hill" <MHILL@graver.com>

i agree with your statements, and i would be inclined to chose option '1' below, but i don't really know how the list could be restricted to 'manager-ish' questions or who would even try to define such a thing. in the end, people will get away with what the list will tolerate. if people get flamed for posting stupid questions, then they will stop. but the list seems to tolerate most of these user-level questions, so i imagine people will continue to ask them. i, for one, don't know a way around it.

-- Matthew J. Hill hill@graver.com

From: Douglas Vanderlip <dvande01@pdc.trsv.eds.com>

I think in this multi platform world we all live in and manage, I find this group of people the most helpful. I would love to post questions of none Sun nature to a different group. But how could I manage 14 different hardware platforms, approx. 75 different applications, and 7 or 8 different OS levels. and be a member of that many mailing list? I use the one that is most helpful. AND sun-managers by far out does every other list I have tried.

Regards, Doug Vanderlip dvande01@pdc.trsv.eds.com

3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions.

5) Get a life!

From: John.Denune@Lowell.edu (John Denune)

> Is it just me or do the questions being posted to this list seem to be > getting more and more at the "user-level"? I am not knocking this list in any

Yes, I agree completely!! In addition to all the subscribe/unsubscribe crap, there are many questions that could be answered simply by reading a man page or two. It's very frustrating.

A larger issue is a disturbing trend I have seen for the past few years in that GUI tools are becoming more common as a way to administer machines. Although they have their good points, the problem I see is a new breed of administrators who completely rely on the tools and have no clue what the tools are doing or how to do things by hand if needed. In effect, tools are breeding a "part time" sysadmin who really doesn't understand what they are doing and it gives management the impression that administration is "easy". "Anyone can be a sysadmin since all they have to do is run this tool..."

> Please choose one of the following and email back to me: > > 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

I agree, but the question is how?

> 2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems > admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe > user etc..

Hmm... Might work. It depends on if the inappropriate questions are coming from users or sysadmins who don't kow how to read man pages.

I'm glad you brought up this issue. I have had some good sysadmin friends drop from this list since the traffic in stupid questions became too high. I have thought about dropping myself, and if the current trend continues, I probably will. Many people don't seem to read man pages, read the FAQ's, or search the Sun Managers database and just simply post a question. It's all very frustrating, but with no clear answer. I fear we may lose a lot of good people who are just too tired of seeing the same old questions over and over.

I look forward to your summary.

+ ___ * . .'|*|`. + John Denune ,/\ |_|_|_| . Computer Systems Manager ,/ `\ ,/\ | | Lowell Observatory ,/ `/ `\ | | (520) 774-3358 x214 ,/ ,/' `\. ______|_____|_________denune@lowell.edu_________/____Flagstaff, AZ____\__

From: Stuart.Little@dpcs-sw.co.uk

3) I feel the same but I tolerate all questions

Depends on your overall incoming mail I suppose. It is easy enough to hit the delete button. Other problem is that sys-admins aren't always born into the job, they get dropped in it when the existing guy leaves...at least that is what happened to me 3 years ago. The perceived size of a problem depends upon what you have encountered and fixed before, if you have only just started and your manager is giving you grief you might well feel the need to fire off requests at every resource you know of just to get an answer, I've done it myself recently when our backup system blew up after an 'upgrade' :-(

Having said that some of the questions do appear to have been sent without any manual scanning having gone before. But the argument to that could be that not all sites have the spare disk to install Answerbook and so it is more difficult to get info. Pass really, at the moment I don't find it a great strain but then I don't subscribe to the firewalls list anymore :-)

Cheers, Stuart

--- Stuart Little E-mail:<Stuart.Little@dpcs-sw.co.uk> Systems Support/Design Phone: +44-1438-738110 SysAdmin Fax: +44-1438-738187 DPCS Software Group, supporting Alcatel Submarine Networks, UK

From: miquel@proton.uab.es (Miquel Cabanas. BBM-UAB)

this was my initial choice,

1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted to more sun-manager questions.

then i did a (personal) summary of the questions posted starting after yours until now (Wed Nov 20 20:26:25 MET 1996)

types of questions (acoording to my personal criteria) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 short summary & garbage . . a brief report on the fix plus the unedited original message 2 long summary & garbage . . . a detailed and many times worth summary with all the replies attached to it) 3 great summary . . . . . . . as summaries should be 4 non related question . . . . that should NOT have posted 5 average question . . . . . . easy to answer by reading (R)TFM, the Solaris AnswerBook, any basic/advanced admin books (O'Reilly, Sunsoft...) 6 difficult question . . . . . (from my point of view) it can be a bug, a conflict between programs, a PANIC, a crash (see nis and sendmail questions below) 7 nis/nis+ question: . . . . . does NIS/NIS+ need a separated list? 8 sendmail question: . . . . . all those usually would into the 'difficult question' section 9 printcap/config questions . (no comment) 10 a contribution . . . . . . . good admins sharing security advises, findings, and so on 11 asking recommendations . . . 'what program do you use for...?' 'anyone has experience using...' 'whare can i get a program for...' 12 subscribe/unsubscribe . . . no comment ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

type no ---- ---- 1 1 |x 2 0 | 3 16 |xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 4 4 |xxxx 5 13 |xxxxxxxxxxxxx 6 9 |xxxxxxxxx 7 2 |xx 8 1 |x 9 2 |xx 10 2 |xx 11 7 |xxxxxxx 12 1 |x

Now, i'd say that (if we think that most of nis and sendmail questions would classify as 'difficult questions'... well, the list (still) seems to be quite good.

So, after running this quest my vote is biased toward:

2) I feel the same and I think a new mailing list for sun systems admin people need to be created. (Only root@machine can subscribe user etc..

but i'm afraid enforcing the only-root policy can be too restrictive in certain sites.

miquel

Miquel E Cabanas --------------------------------------------------- SeRMN & BBM - Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Catalunya - Spain

e-mail: miquel@proton.uab.es url: http://bbm-web.uab.es/biomed-nmr/miquel_angles.html ------------------------------------------o-oo--ooo---ooo--oo-o-----

From: Bob Woodward <bobw@kramer.filmworks.com>

I guess I'm a cross between your options 3 and 4. I am the SysAdmin for the Sun here at SFW but I'm such a newbie to it all that I may ask questions that would be very simple in nature. I'm quite an accomplished database programmer with many, many years of experience at it but I'm now in charge of our internet site. I come from the PC world and a year ago, the best I could say about my Unix experience was that I knew how to SPELL Unix. A lot of what I know now is because of 'trial by fire' business requirements.

I read almost every message that comes across this mail list. Some of them I save and many of them I blow away waiting for the summary message to come. The messages that are of a user's perspective are still of value to me. I do care that the mail list does not get cluttered up with junk but I also recognize that there are many others in the same boat as myself where my duties are split with my 'regular' job and I'm doing the best I can.

I try to give back to the group even though I don't feel I'm qualified to assume I know as much as MANY of the others that help out here.

I don't think we should label questions as being 'user-level' and therefore unjustified to be asked of this group. The questions I feel are inapproprate I just delete and forget about.

My two cents worth.... :-)

---------- Bob Woodward, Seattle FilmWorks (bobw@filmworks.com) Data Processing Department

Visit our Web Site to learn about getting your pictures via downloads on the Internet! Point your browser to "http://www.filmworks.com".

From: kwong@solar.acast.nova.edu (James Kwong)

My vote is #1

-- James.

From: A.Chan@CdnAir.CA (Alan Chan)

3 for me.

============================================================================== Alan Chan | Phone: 604-279-2900 Canadian Airline International | Fax: 604-279-2905 System Administrator (Contractor) | Email: a.chan@cdnair.ca Alan Chan Consulting Services | ==============================================================================

From: thaven@world.std.com (Timothy W Haven)

1 AND 3. I am sometimes overwhelmed by the volume of messages, but am unsure what is a fair way to restrict it.

Timothy Haven

From: john@tdi.com (John)

> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

I prefer that the question at least have any connection to Sun. Not like the stupid posting for job ads and win95/nt crap.

John

From: blymn@awadi.com.au (Brett Lymn)

It is an unfortunate fact of life that there are still a lot of managers out there that have not grasped the concept that administering a computer (not only unix but any system) is different to being computer literate. It seems that a lot of these managers seem to think along the lines "Hmmm Billy-Joe-Bob seems to know a lot about computers.... HE can run our WAN for us" and BANG this poor sap is supposed to make some system that he has only been using before hang together. Sometimes these people don't know enough to realise they are not asking an appropriate question - gently guiding them into asking appropriate questions is the approach I normally use.

BTW I would strongly discourage the idea of only accepting mail from root@somewhere - I shudder when I see this because it implies to me that this guy is in the habit of using root for mundane things. I try to discourage this because it does leave you more open to those "Oops" errors that as a normal user may have been harmless but has root can be devastating.

-- Brett Lymn, Computer Systems Administrator, AWA Defence Industries =============================================================================== "Upgrading your memory gives you MORE RAM!" - ad in MacWAREHOUSE catalogue.

From: Nick Murray <nmurray@csd.abdn.ac.uk>

> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted > to more sun-manager questions.

From: Mike Youngberg <mikey@synacom.com>

----------------------------------------------------------- mikey@synacom.com (408) 296-0303 Fax: (408) 296-0982 Mike Youngberg ****Synacom Technology**** 4340 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 205, San Jose, CA 95129

From: Tom Mornini <tmornini@infomania.com>

All of the above? I think that Solaris x86 has made LOTS of new, single system (theirs) sys-admins. I started there (on Sparc, learned a LOT, and didn't ask questions for a long time, since I read some articles about netiquete before I went out and blasted the lists. I DO wish that others would do the same. If you watch this beast for a month, you're newbie questions will almost certainly get answered.

-- Tom Mornini -- InfoMania

From: Leonard Sitongia <sitongia@rancor.hao.ucar.edu>

|> From sun-managers-relay@ra.mcs.anl.gov Tue Nov 19 08:49 MST 1996

|> |> 1) I feel the same and I would like to see this group restricted |> to more sun-manager questions.

I'll select this one, even though I'm pretty tolerant. I suspect that the very basic questions are coming from people who do have to administer their own systems, even though they are not professional system admins, even at entry level. I would hope those people would go to the newsgroups for such basic questions.

==Leonard

--Leonard E. Sitongia Computer System Management Team (CSMT) sitongia@ncar.ucar.edu voice: (303)497-1509 fax: (303)497-1589 High Altitude Observatory P.O. Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307 USA

From: russell@mds.lmco.com (Russell David)

4) I don't care what gets posted or by whom.

I feel that there are many levels of responsibility for administrators. Some Admins have to deal with user level junk so I do not mind reading a summary and hitting the delete key.

Dave Russell

From: coe@altair.becta.tscs.com (Andy Coe)

In reply to your opinion survey .....

I myself am just a lowly CADD Designer who is the only person left out of about 10 people who used to share and program with the SPARC System. With these days of cut backs, layoffs and people leaving on their own accord, people like myself end up maintaining a system previously installed by a "System Administrator" who also wrote software for the entire company (23 offices from Sacramento to Sarasota). Yes I agree that some of these questions should be known by the average "System Administrator".

But with society becoming what it is low life "users" like myself have to maintain these very intelligent network systems. I myself am not intimidated by the Unix platform, but do need assistance from this very informative mailing list from time to time. I have learned alot about the environment of the Unix platform and am very interested in the "Administration" side.

On the other hand ..... These Unix systems are almost (I stress almost) self maintaining. Some companies don't see the need to keep a "Systems Administrator" on the payroll. Therefore they hire them to install these intelligent systems, get them working well, then lay them off. It's cheaper for them to "Contract" a Computer Support Company to come in when necessary (like to replace a hard drive, upgrade, etc.) for maintenance. People like myself have to keep the boss happy and learn some menial maintenance (backups, archives, etc.) so the need for Support is less.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but if you've been through what I have and seen all the friends at work pushed out, layed off, etc., you would understand more why people like myself fell the way I do. I hope this doesn't make you feel vulnerable about your employment situation.

We here have 6 SPARC Stations (3 - 10 30s' an IPX and 2 - 10 41s') along with 10 PC's (using PCNFS) in an Engineering environment (Roadway, Civil, Survey) and I am the only one left who even uses the SPARC daily for CADD (expensive?).

Have a nice day.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andrew Coe, CADD Designer/Systems Manager | Just because I have access to a Boyle Engineering Corporation | SPARCstation doesn't mean I know 505 East Jackson Street, Suite 300 | how it works! But I have figured Tampa, Florida 33602-4935 | out a few things! Seems like people Ph: (813) 223-7900, Ext. 1207 | keep leaving and noone replaces FAX: (813) 221-0799 | them. Cutbacks? Management? E-mail: coe@becta.tscs.com | Either way it SUCKS!!!!! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Matthias Kurz <mk@baerlap.north.de>

I thought a little bit about 2, but i think everyone should be able to read the list. I'd wish there would be a possibility to encourage people to think twice whether a question is appropriate for this list or not.

My answer comes very late. That's because i can't handle the traffic in this list any more. I route everything in a separate folder and browse through it from time to time. Very seldom i see a message that is fresh enough for an answer. I keep the connection open in the hope that some time, when i really need help, someone will see my message...

-- Matthias Kurz; Fuldastr. 3; D-28199 Bremen; VOICE +49 421 53 600 47

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