Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.os.linux.misc > #7662

Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger?

Show all headers | View raw

On Tuesday 26 March 2013 00:15 Bruce Sinclair wrote in comp.os.linux.misc:
> 
> All I'm saying is that "communication" is not one sided (ie someone puts
> some information somewhere). Either you want to communicate or you don't.
> Many organisations seem not to care these days (ie say they want to but
> don't act like they want to). I think that is a "Bad Thing". :)
> Your "solution" would not work for me. You would be failing to communicate
> with me.

Fair enough if you feel like that, but as a member of my department, you 
would be deemed to have some duty to make an effort to reveive 
communication.

Look - there is one person in my team - me. I build and support 150 linus 
servers, 10 or so Windows servers, the hardware (VMWare ESX) that they live 
on and advise my developer colleagues on ground that lies equally between us 
(OS matters, RDBMSs and apache for example).

I simply do not have the time to hand deliver telegrams to people or pander 
to every personal whim.
 
>>You are very quick to rubbish an approach when the alternatives seem less
>>desireable:
> 
> You appear to be deciding this without reference to your users. Again,
> while this seems these days to be a common approach, it still isn't a good
> one IMO. :)

I will accept that - for now - but with reference to the "don;t have time" 
noted above.

Our folk are not even all physically present - many are are remote sites or 
work from home. I can chat with a few developers about stuff like this, and 
do, but for now, this communication is more than exsited when I arrived 
there.

> 
>>1) Email everything all the time. Yep - tried that. Along with all the
>>other "spam" my colleagues get from other sources, they tend to blank it
>>out - as do I wtih other messages.
>>I reserve email for "really important" messages.
> 
> Interesting. Spam filtering is easy and powerful these days. I no longer
> get any (OK, maybe 1 a month :) ).

You misunderstand. It's not SPAM spam (aka willy pills). It's "spam" as in 
"I'm not interested". There's a lot of it - college wide emails, 
school(faculty) wide, other departmental stuff.

The last thing people want (and I do know this because several said to me) 
is more "crap". Hence the decision to reduce my dept wide emails to only the 
most urgent - those that refer to something that affects everyone.

Hence I have to put the rest of the information somewhere. And for now, this 
is the best I have.

> What I do do is to sort incoming emails into folders. Email would work for
> me (as I could see there was a message from "IT guy" in the IT folder). If
> I then choose not to read it, my bad. I reckon I miss maybe 1 important
> email every 3 months at the moment. Happy to live with that. :)
> 
> 
>>2) Force all users to use company managed desktops. That worked at my last
>>place, but there, we had a team of 11 programmers - and Linux, Windows and
>>MacOSX desktops were very well supported.
>>Here, I am running 160 servers, single handed. So 3 flavours of managed
>>desktop are out of the question for 60 staff. I might just manage a
>>supported linux desktop.
> 
> Locked down machines are evil. Agreed.
> 
> 
>>Also, a lot of our users work remotely on laptops which makes support even
>>harder.
> 
> Indeed.
> 
>>So - it seems to me that a web based message feed with a couple of other
>>feed machanisms are the only viable way - everyone has a browser.
> 
> Ask any users how they want the info ?
> 
> 
>>I think you are also mis-interpreting the use of Wordpress here - not that
>>I have actually explained in detail what I've done.
>>I tweaked it so that the last-modified time is treated as the publish time
>>- this makes sure any updated messages float to the top. The RSS and
>>Twitter feeds will redistribute updates.
>>I also write it not like a blog, but as a MotD - short, simple with clear
>>headings. Almost all messages are 1-2 liners.
> 
> I'm not familiar with wordpress, but what you are doing sounds better than
> most "blogs". But again ... if you put the responsibility (and the blame
> when it fails) for communication entirely on the recipient, then you
> *will* get complaints. No surprises there ... at least, not for me.
> 
> 
>>So if you have a better idea, I would be very interested - because I'm
>>stumped to do any better (without a huge amount of effort).
> 
> As I said earlier, email would be my choice. Preference would be for a
> standard (and so filterable) subject as well.
> 


>>The "post it" note analogy is unfair - this does not involve walking ointo
>>my office.
> 
> I think the analogy is indeed fair. You are putting the responsibility and
> blame on the users in both cases. Not fair.

I'm sorry you don't like it. As I said, I do not have the luxury to provide 
a custom individual service to 50 people plus a hundred or so external folk, 
any more than your bus company can afford to provide you with your favourity 
drink and paper when you ride with them.

This is the real world. There are three ways to receive information from me. 
Expecting any more at present given my work situation is unreasonable. 
Obviously you cannot know the details of my working day, but it's busy. And 
despite how I might come over here, I take pride in offering a service - 
however, the line I take is very much

"you have a lot of work for me - tell me what you need and let me manage it 
and you will get what you need."

That approach has been extremely sucessful in terms of increasing 
deliverables and decreasing systems failures and my personal appraisal 
records it so.

If my colleagues feel strongly about this, then will tell me. I do not 
however have the time to conduct endless fluffy surveys (which would piss 
them off anyway).

Your email suggestion: I've already explained why a blanket dept wide email 
will not work. However, what might be helpful would be to feed it into a 
list that people who wanted to (like yourself) could subscribe to.

That's certainly an idea with merit - not sure if I can implement this yet - 
but I will certainly tout that idea at the next opportunity.


> 
>> Nor does it involve actually checking the web page if you are
>> able to make use of RSS or Twitter feeds.
> 
> Feeds and twitter are not the answer, they are the question. The answer is
> no ... or more accurately ... why on earth would I want to do that ? ? :)
> No, I don't own a mobile phone for exactly the same reason - it has no
> value for me. :)
> 
> 
>>There is also an element of "I've done my best to communicate" - it really
>>is in their interests to avail themselves of the information - otherwise
>>there's not much I can do about it when a service goes offline for
>>scheduled work.
>>Reasonable and workable ideas most welcome!
> 
> Suggest asking the users what they want and doing that. You might be
> surprised what they come up with. It might even surprise me (they might
> like how you are doing it) ... but I doubt that. :)
> Communication is a 2 way street ... and deciding to make it one way
> without consultation will result in grumpiness. Rightly I suggest. :)
-- 
Tim Watts           Personal Blog: http://squiddy.blog.dionic.net/

http://www.sensorly.com/ Crowd mapping of 2G/3G/4G mobile signal coverage

Back to comp.os.linux.misc | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? Robert Riches <spamtrap42@jacob21819.net> - 2013-03-22 04:30 +0000
  Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? Keith Keller <kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> - 2013-03-21 21:47 -0700
  Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? "Chris F.A. Johnson" <cfajohnson@gmail.com> - 2013-03-22 01:08 -0400
  Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2013-03-22 06:57 +0000
    Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? Ivan Shmakov <oneingray@gmail.com> - 2013-03-22 17:03 +0000
      Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? Tim Watts <tw+usenet@dionic.net> - 2013-03-22 20:42 +0000
        Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? bruce.sinclair@NOSPAMORELSEagresearch.NOTco.NOTnz (Bruce Sinclair) - 2013-03-25 00:13 +0000
          Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? Tim Watts <tw+usenet@dionic.net> - 2013-03-25 09:07 +0000
            Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? bruce.sinclair@NOSPAMORELSEagresearch.NOTco.NOTnz (Bruce Sinclair) - 2013-03-26 00:15 +0000
              Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2013-03-26 01:39 +0000
                Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? Tim Watts <tw+usenet@dionic.net> - 2013-03-26 08:04 +0000
                Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2013-03-26 13:43 +0000
              Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? Tim Watts <tw+usenet@dionic.net> - 2013-03-26 08:02 +0000
                Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? bruce.sinclair@NOSPAMORELSEagresearch.NOTco.NOTnz (Bruce Sinclair) - 2013-03-27 00:17 +0000
  Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? J G Miller <miller@yoyo.ORG> - 2013-03-22 16:48 +0000
    Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2013-03-22 12:41 -0500
      Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? Robert Riches <spamtrap42@jacob21819.net> - 2013-03-23 03:56 +0000
    Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? Robert Riches <spamtrap42@jacob21819.net> - 2013-03-23 04:04 +0000
      Re: Is there an intra-machine pseudo instant messenger? J G Miller <miller@yoyo.ORG> - 2013-03-23 14:13 +0000

csiph-web