4/11 1 - blocking pings to Soda is stupid and
2 - anyone ever going to rotate the wall_log?
\_ Ok, the wall logs should be rotating now. Sorry about that.
(I'm guessing the ping blocking was a mistake; I'll unblock
them as soon as I make sure.) --mconst
\_ It's safe to say that the current management is showing no
interest in running the CSUA. There's still no information
about the organization on the web page, and no one is doing
anything about the computing resources. Isnt there an ASUC
regulation that organizations must have and publicize two
general meetings a semester? When is the CSUA's? -tom
\_ in order to save the CSUA, it must be destroyed.
\_ it just needs a small number of students who care enough
to put in a small amount of effort. maybe the csua is an
out dated and unnecessary org?
\_ Clearly it's not being run the way you want it to be so it must
be falling apart. Have you even set foot in 343 Soda in the
last six months? How about in the last six years? -dans
\_ dans: you're stupid. tom graduated from the pre-Soda
era, like the late 80s. Try 260 Evans.
\_ The CSUA office was 238 Evans, not 260. 260 was the doosh
room. I was outgoing VP when we were moving to soda hall
(I think smurf was incoming). -tom
\_ I'm well aware of this fact. In fact, it's at the heart
of my point: Given that tom graduated over a decade ago,
how is he supposed to be in tune with modern-day
undergrads? I posit that, since he works on campus, he
could walk to 343 Soda and talk to them, but he clearly
has no interest in doing so. -dans
of my point: Given that tom graduated and/or dropped out
and never looked back over a decade ago, how is he supposed
to be in tune with modern-day undergrads? I posit that,
since he works on campus, he could walk to 343 Soda and
talk to them, but he clearly has no interest in doing so.
-dans
\_ dans: you're stupid. tom never graduated.
\_ Corrected. Mea culpa. -dans
\- your brain has been classified as: small
\_ I don't exactly recall the last time I was in the CSUA
office, but it's been within the last year or so. But
that really isn't relevant; the question is how the CSUA
is serving its core constituency, and the answer is
apparently, "not very well." Scheduling and publicizing
general meetings is one of the very basic requirements
for being an ASUC student group, and the CSUA is failing
even at that. The official way to contact the politburo
is through http://csua.berkeley.edu email, so having email broken
is also a major failure, even if email accounts for undergrads
aren't as important as they used to be. -tom
\_ So when you visited the office, what did the folks there
have to say? Did they tell you the organization was in
shambles, that without the glorious light of the alumni
(meaning you), everything had gone to shit? Now, if the
question is how is the CSUA serving its core constituency,
and by core constituency you mean undergrads, the answer
is "Just fine, thank you." The office is well populated,
even at the kind of weird hours CS students keep.
Meetings are reasonably well attended. Services are being
provided to undergards, just not the services your
prioritize as important. And maybe emailing politburo@csua
is an official way to contact the politburo, but so is,
oh, I don't know, showing up at a politburo meeting, which
has always been a better way to get the politburo's
attention. I should also note that, at present, email is
not broken. -dans
\_ well, gee, when are the politburo meetings? -tom
\_ The annoying thing about this sort of stuff is that log rotation,
unblocking pings, and a number of other things are trivial two
minute fixes. Whoever is responsible for the machines should just
resign at this point if for whatever reason they're not taking care
of the most basic stuff. Yes, the CSUA is not soda, blah, blah,
but c'mon, can't be bothered to do log rotation? Oh well. At
least I'm not reading my mail here.
\_ I have some sympathy for the argument that undergrads don't
use wall, therefore wall log rotation is not important. But
that argument doesn't extend to providing basic information
on the CSUA web page and basic services (like mail) on
http://csua.berkeley.edu. -tom
\_ "He may have been a fascist, but the wall logs rotated on time"
\_ Last I checked maintaining the systems was the VP's job. If
the current VP isn't doing that, whatever, just resign and
let someone else do it. I never understood why people cling
to volunteer jobs they don't want to do.
\_ How about because no one else wants to do it. How about
because it's a thankless job where the job holder spends
most or all of his time being berated by people like tom
for a job he or she volunteered to do. -dans-dans
\_ Ah the cycle of incompetence and obsolescence.
\_ Every time I have set foot in the CSUA office in the last
12months at least, I've observed a number of people who
12 months at least, I've observed a number of people who
look like geeks from central casting [pasty thin, fat doughy]
playing video games. As an above posters suggest, we're not
playing video games. As an above poster suggests, we're not
talking about competing resouces [do we keep the office
door open, or fix log rotation], and adequate or even
door open, or fix log rotation], and adquetate or even
superlative performance on one front isnt exculpatory on
the other. When the machine went down for weeks [unprecidented
in CSUA history before the last year], what they were to be
faulted for was the lack of communication more than not
fixing it quickly. Make all the excuses you want, but if you
feel alumni involvement has value for the CSUA [to wit:
Riverbed inquiry above], you are killing that branch of the
tree. These comments about "what have you done to help"
are by and large silly, as the people involved int eh
public debates are by and large people who have "served"
or donated or have volunteered to help, but had their
overtures rebuffed. Although I suppose the current lazy
\_ Past service does not give us any right to force our
approach on the current administration. A donation with
an expecation of a quid pro quo is a purchase, not a
donation. Did it ever occur to you that there might be a
good reason why offers of assistance are refused? -dans
administration is better than a certain earlier psychotic
one ["do not blacklist me!"].
\_ Agreed. The alumni are extremely valuable. Two important
post college jobs came directly or indirectly through
Soda. !(tom || dans)
\_ The funny thing is, we've now had, what, a year of an
alumni relations politburo officer, and so far all
it has produced is a bunch of shut off accounts,
and silly blithering from dans. -tom
\_ This is where I disagree with you. I don't think the
alumni add significant value to the CSUA when it comes to
day to day operations. If someone offers help, and then
gets pissed if the offer is ignored or refused, that person
is not an altruist, he's an asshole. It's one thing for
alumni to help people find jobs, offer intelligence on
industry, or donate hardware or funds. The alumni are
well equipped to do these things. It's another thing
entirely to tell the undergrads how they should run the
organization, and, yes, administering the machines is part
of running the organization. Beginning the moment someone
graduates, drops out, or fucks off to parts unknown, he
becomes increasingly less relevant to the day to day
operations of the CSUA. I'm not arguing in support of
incompetence, I'm arguing in support of self-determination.
Many alumni, e.g. tom, don't understand the difference
because they are stuck on an idealized view of "how
things should be done." -dans
\_ "You should have a web page, the email address you
publish as a contact should work, and you should
publicize your meetings" is certainly not
an idealized view of how things should be done; it's
a complete baseline for what it means to be a
student group.
And how do you expect alumni to find people jobs
or offer intelligence on the industry when
*absolutely nothing is being done to connect
alumni with the organization*? -tom
\_ And this last paragraph is the key point. If it
sucks to use soda why would alumni login? If they
don't login to soda how else are they going to stay
in touch with the org? Telling them they need to go
out of their way to show at politburo meetings as a
requirement to assist future generations is utterly
ridiculous and a red herring.
\_ Let me be clear here: I am not even arguing that
the current politburo should definitely restore
soda to its pre-dans state. I would personally
like to see that happen, but I acknowledge that
the relevance of MOTD and wall for current
undergraduates is extremely low, and those
mechanisms really aren't creating connections
between undergrads and alumni. But what I am
arguing is that if the CSUA wants to
deemphasize or significantly change soda, it
should be as the result of a policy decision,
with specific plans for productive alternatives.
dans's blithering takes as an assumption that
the current politburo's negligence is the result
of a policy decision, but I don't think there's
any evidence of that. If the politburo were
to say "we're killing wall and MOTD and
installing phpBB and WordPress," there would
at least be a way to defend that action. But
as it is, they're simply being negligent. -tom
\_ I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. I
think it's silly to have an Alumni Rep and
some level of desire to have contact with
alums but then insist that anyone not showing
at a meeting is a useless alum. The fact is
that soda is the easiest way for alums to stay
in touch. If the current undergrads aren't
into that, oh well. If the machine eventually
goes away completey, oh well. The alumns
don't lose all that much. With people all
over the industry and academia this is a good
place to make contacts and ask questions. At
the end of the day success isn't about your
gpa or the name of your school on your degree,
it is about who knows you and is willing to
help out. Kill soda or leave it semi-broken
and alums will leave. A lot have already. Sad
but oh well. Maybe it has served its purpose
and it is time to just shut it down and walk
away.
\_ Alternatively, perhaps the issue isn't
negligence, perhaps they're just tired of
dealing with heavy-handed, self-righteous
pricks like tom. -dans
\_ What the fuck? You can't blame tom, tom
is taking the time to whine on motd but
according to you motd is irrelevant anyway.
\_ They're tired of dealing with pricks like
me, so they sit in the office playing WoW,
don't publicize their meetings, and break
the email server? Great student group. -tom
\_ "No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a
part of the main. If a clod be washed away
by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as
if promontory were, as well as if a manor
of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any
man's death diminishes me, because I am
involved in mankind; and therefore never
send to know for whom the bell tolls; it
tolls for thee."
\_ Q: How is sitting in the office playing
WoW qualitatively different than sitting
in the office playing nettrek? -dans
\_ Well, for one thing, the nettrek
players managed to keep soda up,
keep mail up, and run publicized
meetings all while avoiding
BASE OGG!!!!!!!!
\_ Thank you for making the point I
would have. I'm sure I played
more netrek than they play WoW,
but I managed to effectively
run a much more difficult hardware
and software setup, and also
publish information about our
meetings and help sessions.
(Are there any help sessions?
Nothing on the web since
Spring '06). -tom
\_ "No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a
part of the main. If a clod be washed away
by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as
if promontory were, as well as if a manor
of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any
man's death diminishes me, because I am
involved in mankind; and therefore never
send to know for whom the bell tolls; it
tolls for thee."
\_ Thank you for making my point:
Let me paraphrase our
conversation for clarity:
tom: Back in my day we had to
walk uphill to and from the
machine room and ran the
machines smoothly at great risk
to life and limb (the machines
exploded back in my day) and
played net trek to boot! The
CSUA was awesome back in my
day, they should run it my way!
dans: Then why don't you help?
tom: Oh, the politburo hasn't
responded to my emails in five
years.
dans: Think there might be a
reason for that?
tom: Back in my day we had to
walk uphill to and from the
machine room and ran the
machines smoothly at great risk
to life and limb (the machines
exploded back in my day) and
played net trek to boot! The
CSUA was awesome back in my
day, they should run it my way!o
day, they should run it my way!
dans: Uh huh.
-dans
\_ Let me paraphrase our
conversation:
dans: I'm an idiot.
tom: Yes, obviously.
-tom
\_ And you wonder why people
think you're such an
asshole that they simply
cease communication with
you.
-dans |
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