Reply to a not very happy student ..... (1999/09/20)

Reply to a not very happy student .....

Posted by Philip Ayres on 1999/09/20 13:52

A note from a VERY p****d off student with a full mail box upon
returning to uni.

You won't be the only one, I've gone away on occasions to find a huge pile
of email waiting for me.
It's what you get for being subscribed to a list. Chat has actually been
reasonably quiet this summer -
we deferred the Phantom Menace flame war till you all came back to join us.

In the intervening period you were away I had 500 + messages from one list
I'm subscribed to
(5 messages a day, 100 day break)

(Why is it the term "Uni" only entered the vocabulary after Neighbours
started showing in the UK ? (Don't discuss) )

Is there a reason why those of you with access to e-mail at home
insist on filling Chat with a pointless flame war that does little more
than fill up our in-boxes and make it impossible for some of us to
actually access our limited resource, university provided systems
in order to do some real work.

You've always got the delete key when you get back.
University mailboxes can easily be FTP'd into and Hotmailed from - my
younger brother has regularly been checking his mail at home.
Failing that unsubscribe to chat over the summer.
(Nick - now we have the web page archive how easy would this be to do as an
auto option on a student subscriber ?)

Or as our honourable chairbeing did get your account DELETED by the comp
centre staff :-)
I don't think she'll be pleased when she gets back...

Under normal circumstanes I wouldn't mind, but you are, quite
frankly, taking the p!$$.

I didn't think so. I've seen flame wars conducted for decidedly more
petty reasons than this...
There was a serious discussion being undertaken here on a sci fi topic.
Better than a lot of chat mails....

Of the 200+ messages I had waiting for me on my return to uni, the
vast majority were from you Philip.

Were they ? A quick count shows I contributed somewhere about 50 mails to
chat in the months July - September.

More than most I'll grant you but I'm a talkative soul....

I'm sorry to tell you this but
some of us don't care to have every minute detail of every little
incident disected one e-mail at a time.

And some of us do. Which is why the chat list is there seperate from the
announce list.
There were a lot of people about - postgrads and those of us detained at
our employers privilege.
Are you saying we shouldn't be allowed to discuss whatever we like ?

Here's the rules for the mail lists (you'll be seeing them again shortly as
the new studenst start objecting to having
to read mail :-) ) In the Words of Nickwa:

"
Some time ago I wrote some approximate guidelines for the 2 lists, and
nobody's objected to them,
so I'll quote them here:

For the moment I suggest (but won't rigidly enforce) the following
guidelines:

announce "Video evening tomorrow"
announce "Christmas dinner arrangements"
announce "sci-fi convention next weekend in birmingham"
announce "AGM next week in ALT3"
announce "that sci-fi shop in egham is having a book sale!"
announce "New series of blakes 7 starts december 12th" if you're
just telling us?

etc.

chat "New series of blakes 7 starts december 12th" if you're
intending to chat about it too.
chat "that sci-fi shop in egham is actually quite expensive"
chat "where's our bl00dy library"
chat "grumble moan insult jenny whine whinge"
chat "gripe mutter insult jacqui whilst we're at it, criticise nag"

chat "Why have I got too much email"
chat "how should we REALLY split the list"
chat "what should we do about all these d^mned ex-students"
chat "what should we do about all these d^mned students"
chat "borg v death-star, value of pi near black holes, etc etc etc"

chat "isn't terry's / douglass' / whoever's new book really cool?"

(as you can see this mail qualifies on several of the above pts :-) )

Also, as a general point, could we possibly have some sort of ban
placed on the discussion of shows that those of us unable to get

No. Agree with all of Danials worthy points here.

Sky or cable will not be able to see in the foreseeable future. Yes I

Crusade will be on C4 this autumn.
If you can't wait drop me a mail seperately and I'll sort you out some
tapes

know we have the "spoiler space" system, but sooner or later
someone forgets to add it while responding to a message and
everything gets blown wide open.

Them's the breaks. (But people please spoiler protect your stuff)
Hey I knew about Kosh and Marcus 3 months up front and breathed a word to
noone !

And (general note here) I tape most of the sci fi shows off Sky for people.
If you want something drop me a mail !

I get a pile of stuff via announce/chat/gamesoc that is
worthless/meaningless to me.
But we take it to get the relevant stuff too. The list is a general
discussion list and you'll
certainly find me discussing Crusade down the Pub this Thursday with anyone
who wants to!

Last, but by no means least; Daniel proof read your messages
before sending them. At times it is like reading Bascule's parts
from (the excellent) "Feersum Endjin"

Danial is excuse his spelling on the wholy reasonable grounds he's a
physcist.
If he calls Crusade Crusader again I'll flame him so badly you'll seen the
glow
from whichever part of the country you're in :-) (only kidding Danial)

OK Rant over....

And we'll see you all again for the replay once the new students arrive and
start finding out how to fill a mailbox !

______________________________________________________________________

If this email contains an attachment, please note the following paragraph:

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may be caused. Please therefore check any attachments for viruses before
using them on your own equipment. If you do find a computer virus please
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Reply to a not very happy student .....

Posted by Adrian Long on 1999/09/20 15:12

It's what you get for being subscribed to a list. Chat has actually been
reasonably quiet this summer -

Indeed - as far as I can see, both of the mailing lists are low traffic...

In the intervening period you were away I had 500 + messages from one list
I'm subscribed to
(5 messages a day, 100 day break)

Hmmm... lets work this out... one mailing list I'm on, at between 100&200
messages a day (higher if you count the admin gumf that I get as well)
that's between 10000 & 20000 messages over the break.

Trust me - this is tame...

Or as our honourable chairbeing did get your account DELETED by the comp
centre staff :-)
I don't think she'll be pleased when she gets back...

Oh dear... how did she manage that? Even if you request things like that
at brunel it won't actually happen until half way through the following
year...

Indeed - technically still being a student, but forced to work all year
round, I'd be a mite narked if everything shut down totally over the summer.

The trick if you don't want your mailbox filled over the summer is to
unsubscribe, rather than assume that everybody else will immediately put
themselves into stasis for your convenience...

*dink*
Eggwhite

http://www.subliminal.demon.co.uk/

Reply to a not very happy student .....

Posted by Anthony Beschizza on 1999/09/20 16:38

I agree, I've been downloading mail at home and was very surprised at the
low volume of mail considering over the Easter break I came back 280 Phantom
Menace mails. May I make a suggestion regarding E-mail. If you don't want
to read stuff just set your filters to delete mail as it downloads with
specific words in the subject line, from specific people, and so on. You
can even choose not to download it all.

----- Original Message -----
From: Adrian Long <Adrian.Meredith.Long@>
To: chat <chat@>
Sent: 20 September 1999 03:12
Subject: Re: Reply to a not very happy student .....

It's what you get for being subscribed to a list. Chat has actually

been

reasonably quiet this summer -

Indeed - as far as I can see, both of the mailing lists are low traffic...

In the intervening period you were away I had 500 + messages from one

list

I'm subscribed to
(5 messages a day, 100 day break)

Or as our honourable chairbeing did get your account DELETED by the comp
centre staff :-)
I don't think she'll be pleased when she gets back...

Oh dear... how did she manage that? Even if you request things like that
at brunel it won't actually happen until half way through the following
year...

And some of us do. Which is why the chat list is there seperate from

the

announce list.
There were a lot of people about - postgrads and those of us detained at
our employers privilege.
Are you saying we shouldn't be allowed to discuss whatever we like ?

Indeed - technically still being a student, but forced to work all year
round, I'd be a mite narked if everything shut down totally over the

summer.

The trick if you don't want your mailbox filled over the summer is to
unsubscribe, rather than assume that everybody else will immediately put
themselves into stasis for your convenience...

--
*dink*
Eggwhite

http://www.subliminal.demon.co.uk/

Start of term...

Posted by Adrian Long on 1999/09/20 15:17

Oh...
I forgot...

When is the start of term for holloway? Here at Brunel the Freshers have
already arrived and are already trashing the place, so I assume it won't be
far off...

Is there a big "first meeting" kind of thing where freshers are introduced
to who's who & what goes on & stuff? Main reason I'm asking is because I'll
make some extra effort to get there if that's the case... such as making
sure I'm not working & things.

*dink*
Eggwhite

http://www.subliminal.demon.co.uk/

Start of term...

Posted by Chris Turner on 1999/09/20 21:12

On Mon, 20 Sep 1999, Adrian Long wrote:

Oh...
I forgot...

When is the start of term for holloway? Here at Brunel the Freshers have
already arrived and are already trashing the place, so I assume it won't be
far off...

I was reliably informed term starts next week.

Is there a big "first meeting" kind of thing where freshers are introduced
to who's who & what goes on & stuff? Main reason I'm asking is because I'll
make some extra effort to get there if that's the case... such as making
sure I'm not working & things.

Yup there is. Typically it is on the first Thursday after freshers fayre,
but that is up to the committee to decide (typically 5 minutes before FF
starts *P).

Chris

christ@ #include <stddisclaimer.h> http://www.instituteofcorrection.org.uk/

"So this is really me? A no-style gimbo with teeth druids could use as a
place of worship" - Duaine Dibley (Red Dwarf - "Back to Reality")

Reply to a not very happy student .....

Posted by Anthony Beschizza on 1999/09/20 20:38

Phantom Menace Flame War! Don't go there! You guys are normal people not
AOL users.
----- Original Message -----
From: <Philip.Ayres@>
To: <chat@>
Sent: 20 September 1999 01:52
Subject: Reply to a not very happy student .....

A note from a VERY p****d off student with a full mail box upon
returning to uni.

us.

In the intervening period you were away I had 500 + messages from one list
I'm subscribed to
(5 messages a day, 100 day break)

(Why is it the term "Uni" only entered the vocabulary after Neighbours
started showing in the UK ? (Don't discuss) )

auto option on a student subscriber ?)

Or as our honourable chairbeing did get your account DELETED by the comp
centre staff :-)
I don't think she'll be pleased when she gets back...

Under normal circumstanes I wouldn't mind, but you are, quite
frankly, taking the p!$$.

Of the 200+ messages I had waiting for me on my return to uni, the
vast majority were from you Philip.

Were they ? A quick count shows I contributed somewhere about 50 mails

chat in the months July - September.

More than most I'll grant you but I'm a talkative soul....

I'm sorry to tell you this but
some of us don't care to have every minute detail of every little
incident disected one e-mail at a time.

the new studenst start objecting to having
to read mail :-) ) In the Words of Nickwa:

"
Some time ago I wrote some approximate guidelines for the 2 lists, and
nobody's objected to them,
so I'll quote them here:

For the moment I suggest (but won't rigidly enforce) the following
guidelines:

announce "Video evening tomorrow"
announce "Christmas dinner arrangements"
announce "sci-fi convention next weekend in birmingham"
announce "AGM next week in ALT3"
announce "that sci-fi shop in egham is having a book sale!"
announce "New series of blakes 7 starts december 12th" if you're
just telling us?

etc.

chat "New series of blakes 7 starts december 12th" if you're
intending to chat about it too.
chat "that sci-fi shop in egham is actually quite expensive"
chat "where's our bl00dy library"
chat "grumble moan insult jenny whine whinge"
chat "gripe mutter insult jacqui whilst we're at it, criticise nag"

chat "Why have I got too much email"
chat "how should we REALLY split the list"
chat "what should we do about all these d^mned ex-students"
chat "what should we do about all these d^mned students"
chat "borg v death-star, value of pi near black holes, etc etc etc"

chat "isn't terry's / douglass' / whoever's new book really cool?"

(as you can see this mail qualifies on several of the above pts :-) )

Also, as a general point, could we possibly have some sort of ban
placed on the discussion of shows that those of us unable to get

No. Agree with all of Danials worthy points here.

Sky or cable will not be able to see in the foreseeable future. Yes I

Crusade will be on C4 this autumn.
If you can't wait drop me a mail seperately and I'll sort you out some
tapes

know we have the "spoiler space" system, but sooner or later
someone forgets to add it while responding to a message and
everything gets blown wide open.

people.

If you want something drop me a mail !

I get a pile of stuff via announce/chat/gamesoc that is
worthless/meaningless to me.
But we take it to get the relevant stuff too. The list is a general
discussion list and you'll
certainly find me discussing Crusade down the Pub this Thursday with

anyone

who wants to!

Last, but by no means least; Daniel proof read your messages
before sending them. At times it is like reading Bascule's parts
from (the excellent) "Feersum Endjin"

OK Rant over....

And we'll see you all again for the replay once the new students arrive

and

start finding out how to fill a mailbox !

______________________________________________________________________

If this email contains an attachment, please note the following paragraph:

This material has been checked by us for computer viruses and although

none

has been found by us, we cannot guarantee that it is completely free from
such problems and we do not accept any liability for loss or damage which
may be caused. Please therefore check any attachments for viruses before
using them on your own equipment. If you do find a computer virus please
inform us immediately so that we may take appropriate action.

This communication is intended solely for the addressee and is
confidential.

If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying,
distribution or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it,
is prohibited and may be unlawful.