[sf-lug] Possibly interesting data point on jobs postings

[Jim Stockford]

well and interestingly said.

I do not recall ever setting anyone's flag to nomail--
not one time, certainly not four.

as to the recruiter, I think a better metaphor than hawking
weiners during the show is that of the "getcher IT jobs
here!" commercial interleaved with the kiddy cartoons.
For me the occasional job posting is part of the
entertainment. That's my view.

At the javacat tonight was another view more sympathetic
to Rick's: people who post job possibilities to lugs are
bottom feeders or worse: looking for IT advice without
paying for it.

As to the list itself, I count one vitriolically opposed and
another on the fence leaning agin' it, with one (me) for it
(job postings).

Anybody else wants to chime in, please do.


On 5/15/06, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
>
> Just as a reminder, I'm just the system janitor (and owner) of the
> decrepit 1998 VA Research model 500 that hosts this mailing list,
> whereas Jim runs the mailing list itself.  Nonetheless, I sometimes look
> in and give an assist on the technical side (because I like you guys).
> Among other things, sometimes I use the systemwide Mailman admin
> password to look through mailing lists' membership rosters, to spot
> anything amiss.  I was doing that, this morning, with SF-LUG's roster:
> As is sometimes the case, there were several subscribers showing as
> having the "nomail" flag set, and with that flag having been set by an
> administrator rather than the user himself/herself.  (The "nomail" flag
> means "I still want to be a subscriber, but don't send me any of the
> postings for now.")
>
> Usually, this happens because someone noticed recurring non-delivery
> messages for that subscriber -- e.g., his/her mail server was down, or
> was out of disk space, etc.  Those non-deliverability conditions can be
> transitory, or they can be permanent:  One way to find out is to switch
> off the flag, and see if the non-deliverability persists.  I tried this,
> and found that all four of those subscribed addresses appeared to
> _still_ be non-deliverable for various reason, e.g., "That username does
> not exist at this server" [paraphrased].  So, I unsubscribed them.
>
>
> In the process of doing that, I found one extra anomaly:
> "beau at open-source-staffing.com", whom you may recall being the extremely
> polite and clueful recruiter Beau J. Gould of NYC, is the _one and only_
> subscriber who's set his _own_ subscription to "nomail".
>
> By no means do I wish in any way to beat up on Mr. Gould:  If all
> recruiters were as smart and well-mannered, mailing list administration
> for LUGs would be much more of a delight, and there would be less need
> for special "jobs" rules.  (Gould, you may recall, actually was kind
> enough to _ask_ before posting a job opening, here.)
>
> My point, instead, is to call attention to why he set that flag:  Even
> this minor paragon among professional recruiters isn't here to
> participate.  He has no desire to teach or learn Linux; he's on the
> outside of our community by preference.  Nothing wrong with that.  But
> he's set "nomail" in order to preserve his ability to post here in the
> future (this mailing list being set to subscriber-only posting, like
> most others these days), while not being bothered by all this Linux
> discussion.
>
> To the extent that LUG mailing lists exist for interaction among members
> of the Linux community, the recruiters posting directly to them breaks
> (or at least dilutes) that model.
>
> Any metaphor will distort the truth in one way or the other.  Here's
> one, and it definitely has distortive biases:  A LUG mailing list is
> like a movie theatre, and Beau Gould is like a concession vendor who
> asked permission to hawk hot dogs _inside_ the theatre instead of in the
> lobby.  And some of us would rather watch the film.  ;->
>
>
>
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