On Thu, 17 Mar 1994, Francis Liu RDC wrote:
> Do you really think that many first year members will be news.posters?
Why not? It's usually the ignorant or unwise that make up most of the
traffic on any discussion medium. In any case, this is an example of
progsoc providing a service for it's members, at no charge, by volunteer
effort. Where is the evil?
> Not
> to mention the apathy that spreads to people once they enter their 2nd year?
Well, it's true that 2nd years are apathetic, but only about curriculum
-related things, at least in my case. I know I got a lot out of my second
year of Uni, but it was all after hours... :^)
> And what does en masse mean?
Err... I believe a translation would be "in a large group", you know,
"lots at a time".
> 50 or 100 folk suckered at enrolment or the
> entertainment event (eg sausage sizzle, PC bashing) into signing their
> possibly hard-earnt dollars for TFM, and a yearly membership into
> progsoc, (which by the way has not delivered anything for its
> financial members besides TFM)?
The spirit of progsoc is (as you rightly point out) not to be found
at enrolment day or at social events like barbeques. Or in the random
destruction of PCs!
ProgSoc, incidentally, has delivered a fine manual to the UTS computer
systems (as you point out), as well as holding a Programming Competition
and funding teams to go to international competitions. We're also setting
up a machine for members to use, WWW, ftp sites... a thousand things,
to which you have contributed no effort - not even participation.
In most societies, that's irrelevant. In ProgSoc, however (old'uns
feel free to correct me here), the idea is if *you* want it done, you
do it. Or you organise it, with other people who want it done.
Ask not, what ProgSoc can do for you, ask what you can do for ProgSoc :)
> Do you
> really think these are the people that will flood the the mailing list?
>
> I dont think a local newsgroup is very useful for people without access to
> the newsserver at socs.
The newserver would be on ftoomsh, which would be *very* useful in
particular to people without other news access.
> So Ryan thinks the drivel,(oops), discussion that constitutes progsoc mail is
> worth keeping for all eternity. What a strange interpretation of archiving.
Interestingly, the progsoc mailing list is the list for discussion of
progsoc matters by progsoc members. I don't think you're a member of
ProgSoc in '94 are you, Frank? You didn't attend the meeting
(which was advertised on the list and around the Uni).
If you're as interested in making ProgSoc better as this mail indicates -
and let's face it, ProgSoc could use improvement - then join, and come
to the next meeting.
Ryan