[clue-admin] CLUE-Jobs list guidelines and thoughts

[David L. Anselmi]

Crawford Rainwater wrote:
> Folks:
>
> Dennis and I am moderating job postings to CLUE-Jobs Mailman list now.  I am pondering ones to
> accept/reject when I do not see something that is Linux and/or Open Source based in some cases.
> For example, this is one that is the "to be reviewed" queue which is for a "Software Quality
> Analyst":

It may be that people posting job reqs will spam everyone they can find.  So the fact they are 
posting to a Linux list may be meaningless unless they are looking for Linux skills.

But wouldn't it be nice to get a Linux user into those non-Linux jobs?  My experience is that Linux 
users know the fundamentals better for things like "Comfortable modifying network settings, TCP/IP". 
  Generalizing of course.  See below for a story.

Perhaps we should poll the list and see what they want?  It's more about what they want than what 
the job poster wants, I think.  And then make the about page more specific.

OK, here's my story--stop reading if you don't have time to kill.

I was doing training for some sysadmins (it happened to be underway on the USS NIMITZ but that's 
only interesting if I show you the video of flight ops).  We had a virtual lab that imitated the 
ship's server configuration and we had run a troubleshooting lab (something about making network 
settings and DHCP work so you could join the domain--yeah, sorry it's a Windows story).

One of the admins (the Navy calls them ITs, for Information Systems Technicians) thought it was too 
easy and wanted something harder.  So I found some obscure network stuff to change (that didn't seem 
to do what it was advertised to).  But the kicker was that I put the wrong IP in etc\hosts for the 
domain controllers.  He was stumped.

How many of you know what /etc/hosts does?  (Most, I hope.)  How about its relation to 
nsswitch.conf?  (Perhaps a few less but still a good number.)  This guy had no idea that it could 
interfere with name resolution so he had no chance to solve the problem.  He spent a good 3 hours on 
it and then I hinted and explained for 2 more.  And he was one of the top 3 or 4 brightest ITs on 
the ship.

It turns out he had been to a class where they talked about viruses putting entries in etc\hosts. 
So when I showed it to him he recognized it.  But he had no idea about its general purpose--he 
thought it was only something that viruses messed up.

Admittedly this is just a story and you shouldn't draw conclusions from it.  But it's one of the 
experiences that makes me think Linux experience is worth considering, even for a non-Linux job. 
And I got to see the green flash (for the second time) and the Pali lookout (for the 4th or 5th 
time) so it was a good trip even without the cool IT work and cat shot.

(Boy, someone really needs to make me get a blog so I stop bothering everyone.)

Dave