[clue-talk] Linked In CLUE Group?

[Jed S. Baer]

On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:09:27 -0700
Nate Duehr wrote:

> Not saying it covers their "sins", but that service seems to do more 
> good than evil.  I suppose someone who needs medication for erections 
> feels that those spammers are doing something non-evil too, but there's 
> a vast difference between the two.

I suppose that depends on what sort of lens you're looking through.

> You're lamenting that the computer industry has sold computers to
> people without teaching them anything about them.  Perhaps it's time to
> have computer users licensed, just like cars?

No. I don't think it's the computer industry's job to teach people how to
use computers, any more than I think it's the auto industry's job to
teach people how to drive.

I just note that when I encounter people who don't understand that it
isn't a requirement to have a shortcut icon on their "desktop" in order to
run a program, I have little hope for them getting the picture on e-mail
privacy and other such things.

> One could get into whether or not the name "CLUE" is trademarked and 
> copyrighted here... if one were really evil and wanted to do it.  What 
> would stop there from being two "CLUE" organizations?  Is this one 
> strong enough to take on the legal battle?

Yeah, I know. JMHO. CLUE is, more than anything else, a community that
congrates on the e-mail lists. I note, as an aside, that social networks
can exist using various "transports". You don't need a gee-whiz Web2.0
social networking gizmo to have a social network. I don't want to see the
CLUE community fragement into LinkedIn, non-LinkedIn, [non]Twittered,
[non]Whatevered. The benefit of CLUE-Tech is that when questions get
asked/answered, everyone is there to benefit or provide help. Why dilute
that? (And I do realize that it isn't a foregone conclusion that that's
what would happen. And of course, there are already a myriad of
linux-based forums, of the e-mail and BBS types anyway, so what's the
diff?)

I'm sure someone can argue that having a CLUE presence in some other
environment would enhance CLUE by bringing in more participants.

You could ask the question, "What is CLUE?", and get a variety of answers.
And to some extent, we're self-organizing anyways. Without some
boundaries, there's no definition at all. But we'll never all agree on
what/where those boundaries are, except in extremis, e.g. "No M$ tech
questions on the CLUE-Tech list". (And even that can get a bit fuzzy,
when you're dealing with things like getting Samba to integrate well.)

jed