Scott and James,

If I can weigh in with my own frustrations.  I am very new to Netview and
the whole Unix world  Being such, a lot of this stuff goes over my head.
What disappoints me is that there are no user groups, meetings etc. where I
could try to gain added knowledge and expertise.  Nobody I could talk to
and share information with directly.  I've been to the admin class, and
while Charlie Carter is very, very good at teaching, he only has a few days
to beat everything into our heads.

I mean the Tivoli bunch have one that meets regularly.  Why not Netview.
Guess it is because we are a poor cousin to Tivoli and so overworked and
under-maned in the business world that we could never get away regardless.

Mike Walsh
****Please Note - New EMAIL Address  mike.walsh AT us.ing DOT com*********
612-342-3118


                                                                                
                                                       
                      "Barr, Scott"                                             
                                                       
                      <Scott_Barr@csgsy        To:       nv-l AT lists.us.ibm 
DOT com                                                         
                      stems.com>               cc:                              
                                                       
                                               Subject:  RE: [nv-l] another 
list                                                       
                      10/15/2003 01:20                                          
                                                       
                      PM                                                        
                                                       
                      Please respond to                                         
                                                       
                      nv-l                                                      
                                                       
                                                                                
                                                       
                                                                                
                                                       



Well, I will weigh in on this from a different perspective.

I think the mailing list and a newsgroup both have significant limitations.
In this day and age, more facilities should be available for a user
community than just a simple email thread. If you look around at other
software products and their support forums, you see a feature list like
this:

1. Message threads / bulletin board
2. Download area for user contributions (i.e. let me share my script /
rulesets with you)
3. Chat room for online meetings with product experts
4. Patches
5. Documentation
6. Surveys / questionnaires
7. Enhancement requests

Just to draw a parallel - I play online games. If you go look at the
support site for a user community from one of the popular MMORPGs you find
a suite of tools and features that is quite robust and usually these are
supported by fans without a lot of capital to pay for fancy features - they
just use whats easily obtained and create some DAMN good web sites to
support their "guilds". It is extremely annoying to me, that the user
community for NetView is still living in the text only 1970s bulletin board
format.

I don't really have a preference about news vs. email, I just hate the
limited feature set for support so we have to keep answering the same
questions for folks over and over (no threads so we can't have a sticky
topic with FAQs) - no download area so we can't share files / scripts, etc.


   -----Original Message-----
   From: owner-nv-l-digest AT lists.us.ibm DOT com
   [mailto:owner-nv-l-digest AT lists.us.ibm DOT com]On Behalf Of James Shanks
   Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 10:30 AM
   To: nv-l AT lists.us.ibm DOT com
   Subject: RE: [nv-l] another list



   Folks,

   I sent a posting to this list a couple days ago, which I don't seem to
   be able to find any more, so I'll try again.

   I inquired about this and was told that a  Tivoli executive had ordered
   the creation of this NetView  newsgroup so that he could say that all
   Tivoli products, like all IBM products, had one.  Furthermore, the
   mention of the newsgroup in the next version of each product's Release
   Notes was also mandated.  No one in my group nor in NetView development
   even saw this boiler plate before the ID group replaced that  book on
   the CD.  It was not considered technical content and therefore was not
   given to them to review.  That's why the nv-l list was not mentioned
   there as well.   I have already escalated this and I think that will be
   rectified in the Release Notes to the first FixPack for 7.1.4.

   As for the newsgroup itself, even the people who created it say that
   they do not think of it is a replacement for the nv-l list, which they
   admit is monitored by people with much more expertise than any newsgroup
   is.

   So my advice is that, as users, you "vote with your feet" as it were and
   use the vehicle you prefer.   This list is your forum after all; it was
   started by customers for customers, and until it suddenly needed a home
   and a Tivoli guy volunteered to rescue it, it  was not maintained by IBM
   at all.  If you choose not to participate on the newsgroup, you  need
   not.  I don't plan to, myself.


   James Shanks
   Level 3 Support  for Tivoli NetView for UNIX and Windows
   Tivoli Software / IBM Software Group