Yes, I had the courtesy to trim the message.... ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Aaron McCaleb" <[email protected]> > To: "LOPSA Discuss List" <[email protected]> > Sent: Monday, January 3, 2011 11:28:18 AM [...] > This implies, in my opinion, that there might have been a desire for > LOPSA to be an activist organization..._beyond_ providing education > and/or a common body of knowledge. [...]
I would like to suggest that the use of the term "activist", accurate or not, immediately triggers a vision of a "disproportionate" and possibly "negative" reactionary emotion. A 'vocal' organization or component of LOPSA would be smart. I would propose that the logical course here would be for there to be a centralized point of contact within LOPSA who's charged with the responsibility of speaking for LOPSA publicly. I hate to use the term but I'm suggesting a "Public Relations" person. (Probably someone who can speak "average' verses "techie".) When something happens such as a server/data breach being noticed by the news system, it is then that we can piss-n-moan to each other about who's right, wrong, idiots, or saviors but then this person will produce a "Press Release" representing *all of us* in which the *roles of the system administrators* is discussed and clarified for the unknowing public. If the SAs did the right things (see below) then it should be said so and, here's the important part, the explanation and equating of the SAs actions to the average Joe user and how it was done right (or wrong). Short version, no one gives a rat's patootie about the good/bad SAs unless they see it affecting their pockets. ----- Original Message ----- > From: [email protected] > To: "Aaron McCaleb" <[email protected]> > Cc: "LOPSA Discuss List" <[email protected]> > Sent: Monday, January 3, 2011 7:37:32 PM [...] > Part of what is needed is the education of what our jobs are. [...] I agree with this sentiment. I think further that what's needed, is an *internal* agreement about where the delineation of responsibilities lies. I quickly filtered out the "WikiLeaks" conversation because I wasn't interested in the quick devolution to political posturing. As long as we keep the discussion focused on LOPSA and the tasks and responsibilities of system administration we're going to be productive. IMNSHO, the only mention of the WikiLeaks situation in public should be to distance ourselves and our conversations from the discussion of the message verses the actual tasks of system administration. Did the sysadmins at WL keep the server running and secure at all times? Good. Nothing else is important to us. If we devolve from that, we're screwed and living down to people's expectations of nerdy and unkempt troglodytes that they already think we are. -- << MCT >> Michael C Tiernan. Is God a performance artist? http://www.linkedin.com/in/mtiernan _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
