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Recently, the Computers and Society Digest has been, well, less
moderated than it used to be.  The following is my reaction to,
and based upon, the seventeenth "opinion survey" that came
through this month.

==================

NETWORK SURVEY OPINIONS (takes about 5 minutes)

This is a survey of persons employed in wasting time by reading
rec.humour.funny when they should be doing research or attending
to more important business.  Results, if any, will be startling.

You may use a text editor to answer the questions in the survey
itself, or you may provide your answers separately.  If you
answer separately, please be aware that everyone on the net will
know that you are a goof who doesn't even know how to use
his/her/its own system, especially if you reply on the newsgroup
and everyone has to read it, probably three times because you
haven't set your mailer up right, have you?

If you wish to omit a question, please write the word OMITTED
after the question.  Spelling counts.

When a survey is received, information that could identify the
sender and the sender's organization will be immediately
deleted.  However, if you wish to return your survey
anonymously, there are several options.  You may use a false ID,
such as GUEST.  Or, you may use a real GUEST ID.  Alternatively,
you may print out the survey and return it via the U.S. postal
service.  You do realize, of course, that we have access to a
beta copy of Lotus Marketplace, the FBI fingerprint files, and
the optical document files of every bank, life insurance company
and courier service in the world, so as to be able to identify
any typewheels, balls, or defective laser printers.

The act of returning this survey means that you have given your
consent to participate in this survey, that you understand the
purpose of the research, that you understand the purpose for
which the research results will be used, and that you accept the
procedures outlined above to guarantee your anonymity and that
of your employer.  This is legal type stuff.  Don't worry about
it.  It can't hurt you.  Hey, would we lie?

If at any time during this study you feel your rights have been
violated, you may list your complaint, along with detailed
specifics of your identity and sexual orientation, in
talk.bizarre and alt.flame.

The survey is being conducted as part of the requirements for a
first year psych course.  Our computer science instructor said
that the net was a good place to get information.


1.  What is your GENDER?  Why?  Why not?

1a. Have you found alt.sex to be helpful in answering this
question?

2.  Do you feel that during your career in computing, persons
with access to rec.humor.dave.barry have had a significant
advantage or disadvantage compared to you?

3.  How do you define "ROGER CARASSO"?  "KIBO"?

4.  What year were you BORN?  (Well, if you can't remember,
what's the oldest file creation date on your hard disk?)

5.  What is your highest level of HACKING and in what FIELD?

6.  What is your current job or POSITION title?  SALARY? 
Really?

7.  In what city and state (or city, country) (oh, all right,
city, PROVINCE.  Geez.  Touchy Canucks.) is your current job
LOCATED?  Have you checked lately?

8.  Do you have any HEALTH problems that are related to your
work?  (Programmers need not detail pizza and diet coke
dependencies.)

9.  Do you feel that your work has an effect, either positive or
negative, on your HOME or SOCIAL life?  If you have a HOME or
SOCIAL life, please describe.  If you know what a HOME or SOCIAL
life is, please let us know immediately.

10.  What is your opinion of PROFESSIONAL associations, such as
a Society of Engineers or a Medical Association?  (Please
remember, this is a FAMILY newsgroup.)

11.  Have you been a MEMBER of any professional association? 
Would you admit this in public?

12.  What is your opinion of UNIONS generally?  What is your
opinion of INTERSECTIONS majorly?  What is your opinion of DOT
PRODUCTS corporally?

13.  Have you been a MEMBER of any union?  How do you know?

14.  Do you think that computing occupations should be
CERTIFIED?  Should you be?  Prove it.

15.  What are the ATTRIBUTES of a professional?  Have you
checked the file descriptors?

16.  Do you consider YOURSELF a professional?  Do you have an "I
think, therefore I am paid" poster or T-shirt?  Do you consider
"T-shirt" to be a blue collar spelling?

17.  What is your opinion of computing-related associations such
as CPSR (Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility) or
EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation)?  How long did it take you
to stop laughing?

18.  Do you get to use your SKILLS on the job as much as you'd
like?  Have you ever used any COMPUTER-RELATED SKILLS on any of
your previous jobs.  How much furniture did you move last week. 
(Be honest.)

19.  Do you generally PREFER to work as a member of a team or
solo?  Yeah, don't we all!

20.  If you were working as part of a TEAM, would you prefer to
have a position of leadership or to be member?  Well,
hypothetically.  No, look, I mean, pretend there was a TEAM ...

21.  What is your RACE or ETHNIC background?  How can you tell? 
Have you ever run a multi-site access recursive search of
national birth registry data bases to try and prove it?

22.  What is your religious background, and how important is
RELIGION to your life presently?  (No, FRISBEETERIANISM and
KIBOISM don't count.  No, not that one either.)

23.  What social CLASSES do you think exist in your country
today?  Have you ever attended a social class?  Do you even know
who "Miss Manners" is?

24.  In deciding what social class a person belongs to, what
would be the most IMPORTANT thing you'd have to know?  Why did
you answer "student number"?  Did anyone around you answer
"whether or not it is NP-complete?"

25.  What social class are YOU in?  What grade did you get?

26.  Would you say your PARENTS are in the same social class as
you are?  They DON'T use MS-DOS, do they? 

27.  What was the total of your SALARY and/or WAGES in 1990? 
What method would you use to transfer all of it to
thief@con-artist.embezzler.con?

28.  Some people (well, a lot of the people that I talk to)
say that it would be better, or at least more efficient and
technically viable if more government or political (that is,
legislative as opposed to purely technological or procedural)
decisions, rulings, judgements or decrees were made by technical
EXPERTS (or at least those who are trained in the specific field
or discipline, and have, in addition, definite decision making
training, or at least decision support systems) -- sort of the
way that people in computer-related occupations do their jobs. 
What do you think about this?  Do you remember what THIS is?

29.  Would you say that rapid TECHNOLOGICAL developments are all
to the good, or are mostly good, or do you have any
reservations, or can you think of examples where this isn't the
case, or are you REALLY peeved at the bank again this month? 
Did you get your answer from RISKS-Forum?

30.  People who break into COMPUTER systems sometimes say that
they serve a useful purpose by showing where security weaknesses
are or by demonstrating how privacy is being invaded.  What is
your opinion of this?  How long did it take you to hack into our
system and change your previous answer?

31.  If someone created a new, faster method of sorting data, do
you think that person should be able to PATENT the method, or do
you think they should share it, with no expectation of
compensation?  What are you, some sort of Commie?  How much
faster is that method than ours?

32.  What sorts of benefits do you derive from reading or
participating in NETWORK discussions?  Well, why do you do it
then?  When was the last time you SPOKE to anyone?  I mean,
VERBALLY. 

_______________________________________________________

END OF SURVEY - Please mail to    dev_null@cloud.ether.edu
_______________________________________________________

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1991

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