by Fawksie on Mon Feb 18, 2008 12:43 am
"We at WiredSoc believe that computers are an essential part of everyday life. It is becoming harder and harder to get by in the world without touching a computer for whatever reason, especially in academia. As using computers becomes more of a necessity, we wish to ensure that everyone has the ability to use, benefit and understand them."
"WiredSoc’s primary intention is to bring the benefits of computing to all students of the University, and to make computer technology as trouble free as possible for our members. To this end, we are a service oriented society.
We believe that computers are important to students; you need to learn how to use them in most careers, and we are happy to help give you a head start. We want to bring the benefits of new and evolving technologies, particularly those involved in the Internet, to our members."
First let me say that the above rightly seems a little outmoded, and then by way of explanation allow me to give you a little background.
When WiredSoc was founded in 1997, computers, as I'm sure you recall, played a much smaller role in everyday life and student life than they do now.
In 1997 ITS replaced their single ailing digital camera, their single 35mm slide scanner, and bought two data projectors to be shared among the entire University. They were mainly worried about viruses and Y2k.
ResNet did not exist, if you were lucky enough to own your own computer and lived in a hall room with a telephone socket you could dial up to the University network via SARA. Hall computer rooms were maintained on an ad-hoc basis by volunteers and generally comprised aged and unreliable hardware.
Access to computers was mainly via ITS computer classrooms, consisting of Macintoshes (the majority), Sun workstations and IBM compatible PCs (this was the year some of them were upgraded to Pentium-based machines). Your user account was on a Sun village server, and you needed a basic knowledge of UNIX to do pretty much anything, including send and receive e-mail (with PINE) and to store and retrieve files on your meagre disk quota. Even when using a PC or Mac it was necessary to connect via a terminal session to your Sun server. There was no GUI on Sun machines, save for a few in the Purdie Building which received an upgrade to Solaris 2.5.1. Nowadays users are disallowed direct access to the modern equivalent of the village servers and access to a proper shell is by application only, and on only one server. It's simply not necessary.
ITS ran a "Basic IT Course" which lasted 6 hours and required a £5 deposit. This furnished you with enough knowledge to use PINE and basic UNIX functions, as well as word-processing (foreign to most students and increasingly in demand by departments) and Web browsing using Netscape. Incidentally, there was also an advanced web browsing course which taught skills now second-nature to most students like the use of search engines.
WiredSoc provided its members with greater engagement with computers and computing by running a server which could be accessed by members, on which they could self-educate themselves to a greater extent than was previously possible. It ran workshops and talks on computing, aimed at bringing the topic closer to the average student.
Now, students are far more familiar with computers, having experienced them at home, at school, and throughout their time here. The average student no longer requires knowledge of command line UNIX, they are by and large Windows users and the command line is alien to them. They are practiced and savvy users of the Internet, and they can all type up an essay. They are gamers. Course content is delivered online, students are expected to check their e-mail regularly as it is now an official mode of communication. ResNet is now in every residence bedroom, and computer rooms in halls and the wider University have come under ITS' control, maintenance and funding, and as a result are better for it.
You can clearly see that WiredSoc's original purpose has therefore shifted somewhat, and I don't think this is any bad thing. It's no longer necessary for us (or ITS) to teach the ordinary student how to navigate a UNIX filesystem, or how to use Google.
We continue to provide computing services to members, now more than ever (I'm sure you noticed we now maintain five machines instead of one, with an upgrade planned). People still have the opportunity to experiment with Linux and with coding, particularly those who are not already Computer Science students. We continue to offer discount on computing purchases, we organise social events, we provide technical support, and yes, we are even trying to organise talks and seminars.
I personally contacted (on numerous occasions) six major IT/computing companies last year in an effort to secure speakers (Apple, Cisco, Microsoft, HP, iDelta, Sun Microsystems) and received tentative replies only from Cisco, which never came to fruition. This year the Secretary and Events Co-ordinator have been jointly attempting to make useful contact with the same companies and several more, to no avail. It is proving exceedingly difficult and frustrating, but we are not intending to abandon this section of our core aims. If you feel you can help, please be my guest.
Your concerns about WiredSoc becoming a society focused entirely on gaming are not unique, the issue was raised by the School of Computer Science several months ago, but I hope I've demonstrated to you as we did to them that this is not the case.
I think it is natural that WiredSoc has moved to embrace gaming as a greater part of its interests, the computer gaming scene was after all essentially in its infancy or at least childhood when WiredSoc was founded and has matured with the society. Many people view gaming as an important part of WiredSoc, and many of our members are avid gamers. We have changed to supply the demand that is current. People no longer demand classes and talks, but they do demand gaming services, particularly as ResNet becomes more and more restricted. Playing on WiredSoc's servers is sometimes the only way to play games with others. We have increased the number of gaming events we organise, and the last was the most successful yet. I do not feel that our increased focus on gaming is without cause. Equally I don't think that we have forgotten the rest of our aims and values.
The number of active members in the society this year is the highest in the memory of the current committee. We haven't had it particularly easy in the last number of years, having suffered a serious decline, but we have been working to rebuild the society, and it is clearly succeeding.
The information on the website is fairly outdated, and indeed missing in parts, but we are working to improve it.
If you'd like to discuss this (or anything else), you're most welcome to join us on IRC as has been pointed out, or come along to any committee meeting (the next is on Wednesday at 7pm in DRA, you'll get more accurate geographical details on IRC or one of us can meet you in the foyer beforehand and take you to it). Incidentally, are you a member of the society?
Adam Maye
WiredSoc President
The fox is a crafty and deceitful animal that never runs in a straight line, but only in circles.