E-mail after graduation

[Mr Comedy]

When we were voting in the last sabbatical election, there was a referendum at the time to ask if we wanted to keep our email addresses after graduation. But ITS have just informed us that our email addresses were going to be lost anyway.

Although the referendum was passed, what was the point in it if ITS were not going to do anything about it anyway?

[Greebo]

Rather amazingly, I still have my uni email address, 6 months after graduating (9 months after finishing)

[hr]

http://www.greebo.org.uk - Loadsa drunken photos and suchlikes.

[ARTooD2]

I can stil access the computers at Glasgow uni...Where I've not attended for over 2 years...

[hr]

'What did you say, my boy? It's all over? That's what you said... but it isn't at all. It's far from being all over...'

[Koala Boy]

Surely the passed referendum just means that it is now Association Policy that graduated students should keep their email address, and not necessarily that ITS must implement it?
Hopefully it will be done before I lose mine, I really like my St And address, it's snappy and I've kept it spam-free for 4 years.

[hr]

He sleeps 19 hours a day, and eats 5 hours a day. He allows you to pet him, not so much because he likes it, but because he's too lazy to do anything about it.
IMAGE:images.google.co.uk/images?q=tbn:Shzgv4TMVXgJ:www.filelibrary.com:8080/cgi-bin/freedownload/Multi-Platform/l/90/koala.gif

Edited to avoid retrospective pedantic assaults.

[Steveo]

No, that wasn't a referendum. IT Services just asked us at the Students' Association if they could conduct their poll, which was completely non binding at the same time as the election.

[Tweedle-Dum]

Quoting Steveo from 21:35, 12th May 2005
No, that wasn't a referendum. IT Services just asked us at the Students' Association if they could conduct their poll, which was completely non binding at the same time as the election.

To be honest, it'd be insanely cheap to do so, say 2000 people graduate each year, at 2MB each on the server, that's 4GB, which is about £5
Ofcourse there are other concerns such as bandwidth, but I'm sure it couldn't cost all that much to do.

[hr]

Live by the sword, die by the arrow.

[Steveo]

Quoting Tweedle-Dum from 21:49, 12th May 2005
To be honest, it'd be insanely cheap to do so, say 2000 people graduate each year, at 2MB each on the server, that's 4GB, which is about £5
Ofcourse there are other concerns such as bandwidth, but I'm sure it couldn't cost all that much to do.

IT Services wern't proposing to even keep you any space on the servers, just that you'd supply a forwarding address, and any mail sent to your @st-andrews.ac.uk address would be forwarded.

[Eliot Wilson]

So, let me make sure I've got this right: the Association held a referendum, got a result and IT Services told them to fuck off?

[hr]

Bill and Ted beat the Grim Reaper at Twister

Bill: "You played very well, Death, especially with your totally heavy Death robes."

Death: "Don't patronise me."

[Mr Comedy]

Yes, that's exactly it. I love democracy.

[Eliot Wilson]

Did the Association actually discuss this with IT Services beforehand, or did they (as I suspect might be the case) turn up with their referendum result and get all stroppy with IT because of their "mandate"?

[hr]

Bill and Ted beat the Grim Reaper at Twister

Bill: "You played very well, Death, especially with your totally heavy Death robes."

Death: "Don't patronise me."

[Aelius Theon]

Quoting Eliot Wilson from 11:48, 13th May 2005
Did the Association actually discuss this with IT Services beforehand, or did they (as I suspect might be the case) turn up with their referendum result and get all stroppy with IT because of their "mandate"?

Surprisingly, for The Sinner, some sense has been spoken in this thread by those arguing with the proposers of this absurd whinge.

'Referenda' run and/or invented by the tossers in the Student Association (as they clearly have nothing better to do, like getting a degree for instance) carry about as much weight with the University and its appointed staff as a manifesto pledge does with New Labour.

While I can happily say I know little (and would prefer to know less) about the Student Association (I wish we could disaffiliate from it as easily as we can from the NUS), I do have some understanding of IT and specifically LIS within the University.

Nob-jockeys who think they are somehow entitled to free email for life and who bandy about 'costs' for bandwidth and email server hosting have about as much clue about the real world as the bejewelled yahs currently hanging about smoking outside the Library do about their upcoming exams.

It never fails to amaze me, having been an undergrad at the end of Thatcher's 80s, a senior manager in business in the 90s, and then a postgrad here, how greedy, ingrate, thoughtless, selfish, ignorant, feeble, naive, intolerant, unworthy, unintellectual, grasping, and arrogant students are today.

[harmless loony]

Ouch...what bit your bum?

[Steveo]

How about you get the facts before you go on a pointless rant anbout the Association and this 'referendum'?

IT Services wanted to gague the level of interest in int student body as to how many wanted to keep the e-mail address, not the account, so all that nonsense about costs and bandwith becomes mostly irrelevant.

IT Services needed to conduct this poll, when plenty of students would be avaliable, and the Association had a General Election, so they asked us to conduct their non-binding poll for them.

Thanks.

[Paranoid]

Seems to me that this non-binding measure wasnt properly made aware of during the election and has thus mislead many people into expecting the result to count for something...

Although I'd like my email address for at least an extra year (so as I can pinpoint which of my contacts have my uni email compared to others and thus redirect them), I think in the long run it would appear weird to be sending emails from what is a university account which you no longer attend...its like asking to keep your Shell email account when you now work for BT...

As for the rant about unworthy, unintelligent etc etc students...sorry you feel that way but I'm sure you were just the same back in your day! The fact that we've got a voice and not afraid to use it should be something to encourage, or would you prefer a totalitarian regime of full compliance?

[hr]

..I've got this pain down all the diodes on my left side...

[Aelius Theon]

Quoting Steveo from 12:35, 13th May 2005
How about you get the facts before you go on a pointless rant anbout the Association and this 'referendum'?

IT Services wanted to gague the level of interest in int student body as to how many wanted to keep the e-mail address, not the account, so all that nonsense about costs and bandwith becomes mostly irrelevant.

IT Services needed to conduct this poll, when plenty of students would be avaliable, and the Association had a General Election, so they asked us to conduct their non-binding poll for them.

Thanks.

Proves my point, really. An Association person who is unable to spell or type 'about', 'gauge', 'the', and 'available'.

I suggest you:

a) try to improve your command of English before you graduate and start waving your University of St Andrews degree about as if it means something;

b) stick to what you know best (Association hackery I suspect) and do not attempt to comment on or parse the issues for and views of University support units, on which you are unqualified and for which you are not conversant with all the relevant information.

We were trying as ever to improve what services we can offer within the very limited resources with which the University provides us. We do not 'need' to conduct polls; there is a semantic difference.

[Al]

I think it is the case that any student can opt not to be a member of the Students' Association. That is substantially easier than disaffiliating from the NUS.

Oh and it's more than a little hypocritical to attack people's poor English when your own posts contain such gems as "Student Association" and "Association hackery I suspect".

[Aelius Theon]

Quoting Paranoid from 12:46, 13th May 2005
Seems to me that this non-binding measure wasnt properly made aware of during the election and has thus mislead many people into expecting the result to count for something...

Although I'd like my email address for at least an extra year (so as I can pinpoint which of my contacts have my uni email compared to others and thus redirect them), I think in the long run it would appear weird to be sending emails from what is a university account which you no longer attend...its like asking to keep your Shell email account when you now work for BT...

As for the rant about unworthy, unintelligent etc etc students...sorry you feel that way but I'm sure you were just the same back in your day! The fact that we've got a voice and not afraid to use it should be something to encourage, or would you prefer a totalitarian regime of full compliance?

[hr]

You're quite right. I should have added 'some' students in my rant. And of course some students were like that then as they are now, though in my humble opinion perhaps not quite as mollycoddled.

You are also correct in your analogy with Shell & BT - that is exactly how it is.

Students should and need to have a voice. When I was an undergrad our Student Union and my college itself disaffiliated from the NUS as we thought it wasn't representing our voices. I find it a pity that the Student Association, certainly when I was a postgrad here, seems/ed to busy itself with hackery and pointless in-fighting instead of raising that/those voice(s) on behalf of the vast majority of St A students not heard or represented by the few elected by the fewer.

[Aelius Theon]

Quoting Al from 12:53, 13th May 2005
I think it is the case that any student can opt not to be a member of the Students' Association. That is substantially easier than disaffiliating from the NUS.

Oh and it's more than a little hypocritical to attack people's poor English when your own posts contain such gems as "Student Association" and "Association hackery I suspect".

Sorry, can't see anything wrong with either. Perhaps it is the 'Students' Association' but frankly I care not. 'Association hackery I suspect' is perfectly correct. You yourself should learn when to use speech marks (for speech only) and when inverted commas are the accepted academic convention (for direct quotation). Come to one of my English classes sometime.

[Newty]

I don't see why ITS has any obligation to those who have left the university - surely its prime concen should be current students and to continue to furnish those who have left with facilities would surely compromise their ability to provide for current students (albeit in a small way). Free email is easy to come by, and I suggest going and getting a gmail account (which is far superior to webmail anyway).

Quoting Aelius Theon from 12:52, 13th May 2005
a) try to improve your command of English before you graduate and start waving your University of St Andrews degree about as if it means something;

Criticising the English of others really is the lowest form of argument, and I find generally is the intellectual cripple's substitute for any real retort. Kindly desist.

[hr]

Will Watson. Medical student. Cake lover.

[Steveo]

The Education Act 1994 is the act which makes every student a member, with an opt out clause, so you can very easily disaffiliate from the Association.

To disaffiliate from the NUS is an expensive business, as is affiliation to that terrible institution.

Also, my terrible English is due to typing errors as I am using a computer room, and am u not used to real keyboards, having a laptop myself.