RFC 2142 : Mailbox names for common services, roles and functions

I’ve always relied on my mail servers having a complete and correct /etc/aliases file with all the necessary aliases.  I never even thought about who puts them there and why.  It was just one of those many things that just work.  Today I discovered that there is actually an RFC 2142, which describes standard mailbox names for common services, roles, and functions.  Here is the abstract:

This specification enumerates and describes Internet mail addresses (mailbox name @ host reference) to be used when contacting personnel at an organization. Mailbox names are provided for both operations and business functions. Additional mailbox names and aliases are not prohibited, but organizations which support email exchanges with the Internet are encouraged to support AT LEAST each mailbox name for which the associated function exists within the organization.

US Navy embracing social networks

While reading this article, I was really amazed by how much US Navy embraced social networks.

Over 90 documents relating to Navy social media use were made available online that give a window onto recommended military security practices for popular services and how naval culture squares with the anarchic world of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. More importantly, it also reveals how the Navy keeps tabs on sailors via social media.
In one case, the Navy shared a poster of sexual assault prevention tips on their official Facebook page at the request of the Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response office. The poster was a repurposed graphic that the Navy copied from Slutwalk Austin’s Facebook page.
The idea was to intentionally spur a debate among Navy personnel on sexual assault and to bring discussion of the topic into a semi-public forum. According to the Navy’s own report, “many thought [the poster] was funny, ‘dumb,’ or a joke, others were outraged, a few recognized the tone and intent” and Navy social media personnel managed the resulting comments thread. They moderated the discussion, noted how sailors treat discussion of sexual assault online and attempted to keep a respectful tone. In one case, the thread even uncovered what appeared to have been the sexual assault of a former sailor.

I wish more companies and organizations did the same.

Civil servants salaries in Cyprus

Cyprus Mail reports:

Around 65 per cent of civil servants (some 35,000) are paid wages that are substantially higher than the national average.

And if that wasn’t enough,

The discrepancy between the wages of civil servants and the general population may be substantial, yet even this is slightly misleading. Civil servants’ salaries weigh heavily in calculating the average national salary. It follows that the figure for the average national salary, as given by the Statistical Service, is “bumped up” by the high wages received by civil servants, thereby concealing the true extent of the difference between public and private sectors.

The numbers breakdown follows:

Civil servants wages (May 2011)
Salary Number of recipients
€0 – €1500 10,871
€1501 – €2500 16,465
€2501 – €3500 14,449
€3501 – €4500 6,866
€4501 and above 5,360

Read the rest of the article for more details.

Day in brief – 2011-08-24

On how Google+ will succeed

The Next Web blog runs a piece by Tom Anderson in which he explains why Google+ is not at all a failure many journalists paint it to be.  It’s quite interesting really, I do agree with a lot of it.

While perhaps all social networks need to capture subgroups of people to chew away at the core of more dominant players, Google’s massive scale — both the attention the brand receives — and the domains it owns: google.com, youtube.com, blogger.com, and gmail.com — have given Google a weapon no one else has: the power of attrition, via that little black bar and red notification. The constant reminder this black bar/red notification provides, means that Google+ doesn’t need to have high engagement numbers from all its users in the beginning. Day by day, one key person after another will find that they enjoy the G+ platform more than its competitors. They’ll start posting and then the ball starts rolling.