Thread: Re: [NOVICE] jobs mailling list: pgsql-jobs@postgresql.org ?

From: "Rudi Starcevic" <rudi@oasis.net.au>
> Would people prefer a web site or an email list ?

Although an integrated website and email list would be
spectacular, an email list would be preferable, because
the posting(s) would be sent out to all who are
interested (kind of like push technology), rather than
having people needing to check the site (kind of like
pull technology) every so often.

Employers would appreciate the fact that their
announcement is going to be read within (usually)
24 hours, thus they could get a faster reaction/response.

And job seekers would appreciate the service.

And people that already have postgres-related jobs
may appreciate knowing how in-demand their jobs
are, should there be more activity on the mailling
list (website), and in case they're wondering/planning
to switch their current jobs.

I volunteer myself to manage it, though whoever is
already in charge of the mailling list may need contact
me...

Maybe an email list is the go.

Perhaps the web site stuff is best left to the big Job sites out there ?

I don't mind too much either way.

One things for sure though I would like to see more Postgresql jobs
on offer.
PG is just so outstanding and can offer solutions for so many problems.

Cheers
Rudi.

On Tue, 2003-07-01 at 08:22, Rudi Starcevic wrote:
> Maybe an email list is the go.
>
> Perhaps the web site stuff is best left to the big Job sites out there ?
>
> I don't mind too much either way.
>

The mailing list idea seems to meet most of our criteria:

archived and searchable (google,archives,fts)
language independent
all postings are dated
anyone can sign up who wants
requires very little development/maintenance

this isn't to say we wouldn't mind a more complex solution, but as
Richard pointed out, it seems unlikely that we'll get overloaded with
jobs using the above method (unfortunately).

> One things for sure though I would like to see more Postgresql jobs
> on offer.
> PG is just so outstanding and can offer solutions for so many problems.
>

yep

Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

OK.

I'm just about to retire for the night.
I'm sure I'll find more posting's on this thread
when I kick off again tomorrow.

So as my day ends it looks like jobs.postgresql.org
may well make it's debut as an email list.

As Robert states an email list meets most of the criteria.

I can always use my skill's elsewhere if not needed on this project.

Thanks
See you tomorrow.

Best Regards
Rudi.




> On Tue, 2003-07-01 at 08:22, Rudi Starcevic wrote:
> > Maybe an email list is the go.
> >
> > Perhaps the web site stuff is best left to the big Job sites out there ?
> >
> > I don't mind too much either way.
> >
>
> The mailing list idea seems to meet most of our criteria:
>
> archived and searchable (google,archives,fts)
> language independent
> all postings are dated
> anyone can sign up who wants
> requires very little development/maintenance
>
> this isn't to say we wouldn't mind a more complex solution, but as
> Richard pointed out, it seems unlikely that we'll get overloaded with
> jobs using the above method (unfortunately).
>
> > One things for sure though I would like to see more Postgresql jobs
> > on offer.
> > PG is just so outstanding and can offer solutions for so many problems.
> >
>
> yep
>
> Robert Treat
> --
> Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Rudi,

> So as my day ends it looks like jobs.postgresql.org
> may well make it's debut as an email list.

Even if it starts as an e-mail list, I would very much like to have a web form
for employers to submit jobs, rather than submitting a free-form e-mail.
Having a web form would hopefully:
1) decrease spamming for the list admin to deal with;
2) force potential employers to fill out several fields instead of just "We
need a PostgreSQL DBA."
3) Make for an easy transition to jobs posted on the web once we have enough
traffic to justify it.
4) Have a seperate form in each language that would go to a seperate list in
each language.

Suggested form field:

Contact Name:
Contact E-mail:
Contact Phone:
Company:*
Apply Before:
Position Type: (DBA|Application Designer|Sysadmin|Performance
Tuner|Trainer|Conversion|Other)
Term: (Full Time Employment|Long Term Contract|Short Term/Freelance)
Location:
Off-site/Internet OK? (Yes|No)
Description:

All fields except Contact Phone would be required.  There would also be a note
for the *:  ( *= If you need your company's information to remain
confidential, simply put "Confidential" in the Company space.  Keep in mind
that job postings are publicly archived.)

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

From: "Josh Berkus" <josh@agliodbs.com>
> Even if it starts as an e-mail list, I would very much like to have a web
form
> for employers to submit jobs, rather than submitting a free-form e-mail.

Having both available would be ideal. So far that I've seen, there hasn't
been
problems submitting free-form email on other mailling lists and it's been
very
effective for knowledgeable employers.

> Having a web form would hopefully:
> 1) decrease spamming for the list admin to deal with;

Very good point. Since I brought/revived this topic, I'm willing to do the
list admin work if that can be delegated to me.

> 2) force potential employers to fill out several fields instead of just
"We
> need a PostgreSQL DBA."

Though my emphasis is creating a jobs mailling list...
If there's a jobs website, I'd suggest making it as employer friendly as
possible considering employers have chosen PostgreSQL and do pay
PostgreSQL salaries...

On Wed, Jul 02, 2003 at 05:51:09AM +0900, Frank Lee wrote:
> From: "Frank Lee" <franklee@netzero.net>
> To: <pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org>
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [NOVICE] jobs mailling list: pgsql-jobs@postgresql.org ?
> Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 05:51:09 +0900
> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106
>
> From: "Josh Berkus" <josh@agliodbs.com>
> > Even if it starts as an e-mail list, I would very much like to have a web
> form
> > for employers to submit jobs, rather than submitting a free-form e-mail.
>
> Having both available would be ideal. So far that I've seen, there hasn't
> been
> problems submitting free-form email on other mailling lists and it's been
> very
> effective for knowledgeable employers.
>
> > Having a web form would hopefully:
> > 1) decrease spamming for the list admin to deal with;
>
> Very good point. Since I brought/revived this topic, I'm willing to do the
> list admin work if that can be delegated to me.
>
> > 2) force potential employers to fill out several fields instead of just
> "We
> > need a PostgreSQL DBA."
>
> Though my emphasis is creating a jobs mailling list...
> If there's a jobs website, I'd suggest making it as employer friendly as
> possible considering employers have chosen PostgreSQL and do pay
> PostgreSQL salaries...
>

ok guys, I think I can help in this area.

I have been working very hard on something I call "project eros"-- it's pg
based (with php too), and it is specifically set up to allow this sort of
custom application. it is licensed under LGPL.

what I propose is this:

we set up a mailing list, which anyone can join. I like mailman the most,
but majordomo is fine since that is already in production. if you want to,
you can lock down the config to only allow posting from members of the
list.. obviously the below mentioned 'bot' would have to be subscribed. you
can then set up moderation so that if someone posts directly to the list (eg
not knowing about our nice application to facilitate it), we can assign a
moderator to handle that on a case-by-case basis: forward it to the list,
forward a url for the application to the poster, etc.

we set up an application with the aforementioned form (there is another post
in this thread with suggestions). I will use code in project eros to provide
this form, and the database to contain it all.

the application will then be able to post apporpriately formatted job
listings to the mailing list for all to see (and archive how they see fit,
and majordomo can provide an additional, searchable, archive of all
postings).

we can make the system flexible enough to allow deferred posting to the
mailing list or "bulk" entries to avoid spamming the list for *every* job.

once we control the format of the email (at least from the bot), you can
make a nice summary for each listing, grouped by the organization with the
need, making it easy to find. I'm thinking that a url to an appopriate
homepage and/or internal job posting page (if the employer does their own)
would be appropriate. if all we do is have a place in the database for a url
or two, the person doing the data entry can put whatever they want in there
or leave it blank. the bot that does the posting to the mailing list can be
set up to not show blank fields, so the end-users will only see relevant
details, not a bunch of blank lines, which IMHO is a good thing.

eros can do a lot, you see.. :)

I saw mention of picking an "official" language, and I have a suggestion for
that, too: obviously english is one choice, but why not make the system
flexible enough that you can enter your postings in any language, as long as
you indicate (via drop down box) what the language is? as long as the end
users can specify what languages they know, it will be fine. obviously for
the mailing list we will have to pick english to reach the widest possible
audience, but maybe the bot can be set up to list "non-english" posts
seperately, via a url direct to a specific job posting, so that the
information will still go out, but it won't intrude upon people that will
not be able to comprehend the posting.

fair? :)

so, what we need is:

- bot
- web application
- database setup complete with tables, etc. don't forget to design in RI and
  take appropriate advantage of every pg feature you can.
- moderator for the list (someone has already volunteered for this position)

and that is about it.

I can do some work on the bot, but I will insist upon using python for it.
if that causes political issues (hopefully it won't), we need to discuss
another alternative. I don't know perl, for example, so I might be out of
the picture for this particular piece.

I will be happy to work on the use of eros (since it is my code), and I can
have a demo working in less than 24 hours which can then be refined as much
as we want.. but that can be decided as a group.

I can work on the schema and stuff, but I am a little new to using RI and
such, and I would expect there are people with a *LOT* more experience than
me in this regard, and I welcome the help. I don't want to make any silly
mistakes for something as critical as this.

regards,
J
--
|| Jeff - http://zoidtechnologies.com/
|| GNUPG Fingerprint: A607 0F19 7C75 1305 67E4  BDFF 26BD 606E 3517 2A42

Hi,

OK .. sounds like a web site is part of the solution.

How 'bout something like ...
a) 1 page to list all jobs ( probably just a few )
b) 1 page to list all programers looking for available ( includes a small resume )
b) 1 page to add jobs
c) 1 page to add programers
d) 1 .xml file to store jobs and programers
e) 1 .xsd ( xml schema ) file
e) 1 .rss file to store jobs and programers for folks to add to their site(s)

Again these are just ideas/suggestions.
Your opinion ?

Cheers
Rudi.


Josh Berkus wrote:

Rudi,
 

So as my day ends it looks like jobs.postgresql.org
may well make it's debut as an email list.   

Even if it starts as an e-mail list, I would very much like to have a web form 
for employers to submit jobs, rather than submitting a free-form e-mail.   
Having a web form would hopefully: 
1) decrease spamming for the list admin to deal with;
2) force potential employers to fill out several fields instead of just "We 
need a PostgreSQL DBA."
3) Make for an easy transition to jobs posted on the web once we have enough 
traffic to justify it.
4) Have a seperate form in each language that would go to a seperate list in 
each language.

Suggested form field:

Contact Name:
Contact E-mail:
Contact Phone:
Company:*
Apply Before:
Position Type: (DBA|Application Designer|Sysadmin|Performance 
Tuner|Trainer|Conversion|Other)
Term: (Full Time Employment|Long Term Contract|Short Term/Freelance)
Location:
Off-site/Internet OK? (Yes|No)
Description:

All fields except Contact Phone would be required.  There would also be a note 
for the *:  ( *= If you need your company's information to remain 
confidential, simply put "Confidential" in the Company space.  Keep in mind 
that job postings are publicly archived.)
 

Hi,

I just saw Jeff's post and jobs option/solution using "project eros".
That's another option.

So far we have:

a) a jobs email list
b) simple xml powered site
c) project eros
d) combination(s) of the above.

I vote for whatever everyone else's votes for :-)

Cheers
Rudi.



Rudi Starcevic wrote:

Hi,

OK .. sounds like a web site is part of the solution.

How 'bout something like ...
a) 1 page to list all jobs ( probably just a few )
b) 1 page to list all programers looking for available ( includes a small resume )
b) 1 page to add jobs
c) 1 page to add programers
d) 1 .xml file to store jobs and programers
e) 1 .xsd ( xml schema ) file
e) 1 .rss file to store jobs and programers for folks to add to their site(s)

Again these are just ideas/suggestions.
Your opinion ?

Cheers
Rudi.


Josh Berkus wrote:

Rudi,
 

So as my day ends it looks like jobs.postgresql.org
may well make it's debut as an email list.   

Even if it starts as an e-mail list, I would very much like to have a web form 
for employers to submit jobs, rather than submitting a free-form e-mail.   
Having a web form would hopefully: 
1) decrease spamming for the list admin to deal with;
2) force potential employers to fill out several fields instead of just "We 
need a PostgreSQL DBA."
3) Make for an easy transition to jobs posted on the web once we have enough 
traffic to justify it.
4) Have a seperate form in each language that would go to a seperate list in 
each language.

Suggested form field:

Contact Name:
Contact E-mail:
Contact Phone:
Company:*
Apply Before:
Position Type: (DBA|Application Designer|Sysadmin|Performance 
Tuner|Trainer|Conversion|Other)
Term: (Full Time Employment|Long Term Contract|Short Term/Freelance)
Location:
Off-site/Internet OK? (Yes|No)
Description:

All fields except Contact Phone would be required.  There would also be a note 
for the *:  ( *= If you need your company's information to remain 
confidential, simply put "Confidential" in the Company space.  Keep in mind 
that job postings are publicly archived.)
 

Rudi,

> I just saw Jeff's post and jobs option/solution using "project eros".
> That's another option.

There's also Shridhar's OAS (a C++ & Postgres app development environment).

I think anything we run should be PostgreSQL-powered, though, just for PR
reasons, hey?

The site should be hosted at Hub.org, which supplies Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP,
Zope, etc., and may be talked into installing additional software depending.

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

OK ..
So far we have

a) a jobs email list
b) simple xml powered site
c) project eros
d) Shridar's OAS
e) combination(s) of the above.


I guess a simple xml site is not technically powered by PostgreSQL but
I was thinking along the lines of something very simple and quick to make.

It's great to have several options and some keen programers.

So which way to go ?

Cheers
Rudi.



Josh Berkus wrote:

Rudi,
 

I just saw Jeff's post and jobs option/solution using "project eros".
That's another option.   

There's also Shridhar's OAS (a C++ & Postgres app development environment).

I think anything we run should be PostgreSQL-powered, though, just for PR 
reasons, hey?

The site should be hosted at Hub.org, which supplies Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP, 
Zope, etc., and may be talked into installing additional software depending.
 

On Wed, Jul 02, 2003 at 03:21:09PM +1000, Rudi Starcevic wrote:
> Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2003 15:21:09 +1000
> From: Rudi Starcevic <rudi@oasis.net.au>
> To: pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [NOVICE] jobs mailling list: pgsql-jobs@postgresql.org
>
> OK ..
> So far we have
>
> a) a jobs email list
> b) simple xml powered site
> c) project eros
> d) Shridar's OAS
> e) combination(s) of the above.

hmm.. xml is pretty easy.. didn't think of that when I wrote the previous
mail.. I have some experience in this area (at least generating an xml
document from my 'news' section for zoidtechnologies.com) so it isn't too
much to ask for.. all I need is the 'content' you guys want provided. if we
use RSS (which is an XML document), there's a few fields we need to fill in,
like a description of the site and such, and then we have essentially a list
of the jobs. you can define a headline and then a url, even an image and
some summary text.. it's quite flexible, and most of the fields are
optional.

so, I vote for a combination of the above: a+b+c (but not d, because it's
C++, and I like php :)).. so that is what I propose..

of course, since it's all in a database anyway, there's nothing saying we
can't use both option C and option D, it's just that it is double the work.
since option C is php, and we are already using php on various websites, it
will be less to install. all I need from the sysadmin is to get PEAR
(http://pear.php.net/) and Smarty (http://smarty.php.net/) installed.. you
already have pg installed and configured.

regards,
J
--
|| Jeff - http://zoidtechnologies.com/
|| GNUPG Fingerprint: A607 0F19 7C75 1305 67E4  BDFF 26BD 606E 3517 2A42

On Wed, Jul 02, 2003 at 10:25:23AM +1000, Rudi Starcevic wrote:
> Hi,
>
> OK .. sounds like a web site is part of the solution.
>

indeed :)

> How 'bout something like ...
> a) 1 page to list all jobs ( probably just a few )

ya, what I would propose is to use the built in 'summary' function in Eros
to facilitate a 'paged' view of the job listings.. you can adjust the
'limit' (items per page) via the URL and you can also adjust the offset
(where the list starts). the summary function accepts a pointer to a
'oneitem' function, so you can display things however you want.

that means that as a 'power user' if you want to list everything on one
page, you can set the limit to '10000 items per page' and it will work, or
you can keep the default of '5 items per page', etc.

> b) 1 page to list all programers looking for available ( includes a
> small resume )

again, we can use the 'paging' code I wrote for Eros, and then when we have
10,000,000 programers in the database, it won't be a mess.. it will do the
paging automatically.

> b) 1 page to add jobs

yup, simple form, perhaps multiple steps (see below)

> c) 1 page to add programers

yup, simple form, perhaps multiple steps (see below)

> d) 1 .xml file to store jobs and programers

easy.

> e) 1 .xsd ( xml schema ) file

hmm.. never done one of these, but if it is just the schema, that's pretty
easy too.

> e) 1 .rss file to store jobs and programers for folks to add to their
> site(s)
>

ya, I know about rss, so this is easy. if we go this route, I will add the
rss feed to zoidtechnologies.com

> Again these are just ideas/suggestions.
> Your opinion ?
>
> Cheers
> Rudi.
>

eros is set up to allow 'members' to be created.. so what I can do is make a
way that you can mark yourself as an 'employer' or an 'employee'. based on
the result of that drop down box, it will set a flag on the account.. then
you will be given a menu option to 'add job(s)' or 'post resume' (or both)
based on how you have set up that particular account.

if you are an employee, you are probably only going to need to post your
resume, and if you are an employer, you probably don't need to post resumes,
but rather post jobs.. so it would be context sensitive based on the type of
user you are.

of course it's possible to be marked as both if you really want that, but
for most cases, you will be one or the other.

I agree with another poster who said it should be hosted by hub.org which is
fine.. all I need is a shell account, really.. or I can make snapshots and
someone else can scp them over.

what I would do is develop and test on zoidtechnologies.com, and then we can
deploy to whatever ASP you want.

regards,
J
--
|| Jeff - http://zoidtechnologies.com/
|| GNUPG Fingerprint: A607 0F19 7C75 1305 67E4  BDFF 26BD 606E 3517 2A42