North American Network Operators Group

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[ADMINISTRIVIA] Re: time for a new list?

  • From: Edward S. Marshall
  • Date: Tue Nov 03 22:36:53 1998

On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Phil Howard wrote:
> My suggestion would be to have a forum, or maybe an alternate mailing list,
> called "NANOG-BOF" (alias "NANOG-BOG") where one "side issues" can be
> discussed.  Then it would be easy to just take dragging issues to there.

This has already been tried (I believe someone created the
"offtopic-bullshit" list at one point for inet-access), and just doesn't
work; the people involved -don't use it-, and moderating a forum like
NANOG would reduce the speed at which urgent operational messages would go
out (before you say "make an exception list for those with clue", think
about who decides who gets on that "clue list", and how people are removed
from it). And this is a operator's list; you should expect a certain
minimum of discussion of operations-related issues.

Personally, NANOG's signal-to-noise ratio is still incredibly low compared
to most lists I'm on. Allow me to voice my vote for leaving things the way
they are: open posting for those who have actually worked out how to
subscribe to the posting list.

The one suggestion I'd make would be starting to be a little more
aggressive about letting people know that their messages are offtopic (via
Merit listadmins or appointed watchdogs), and clamping down on repeat
offenders (by removal of posting priviledges). Self-moderation via
consequences, vs. enforced moderation.

-- 
Edward S. Marshall <[email protected]> />   Who would have though that we  -o)
http://www.logic.net/~emarshal/        // would be freed from the Gates of  /\\
Linux Weenie, Open-Source Advocate    </    hell by a penguin named "Tux"? _\_v

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