NANOG-futures

[Steve Gibbard]

On Wed, 14 Jun 2006, William B. Norton wrote:

> Steve Feldman said that there was no photography allowed in the main
> nanog room in San Jose in response to concerns about having photos
> taken by someone in the mainstream press and splashed in some
> publication.  Randy's view was that he had the right not to be
> photographed, and since there was a chance the San Jose Mercury Times
> reporter was going to be there in San Jose to do a story on geeks
> invading silicon valley, Merit suggested and Steve agreed to make the
> announcement banning photographs from being taken in the main room,
> and asking that people ask permission before taking pictures
> elsewhere.
Thanks for the summary.

As an occasional NANOG speaker, I'd see one of my talks making it into the 
mainstream press as a good thing.  It's not something I expect to happen, 
but it would be nice if it did.  Trying to prevent that strikes me as 
rather strange.  If there's something people don't want others to see, I 
assume they wouldn't do it on a stage in front of a few hundred people, or 
in front of the streaming video cameras already present in the NANOG 
meetings.

As an occasional photographer, I tend not to photograph NANOG talks unless 
somebody requests it, since NANOG talks tend not to make very good 
pictures.  I do occasionally get requests from speakers to photograph them 
giving their talks, so that they'll have a picture of themselves speaking 
at a conference.  That's one more reason it would seem strange to ban 
photography.

-Steve