NANOG-futures

[Richard A Steenbergen]

On Fri, Sep 22, 2006 at 10:50:33PM -0500, Gadi Evron wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Sep 2006, Cat Okita wrote:
> <snip yet another..>
>  
> > I know that you run a variety of other mailing lists - if you feel that
> > the conversation and direction of NANOG (or Bugtraq or Full-disclosure) 
> > isn't what you desire, why not bring your conversations elsewhere,
> > rather than tilting at windmills?
> 
> As it is on topic, and operational, to ISP's. It is of interest to many
> NANOGers.
> 
> If the list decides it is not on-topic, that's one thing. If not, a
> numbered few repeated loud voices will not disturb the operational needs
> of others, which do not interest them, or God forbid, show them they may
> need to work a little harder.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people just don't get it, no matter 
how many times you try to explain it to them. Gadi has been told time 
and time again when he is posting stuff irrelevent crap, but he believes 
that as long as one person reads his material he has an "obligation" to 
spew all over the rest of us.

You know if it was me, I would personally be a little bit CONCERNED about 
making a complete and total ass of myself on a public mailing list because 
I can't take "not interested" for an answer. At any other time in the 
history of NANOG, someone (srh) would have put a stop to this crap a long 
time ago, for the benefit of the entire list. The issue now is that in 
place of a strong authority figure we're all trying to govern by 
committee. Unfortunate this means every last person with an opinion has 
something to say, and as long as Gadi hears one voice which isn't saying 
"this is not appropriate" he gets to be oblivious to reality.

But even more than pointing out an issue with Gadi in particular, this 
points out the need for mailing list administration which is not impotent 
in these issues. The existing MLC can't take any necessary action other 
than asking nicely (which they've already done several times) without 
invoking the micromanaging of everyone with an opinion about Gadi's post. 
Instead, we sit around asking the brick wall if it would kindly stop, get 
no answer, and end up doing a disservice to every person who could be 
using this list to discuss important relevent issues.

Can we please elect a competent and rational set of folks who can make 
mailing list administration decisions (which I believe we've already 
done), and then empower them to do what needs to be done to get this list 
back on track? If we can't come to such a simple agreement, I don't see 
any way that NANOG will ever be able to be relevent, and those of us who 
actually want to discuss on-topic matters may need to move on to lists 
which are better managed.

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen <ras@e-gerbil.net>       http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)