Internic does it again

Mon Jul 28 22:18:05 UTC 1997

On Mon, Jul 28, 1997 at 12:00:10PM -0700, Sarah Baker wrote:
> Off-topic to nanog.

It appears that the members of the list feel it's a worthy topic for
discussion.  Since you obviously don't, and I can just feel Paul
Ferguson and Randy Baker slavering at the bit, I'm going to try asking
this just _one_ more time, and if I don't get an answer within, say, 48
hours, I'm going to start plonking people who yell "off-topic": 

                              **************************
        Would an administrator of this list please compose and post a message
        defining in precise terms what topic areas are on- and off-topic for
                               the NANOG mailing list?
                              **************************

Pay careful attention, folks: the AUP is useless.  It has not clearly
forbidden _any_ of the topics I've seen people get screamed at about in
the past month, with the sole exception of my bit of (you'll have to
admit: provoked) ventilation a week or so ago, for which I hereby
apologize publically to the parites involved.

Private correspondence from people who might be expected to have valid
opinions tells me that this problem _is not me_.  The definition of the
list is obviously inadequate, and I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion
that the list needs to be split into an announce list and a discussion
list, although I haven't quite yet characterized the exact distinction
in the traffic.

In short: this list is turning into an old-boys (and -girls_ club, in
which the participants are expected to guess what the rules really are,
and mistakes are punished by beheading.

The Emperor really _has_ no lightsaber.

Let's buy him one, no?

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth       High Technology Systems Consulting              Ashworth
Designer            Linux: Where Do You Want To Fly Today?        & Associates
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jra at baylink.com       http://rc5.distributed.net                     NIC: jra3