Question about NANOG charter (Re: heads up ... another

John Hawkinson jhawk at bbnplanet.com
Tue Dec 15 23:26:45 UTC 1998


> Just about everyone here is running multiple *NIX servers on a *.NET
> somewhere, including Phil Howard.

This is distinctly not the point.


There are mailing lists for people who manage networks.
There are mailing lists for people who manage endsystems.

NANOG is one of the former, not the latter.

Yes, most people with networks have endsystems. Yes,
most people with endsystems have networks.

This doesn't mean that endsystem issues belong on network-management
mailing lists.

Given that there are a lot more endsystem administrators than
network operators (at least, for North American Networks that are Large,
which is what NANOG is for), it makes sense for endsystem issues to
be addressed in an endsystem-specific forum, so that all the endsystem
administrators can find out.

I concur strongly with Bradley's initial understanding, so far as to
be scared that the question was even asked and entertained, beause it
shows how far off the mark a lot of people's interpretations are.

Doubtless those interpretations are off the mark because of the
level of low-grade traffic to the mailing list in the past 2 years
has been extremely high, and it's hard to reset expectations.

No question, I and my colleages find ourselves engaging in an uphill
battle. Nevertheless, we shall not give up and shall strongly
perservere.

The charter of the list was written to avoid being too specific and
to not preculude useful network-relevent discussion, because sometimes
this kind of thing is appropriate, but trying to cleanly delineate it
is harder than most tasks in the life of a network engineer.

As a parting shot, messages where the sum of the quoted text and
the signature exceed the body are generally considered poor form.
This is, of course, not a good excuse to introduce meaningless
drivel into your communications.

--jhawk

> At 11:37 AM 12/14/98 , Bradley Reynolds wrote:
> >As a general question, is this mailing list concerned with the
> >operation of end nodes?  It was always my thought that network
> >operations covered the ether between end nodes.  
> >
> >I don't want to start a big debate, though I would prefer a public
> >answer by a clued party.  
> >
> >BR
> >
> >On Mon, 14 Dec 1998, Phil Howard wrote:
> >
> >> Just a few minutes ago, another attempted IMAPD breakin.
> >> This one originated from rock.careers.csulb.edu [134.139.149.100].
> >> It was logged at Dec 14 16:59:56 CST.



More information about the NANOG mailing list