Topicality and audiences [was Re: tech support being flooded due to IE 0day]

Sat Sep 23 14:36:43 UTC 2006

It doesn't matter who wrote:

> If you don't find network operations to be relevant, then by all
> means STOP POSTING TO THE GOD DAMNED NETWORK OPERATIONS MAILING LIST.
> Some of those, particularly those who *gasp* run networks, still find
> it relevent. If there is this much disagreement about your posts,
> maybe you should find a different place to make them.

In spite of repeated rants like this one (I'm too tired and lazy to 
disguise the author of it further, the particular author here is not 
important), the problem is not "What kind of list is NANOG?"  It really 
isn't.  I don't think a strong case that many active posters here are 
confused about that it really hard to make.  There really ought to be a 
moratorium on the question of what kind of a list is NANOG.

The question has always been, in my my mind, "What the hell does 
"Operations" mean to the participants here.  (I have on several 
occasions said what I think it means to others, I'll spare me the agony 
of doing that again just now.)

I have for years incorrectly assumed (nay, insisted) that "Operations 
topics" include just about everything that has to do with operating a 
network or networks, or network of networks.

I don't think it includes the mindless, repetitive, numbing harassment 
of somebody that has an issue affecting his or her operation that either 
needs help, or wants to share a lesson learned.

Frankly, a scholarly analysis of the archives (edited or not) would 
show, I'll bet, that there are more items about what is on topic than 
there are about any other subject-group.

-- 
Requiescas in pace o email

Ex turpi causa non oritur actio

http://members.cox.net/larrysheldon/