SixXS Contact

Jeroen Massar jeroen at massar.ch
Mon Jul 1 10:05:59 UTC 2013


[several replies in one (hence cc's) to not clutter the list with
non-really-nanog stuff, but it kinda deserves a reply, reply-to set to
where these things should be going in the first place]

[TLDR: contact = info at sixxs.net, mail queue is long, human time is
limited, if you have lots of users some will feel wronged]

On 2013-06-27 16:17, K. M. Peterson wrote:
> Are there any SixXS admins who read this list?

Several, but it is not the contact point. Note that if you had searched
the NANOG archives, or googled, or read the SixXS website this would
have been clear.

But let me nevertheless answer these comments and then return to normal
live, real work and then in our spare times processing the request
queues and the insane backlog of email.

> I seem to have committed a
> faux pas with respect to requesting an account, and I'm not getting any
> responses to my attempts (to info at sixxs.net) to clear up the issue.

In that mailbox there are currently 6396 unreplied messages, this is
spread over the last several years though (and some back-dated spam that
passed the filters creeps in there too). We used to have a near real
time statistic at http://www.sixxs.net/misc/operstats/ indicating that,
due to infrastructure changes though this does not show anymore there
though.

Your message is thus among those unreplied ones (I quickly see 3 in the
mail queue).

Unfortunately things that are not automated have to be handled by humans
and time is a rather limited resource (and getting good people who help
along is a very tricky thing as we have found out; hints appreciated).
We would love to have more time for SixXS, but there are unfortunately
only 24 hours in a day and many of that is used for real life.

Just in case: we make it a point to not prefer handling one persons case
over the rest of them. They all get handled in turn. (LIFO style in
typical case, and sometimes we then jump back a lot to resolve a few of
those too, but pretty much at random)

On 2013-06-27 16:47, Anthony Williams wrote:>
>
>
>  Can I piggy back on that inquiry and request a reset of my ISK points
> after committing a faux pas with respect to going negative from down v6
> tunnels and deleting. Now to create a new tunnel I need positive ISK
> points and I'm stilling at -10 with no way to boost my numbers. :(
>
>  Reset Points: AWJ11-SIXXS   Oh Pretty please w/sugar on top.  :)

You deleted the two working tunnels you had, adding a few credits does
not resolve your problem as you have been answered in email.

Resetting your credit would quite well make the credit system useless as
people could then just waste it all, not maintain their connection and
then ask for more, but we have other ways of solving problems like this.


On 2013-06-27 21:43, Måns Nilsson wrote:
> Personally, even though I'm on the same IRC channel as one of the
> admins and could have all support I want

Extremely interesting statement. As I am sure you are not on the IRC
channel that I do actually idle at... and even if you where, SixXS does
not do help on IRC or for specific people, see above and the site.

On 2013-06-28 13:48, Måns Nilsson wrote:
>
> Apparently I'm not on the same IRC channel as an admin anymore:
>
> "Just let me state that the day after I quit working with SIXXS I got
myself a HE tunnel"

I am really wondering which "admin" you mean, and "working" is
impossible as it is just all done in free time. Please read the about
page, and you'll realize there are only two people who 'are' SixXS, both
of us have lots of native connectivity and for the left-over locations
have a wide array of SixXS PoPs to choose out of thus no need for
alternates; though in case of throughput/latency being better and the
need would be there that would of course be a better and thus logical
choice.

Also note that anybody who really is with SixXS would write "SixXS" and
not everything in caps as they know the difference in writing style and
the reason why it is written that way. (The same trick with people
writing TOR which would mean Top Of Rack, not Tor as in Tor Project)


On 2013-06-27 22:00, Andrew D Kirch wrote:[..]

> Yes it's a private service, yes it's run by volunteers, BUT SIXXS is
> publicly putting themselves forward as ambassadors for IPv6.  "The main
> target is to create a common portal to help company engineers find their
> way with IPv6 networks deploying IPv6 to their customers
> <http://www.sixxs.net/faq/sixxs/?faq=enduser> in a rapid and
> controllable fashion." (Sixxs website) and "For whom?  For everybody.
> The average joe and jane can use AICCU so that they can use IPv6 very
> quick and easy." (SIXXS website "about us").

That is all correct. And I am actually extremely convinced that we have
overreached every single one of the goals that we have set out to
achieve: http://www.sixxs.net/faq/sixxs/?faq=why

> I'm neither Joe nor Jane,
> nor am I Tom, Dick, or Harry, and quite frankly SIXXS has been
> abrasive
> and abusive in my attempt to use their service.

Yes, it is really hard for some people to realize that we have a very
clear "do not sign up multiple times" policy.

Instead of contacting us first and getting your expired/unmaintained
ARIN record converted into something that worked, you signed up again,
and then with a bouncing email address.

On top of that you keep on making snarky comments, without any merit or
backing, on a public mailing list. As you might expect, nobody is going
to help you solve your problem that way, especially when there are other
people who are waiting nicely to get their problem resolved.

> Their stewardship of IPv6 is quite frankly horrible.

Thank you for thinking that we have any kind of "stewardship of IPv6", I
am sure you are confusing us with the IETF and maybe much more the
companies that provide IPv6 connectivity globally along with all the
hardware vendors.

Please note that SixXS is just at the edge of IPv6, the people from the
ISPs who are present on NANOG are the ones at the core, we just try to
help out where we can.

> When people on NANOG are complaining
> about lack of response, SIXXS responds with silence or "we're a
> volunteer group".

Since when is NANOG the list for complaining about public internet
services? (I cannot think of a service similar to SixXS's structure,
thus unfortunately I can't google/bing/yahoo for any complaints about
those). I also like to hint to http://www.sixxs.net/r/makeitbetter and
if you have a complaint to file it at info at sixxs.net with actual
arguments and reasoning. Please note though that indeed we will point
you to our FAQ and the big warnings that exist on the website. Thus
indeed your "I signed up multiple times" gets pointed at the for you
familiar place.


As you are on NANOG and have been complaining quite a while already,
what have you done, as an operator, to get IPv6 to your network and
services?

I can only assume that it will be close to zero, otherwise, for what are
you caring so much about that SixXS account?

> I was told to go screw myself because I'd had a work
> account years ago and tried to set up a personal one not even
> realizing
> the work account was still active (totally allowed by their TOS), my
> account was still canceled, and three weeks later Jeroen essentially
> told me I could go screw myself.

You are contradicting yourself here by first starting that you where
told to go s* yourself and then that you where 'essentially told' to do so.

I am very sure that I would never use that language. For the record,
this is the answer you received:

"Instead of contacting us first, you just went ahead against the signup
page's instructions. How much clearer can we make the contact page and
the signup so that this would not occur to you?"

Sounds a lot less bad than you try to describe it, also you never
answered that message.

> I'm the community manager at Zenoss
> and I'd get fired for treating my users like that.

You mean "Zenoss.com" right, the commercial entity? How does that
compare to a spare time project that grew out of hand?

That is the thing with a "a privately conducted development of software
and services." you can't get "fired" from that, there is no boss, as we
are the boss and we do it in our free spare time.

The only thing we can do is just give up on helping people when we get
too over tired of complainers like you. Instead of doing that though, we
keep it running. Yes, we might not be able to help every single soul on
the planet, but we are helping the ones who do follow the simple
procedures we have in place.

> I think it's _LONG_ past time we started asking "how severely has
> SIXXS's negative behavior slowed the adoption of IPv6?", and "is this
> behavior acceptable?"

Exactly what 'SIXXS's negative behavior' has slowed adoption of IPv6?

We have currently over 35k active users, amongst which a large technical
audience, certainly these people are helped. We have developed several
protocols/tools to enable IPv6 in various places. We have helped define
the IPv6 standards and solve/identify corner cases in those standards.
Next to that the many ISPs that we helped to get native IPv6, the GRH
service that we provide to debug issues and the many many times we have
reached out to providers to resolve problems in IPv6 connectivity. Oh
and not forgetting that little traffic generator called IPv6Gate, you
would be surprised to see how that is used (my NANOG presentation has
details though in case you missed it).

> For me, their service is long past worse than no service at all.

You only used the service for 39 weeks next to several months of your
tunnel not pinging. That tunnel was used another two years by the person
who we transfered it to, on your request. That you forgot you had an
ARIN handle, didn't bother to update that, let your mail bounce and
signed up again, is not much we can do about.


Also you are very obviously missing the very big point that SixXS is
only one of many many solutions for getting you IPv6 connectivity.

To list a few direct alternatives:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IPv6_tunnel_brokers

And indeed, the alternatives might lack features (AYIYA/TIC/AICCU which
we developed ourselves, though gogo6 has TSP on their end), but that
does not make SixXS the only service there is. There is lots of choice.

Also please note that we are always advocating that people use native
IPv6 (see also the 'why' FAQ with the targets above).

Hence also why we maintain these two FAQs:
 http://www.sixxs.net/faq/connectivity/?faq=native
 http://www.sixxs.net/faq/connectivity/?faq=ipv6transit

As you are thinking so badly about SixXS, I suggest that you use your
options, go somewhere else, or better, after 7 years (2013 now, you
signed up in 2006) finally get your head out of the sand and get that
native IPv6 connectivity arranged.

Greets,
 Jeroen





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