[bcc'd to nanog@nanog.org] Call for Community Participation The NANOG Steering Committee is interested in hearing feedback from the community about the following topic. Private comments may be sent to steering@nanog.org. Public discussion is encouraged, and should take place on the nanog-futures mailing list. For information about subscription to the nanog-futures mailing list, see <http://www.nanog.org/email.html>. Commentary on Current Events on the NANOG List Many threads on NANOG begin with a bare reference to some article published elsewhere (e.g. a blog, or a news organisation web site). While some of these threads have undoubted relevance to network operations, others are certainly off-topic. Some participants of the NANOG list have expressed frustration at the perceived off-topic chatter on the list resulting from these threads. Other participants have commented that they welcome the content. There is no clear majority opinion known to the NANOG Steering Committee. A common medium for distribution of information such as those contained in these NANOG threads is the weblog. Blogs have established mechanisms for facilitating follow-up commentary from readers, and are also readily syndicated through RSS or e-mail. Two notable such blogs already exist: Fergie's Tech Blog <http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/>, an individual initiative of long-time NANOG contributor Paul Fergusson Merit's SlashNOG <http://slashnog.merit.edu/>, a proof-of-concept discussion forum styled after Slashdot The NANOG Steering Committee is interested in hearing the opinions of the community on this topic. For example: 1. Should current events/news bulletin-style threads be declared universally off-topic for the NANOG mailing list? 2. Should NANOG encourage, facilitate, or otherwise support a blog or similar forum for this content? Please follow-up to the nanog-futures mailing list <http:// www.nanog.org/email.html> or send private commentary to the NANOG Steering Committee at <steering@nanog.org>. Joe Abley (for the NANOG SC)