On Aug 21, 2025, at 10:00 AM, Jared Mauch via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
On Aug 20, 2025, at 11:44 PM, steve ulrich via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org <mailto:nanog@lists.nanog.org>> wrote:
the lindy effect for email is particularly strong in some communities. NANOG seems to be one of them.
I think that for some of us, e-mail was the original version of IM, as it was/is the common cross-systems way to communicate with each other. I was horrified when I was forced to sign up for an AIM account with one company but grew to be ok with it as a way to reach colleagues.
After using MTS messaging on mainframes and VAX/VMS messaging over DECnet for a few years, I helped EDS/GM establish SMTP email messaging with gateway MTA instances between internal and external TCP/IP networks. I joined the NANOG mailing list sometime last century and have relied on it ever since to remain 'au courant'. The most important part of the NANOG mailing is the searchable archives which allow users to learn from history. I, too, have been appalled at the fragmentation and fragility of 'more modern' verbal (and visual) interaction tools. "How soon we forget." No (anti)social network tool provides reliable history as they respond to social and political whims which provide only selective memory and only for as long as business goals support such. Over several decades, I have been able to recall NANOG discussions that bear on current situations. Here is one example.
From: "james.cutler () consultant com" <james.cutler () consultant com> Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2021 15:07:14 -0400 Dave,
I am a regular discourse user these days. I have been a NANOG list participant for at least a quarter of a century. I find all the modern forums require examining multiple web pages and do not support gaining any historical perspective or assist in correlating various topics into a coherent gestalt. They also require waiting for all the embellishments and formatting which html users prize as advantages, even when words, well reasoned or hasty, would serve as well or better.
As you might surmise from the forgoing: IT AINT BROKE. DON’T FIX IT.
Pardon my shouting in my fervent expression of my opinion, but it is important that you hear and consider this.
- James R Cutler - 🦉 No AI content 719 Leicester Street, Plymouth, MI 48170-1020 +1 (734) 673-5462 james.cutler@consultant.com