What should we consider to be the current guidance?
You linked to the currently published mailing list guidelines, therefore you have already answered your own question. There is no current requirement for real names to be used on the mailing list. I do not believe that there should be a requirement reinstated for 'real names' to be used on the mailing list. We have had multiple decades of practical education and experience that such requirements are effectively unenforceable on open mailing lists. To actually do this, NANOG would need to spend some amount of staff time / effort / $$ to setup systems for identification (which could potentially have GDPR/CCPA bits to worry about ), along with enforcement. This is a lot of time / people / $$ costs to incur. The only benefit to this effort/expense would be that someone who gets into an internet argument can address someone with their real name when they rage reply. So yeah, I think it's just fine as it is. On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 7:49 PM William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> wrote:
On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 2:15 PM Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org> wrote:
I had the same recollection.
https://web.archive.org/web/20021209101350/https://nanog.org/listfaq.html
Okay, my memory didn't fail me after all. This time anyway. It was this list.
Acceptable Use Policy 6. Postings must be made using real, identifiable names and addresses, rather than aliases.
The current AUP seems mute on the matter: https://nanog.org/resources/usage-guidelines/
So, question for the mail admins: was the expectation of real names intentionally removed at some point? When? Why? What should we consider to be the current guidance?
Regards, Bill Herrin
-- For hire. https://bill.herrin.us/resume/