Sounds like he's used to used IRC, not mailing lists. There used to be an IRC channel where a lot of NANOG folks hung out. Anyone care to publicize the channel name and which IRC network carries it?
from the nanog mailing list... Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2004 12:17 PM
First and foremost, the #nanog IRC channel has absolutely nothing to > do with the nanog mailing list, other than it shares some common > personalities.
Which IRC network? There are dozens of IRC networks and although you can find channels with the same name on different networks, they rarely share common personalities. In any case, I would expect that an IRC channel would contain mostly front-line NOC people, and except for the smaller networks where one person wears many hats, I would not expect to find such people hanging out on the NANOG list. Now, perhaps #nanog is not the channel I am thinking of, in which case I think it would be a good idea for someone with first hand experience to post the channel or channels which do cover this type of stuff. Same thing goes for Jabber channels or any other IM network. Is there a place where frontline network operators hang out, where it is not frowned upon to ask operational questions about events in progress? --Michael Dillon