Hi Cynthia, 

A big seconded from me.. I got into the peering / interconnection community around 2014, and I was 25 or so at the time. Always enjoyed talking with the "older" generations at the events, the historical perspective and understanding that brings were very valuable to me in getting to the point where I am now. 

As for mailing lists, I do lurk in a few of them, but I too find them a bit clunky. Are they better than captive communities, eg $social_media? Yes, I do think so. But not ideal either. :) 

Best regards, 
Martijn 

From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+martijnschmidt=i3d.net@nanog.org> on behalf of Cynthia Revström via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Sent: 27 March 2021 11:20
To: Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu>
Cc: NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>
Subject: Re: OT: Re: Younger generations preferring social media(esque) interactions.
 
(Not speaking for all younger people of course)

I often enjoy learning about issues in the past or why some decision was made the way it was.

Often this is best conveyed by people who have the context from having been involved at the time.

I have asked some people in the past for context to historical issues or decisions etc. (both in networking and other parts of tech)

(not directed at anyone specifically)
I think for the people who are concerned about the younger generations not having this knowledge, think of how to fix it rather than just giving up on the younger generation.

Sure not everyone will be interested in historical context, and certainly not in every topic, but some are.
I think connecting with the younger generations in order to answer these questions is a much better approach than blaming them for not wanting to use mailing lists or whatever.

Once again this was not directed at anyone specifically, just things I wanted to address from this thread as a whole.

-Cynthia

On Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 10:57 Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
On Thu, 25 Mar 2021 12:51:28 -0400, "Allen McKinley Kitchen (gmail)" said:
>  how I am called on by younger peers and can remember things that the kids haven’t had time to learn.
>
> Now that last one has no real network application .. but it makes me feel good.

Oh, there are *tons* of stuff that you can remember that the kids haven't
learned yet.  We just had a long thread about famous operational issues,
and I'm willing to bet that *none* of those ever got mentioned wherever
the kids went to school...