Alexander Kiwerski said:

I believe the simple fact that the existence of a "women in networking" mailing list is being debated in any way, shape or form speaks volumes in and of itself.............

The existence of the list was not being debated, the reasons for and effects of the list were being debated. The bright side is even the people who thought the list was a bad idea seemed concerned about what they percieved as a loss of participation in other list by valuable people. On Fri, 9 Jun 2000, Shawn McMahon wrote:

On Fri, Jun 09, 2000 at 01:41:10PM -0400, William Allen Simpson wrote:

...

When I've attended meetings, I've seen that the vast majority of participants are white males. It seems reasonable to expect that those without the same immutable characteristics might feel different or even excluded.

And making a new list will make them less excluded?

Seems to me it involves codifying their exclusion.

Having a new list does not preclude involvement in current lists. All it does is create a different environment for people to have a discussion. I can only go by what the original author said:

A place to discuss, network, complain, vent, coordinate...

It might be that they feel that a different environment would be beneficial find answers to questions that they might not want to ask on nanog: 1) When I know the answer to a problem how do I get the 3 male engineers to shutup and listen to me... 2) I have frag'ed his butt a gazillion times in quake but this sysadmin I work with still calls me "hon" how do I make him stop? 3) When I wear my G-suit to work how do I get people to look at the network diagram on the white board and not well you know... 4) When I post a harmless message on nanog and it turns into a 15 message+ miniflamewar what do I do? I guess it all revolves around your point of view; if someone is on a mailing list but doesn't feel comfortable posting is that inclusionary? Sometimes by allowing people an environment where they feel at home you allow them to learn things that make them better able to deal with a umm more challenging environment. I didn't see this mailing list as an attempt to replace other mailing lists merely to compliment them. Now if they starting hoarding clues and not sharing thats another story :) As always YMMV bjp@eng.umd.edu | Disclaimer: Can you be sure I even uunet!eng.umd.edu!istari | exist: Let alone represent anyone Brad Passwaters (Network Ronin) | or anything. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here we are. Born to be kings. We're the princes of the universe. Here we belong, fighting to survive in a war with the darkest power. Network Manager's Theme Song (QUEEN)