Re: Perhaps it's time to think about enhancements to the NANOG list...?
Hi, On 21/03/2021 16:00, nanog-request@nanog.org wrote:
Message: 13 Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2021 12:46:57 -0600 From: David Siegel <arizonagull@gmail.com> [...] The board has been thinking about enhancements to the NANOG list for a couple of years now, with the goal of creating a modern interface that the younger generation of engineers will be more comfortable using.
May I suggest that if you *really* want such enhancement, perhaps upgrade the mailing-list to mailman3. It's still mailman but with those 'modern' features. But more importantly (not only for NANOG by the way), maybe some kind of 'mailing-list 101' can be helpful sometimes. Many $vendors are fighting hard to make people forget what an email is. -- Willy Manga @ongolaboy https://ongola.blogspot.com/
On Sun, 21 Mar 2021, 16:30 Willy Manga, <mangawilly@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
Message: 13 Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2021 12:46:57 -0600 From: David Siegel <arizonagull@gmail.com> [...] The board has been thinking about enhancements to the NANOG list for a couple of years now, with the goal of creating a modern interface that
On 21/03/2021 16:00, nanog-request@nanog.org wrote: the
younger generation of engineers will be more comfortable using.
May I suggest that if you *really* want such enhancement, perhaps upgrade the mailing-list to mailman3. It's still mailman but with those 'modern' features.
But more importantly (not only for NANOG by the way), maybe some kind of 'mailing-list 101' can be helpful sometimes. Many $vendors are fighting hard to make people forget what an email is.
Well baby boomers & gen-x will struggle to dump mail...I mean it simple and just works. We were trying to get a community of newbie techies mostly millennials & gen-z to actively engage on a list we subscribed them too for the past 2 years and believe me, I can count no more than 10 posts mainly from we few mailing list folk... When we requested for feedback, them gen-z cried out loud for interactions to happen on some social media app through groups or channels, and since they are the target audience and the majority, we settled for discord and telegram which they actively engage on :-). We still maintain the mailing list though and most announcement are done via it but things are changing hey.... Noah
On 3/21/21 8:03 AM, Noah wrote:
Well baby boomers & gen-x will struggle to dump mail...I mean it simple and just works.
Indeed. There's also the fact that it comes to you as opposed to you going to it.
We were trying to get a community of newbie techies mostly millennials & gen-z to actively engage on a list we subscribed them too for the past 2 years and believe me, I can count no more than 10 posts mainly from we few mailing list folk...
When we requested for feedback, them gen-z cried out loud for interactions to happen on some social media app through groups or channels, and since they are the target audience and the majority, we settled for discord and telegram which they actively engage on :-).
I must be ignorant as I don't grok this. Are they willing to use a (traditional) forum (of sorts) that is dedicated to the venue? Or Are they wanting things to come to them wherever they happen to be today? E.g. Facebook group, Discord, Slack, etc? If it's the former, okay, that's a web UI / UX as opposed to mail UI / UX. If it's the latter, does that mean that you have to constantly keep changing /where/ messages are sent to in order to keep up with the latest and greatest or at least most popular (in your audience) flavor of the day / week / month / year social media site? Either way, does the target audience that you're talking about actively go to said site(s) (I want to say watering hole) and poll them? Or are they using some phone / device app that polls them and puts a notification over the icon? I'm asking from a place of ignorance as I really don't understand this mentality. Part of my struggle is that I fail to see how it scales to poll multiple sites (or app icon notifications) when there are 10s, 100s, or even more things to check. This is /exactly/ one of the reasons that I *strongly* /prefer/ email, it comes to me and gets filed in the proper folders. Where messages sit waiting to be read with the folder indicating that there are unread messages in it. I then go read them when it's convenient for me to do so. But most importantly, I don't have to go check multiple -> many places. The unread notification / count percolates up to one single location. Any additional insight that you can provide would be appreciated. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
On Mon, Mar 22, 2021 at 09:55:02AM -0600, Grant Taylor via NANOG wrote:
On 3/21/21 8:03 AM, Noah wrote:
Well baby boomers & gen-x will struggle to dump mail...I mean it simple and just works.
Indeed.
There's also the fact that it comes to you as opposed to you going to it.
We were trying to get a community of newbie techies mostly millennials & gen-z to actively engage on a list we subscribed them too for the past 2 years and believe me, I can count no more than 10 posts mainly from we few mailing list folk...
When we requested for feedback, them gen-z cried out loud for interactions to happen on some social media app through groups or channels, and since they are the target audience and the majority, we settled for discord and telegram which they actively engage on :-).
I must be ignorant as I don't grok this.
On the other hand, I suspect majority of youngsters will never grok email. This will be thanks to mental gap promoted by some vendors, who certainly do not like it that anybody could, for example, set up email server and exchange thoughts outside of their zone of control. So, those who want to use email are capable of writing more than decent MUA for free, while those who do not want email are unable to do it, despite having heaps of money and paid programmers. As of multiple fora and all-day clicking, well, it is better to keep all those techies busy with something, lest they invent an idea and go out to start rival business... I am not going to suggest the big guys actively conspire but driving people away from things-that-work is not hurting their profits, so why would they want to change this? I am not going to lament much, either. It is just how it goes. On the brighter side, there will also be a minority, who will come to email exactly because they will be aspiring power users. I think there will always be some aspiring power users, so it is not going to be only bad. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola@bigfoot.com **
On 3/23/21 02:22, Tomasz Rola wrote:
I am not going to lament much, either. It is just how it goes. On the brighter side, there will also be a minority, who will come to email exactly because they will be aspiring power users. I think there will always be some aspiring power users, so it is not going to be only bad.
There will be, but they will keep dwindling. It's a serious concern for me, and a relevant topic to discuss as any other on a NOG list such as this. It's the future of network operations as (don't) know it. Mark.
On Tue, Mar 23, 2021 at 10:32:20AM +0200, Mark Tinka wrote:
On 3/23/21 02:22, Tomasz Rola wrote:
I am not going to lament much, either. It is just how it goes. On the brighter side, there will also be a minority, who will come to email exactly because they will be aspiring power users. I think there will always be some aspiring power users, so it is not going to be only bad.
There will be, but they will keep dwindling.
Things may be coming to this but they do not have to. I understand that being a power user involves talking to computer with some kind of a language, as opposed to pointing with finger. One example is unix commands, where "ls /usr/bin/ /sbin /usr/sbin/ | wc -l" gives me well over four thousand "words". So the question is, if in a future there will be systems which allow "talking to computer with words", allowing to make complex descriptions of "what to do". Talking to "siri" is not what I am thinking about, because just like "desktop metaphore", the "assistant metaphore" is trying to hide too much of underlying complexity to allow "power usage". -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola@bigfoot.com **
I am not going to lament much, either. It is just how it goes. On the brighter side, there will also be a minority, who will come to email exactly because they will be aspiring power users. I think there will always be some aspiring power users, so it is not going to be only bad.
There will be, but they will keep dwindling.
Things may be coming to this but they do not have to. I understand that being a power user involves talking to computer with some kind of a language, as opposed to pointing with finger. One example is unix commands, where "ls /usr/bin/ /sbin /usr/sbin/ | wc -l" gives me well over four thousand "words". So the question is, if in a future there will be systems which allow "talking to computer with words", allowing to make complex descriptions of "what to do".
Talking to "siri" is not what I am thinking about, because just like "desktop metaphore", the "assistant metaphore" is trying to hide too much of underlying complexity to allow "power usage”.
Obligatory: Scotty: Computer! Computer? [He's handed a mouse, and he speaks into it] Scotty: Hello, computer. Dr. Nichols: Just use the keyboard. Scotty: Keyboard. How quaint. -Andy
Hi, As someone from a "younger generation" (2001) who does use mailing lists, semi-actively participates in RIPE mailing lists but also created a network community on Discord, I want to chime in here.
Are they willing to use a (traditional) forum (of sorts) that is dedicated to the venue? Or Are they wanting things to come to them wherever they happen to be today? E.g. Facebook group, Discord, Slack, etc?
I haven't ever used facebook beyond receiving some invitation for an event, and I feel like that's the most common case for people around my age group. (not using Facebook that is) (Discord is a chat based thing with a similar UX/UI to Slack) I have mainly seen Discord, partially as the barrier to entry is very low.
If it's the latter, does that mean that you have to constantly keep changing /where/ messages are sent to in order to keep up with the latest and greatest or at least most popular (in your audience) flavor of the day / week / month / year social media site?
I see this as a potential issue for sure, and if something like Discord was to be used, I would want to see it in addition to the mailing list. As I think the mailing list format works a lot better for some topics.
Either way, does the target audience that you're talking about actively go to said site(s) (I want to say watering hole) and poll them? Or are they using some phone / device app that polls them and puts a notification over the icon?
Part of my struggle is that I fail to see how it scales to poll multiple sites (or app icon notifications) when there are 10s, 100s, or even more
I am only going to speak for how Discord works here. Discord uses the latter or the former depending on how you see it. There are phone apps, desktop apps, and a web client. The desktop app and the web client are pretty much the same (some exceptions like keybinds etc). So you can use the apps to get notifications ir you could just use the Web UI and look at it whenever you want. (technically it is still pushing messages to the web client via websockets) things to check. [...] So Discord is usually setup so you only get notifications when you or a role (tag on a user p much) you belong to gets mentioned (like "@Cynthia hello world!"). But at least I would imagine that if something like Discord or Slack was to be used it would be in addition to the mailing list. Because Discord is proprietary, you can't host your own instance, they do platform wide bans of people violating the terms. In addition to features like searching archives being a bit of a mess in chat systems in general. In a basic way a Discord guild/server (server is the more common term) can be seen as a group of IRC channels (similar to Slack). Sure Discord has other things like voice channels, RBAC, etc. but you can use it as just a set of IRC channels.
Any additional insight that you can provide would be appreciated.
As I have mentioned, personally I think if anything it should be in addition to mailing lists, and also how the barrier to entry is quite low. I think this is very important to get a new younger generation of people interested in these topics. (such as myself) Using a chat system they are already familiar with to ask more casual questions is a lot easier for some. Especially if you are thinking of people who are just starting out, some of which will be part of the next generation of network engineers. I started getting more interested in these topics (internet backbone related topics like BGP, RPKI, etc.) around 3 years ago. I started by talking to other people via Discord who helped me with the kind of questions that are obvious to me now and I doubt would work as well in a mailing list format. In September 2018 I started a community on Discord targeted at networking specifically (some of the ones I had seen before that were more generic DC/enterprise hw and server stuff). It has a bit above 400 member users at this point (some are probably abandoned at this point though) and frequently has ~200 online (online means client is open, not that they are looking at this community) users. I think it does pretty well at supporting the different use cases, like people who want help trouble shooting something, people who want to discuss something generic, and people who want to discuss ops topics (more like nanog). But it's also quite flexible and allows for creating channels for specific events or topics such as a RIPE meeting, or more recently fire at OVH SBG. I am not sure how well I explained things here, so feel free to ask if something is not clear or anything else. (not just directed to Grant) -Cynthia On Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 16:58 Grant Taylor via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
On 3/21/21 8:03 AM, Noah wrote:
Well baby boomers & gen-x will struggle to dump mail...I mean it simple
and just works.
Indeed.
There's also the fact that it comes to you as opposed to you going to it.
We were trying to get a community of newbie techies mostly millennials & gen-z to actively engage on a list we subscribed them too for the past 2 years and believe me, I can count no more than 10 posts mainly from we few mailing list folk...
When we requested for feedback, them gen-z cried out loud for interactions to happen on some social media app through groups or channels, and since they are the target audience and the majority, we settled for discord and telegram which they actively engage on :-).
I must be ignorant as I don't grok this.
Are they willing to use a (traditional) forum (of sorts) that is dedicated to the venue? Or Are they wanting things to come to them wherever they happen to be today? E.g. Facebook group, Discord, Slack, etc?
If it's the former, okay, that's a web UI / UX as opposed to mail UI / UX.
If it's the latter, does that mean that you have to constantly keep changing /where/ messages are sent to in order to keep up with the latest and greatest or at least most popular (in your audience) flavor of the day / week / month / year social media site?
Either way, does the target audience that you're talking about actively go to said site(s) (I want to say watering hole) and poll them?
Or are they using some phone / device app that polls them and puts a notification over the icon?
I'm asking from a place of ignorance as I really don't understand this mentality.
Part of my struggle is that I fail to see how it scales to poll multiple sites (or app icon notifications) when there are 10s, 100s, or even more things to check. This is /exactly/ one of the reasons that I *strongly* /prefer/ email, it comes to me and gets filed in the proper folders. Where messages sit waiting to be read with the folder indicating that there are unread messages in it. I then go read them when it's convenient for me to do so. But most importantly, I don't have to go check multiple -> many places. The unread notification / count percolates up to one single location.
Any additional insight that you can provide would be appreciated.
-- Grant. . . . unix || die
On Tue, 2021-03-23 at 07:22 +0100, Cynthia Revström via NANOG wrote:
Because Discord is proprietary, you can't host your own instance
For reasons of confidentiality we implemented a MatterMost server for company use. It is free, works well, runs on our own servers. It lacks some of the bells and whistles that Discord has (in particular it has no audio or screensharing), but as an instant messaging platform for us it's worked very well indeed. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer GPG fingerprint: 2561 E9EC D868 E73C 8AF1 49CF EE50 4B1D CCA1 5170 Old fingerprint: 8D08 9CAA 649A AFEF E862 062A 2E97 42D4 A2A0 616D
I have used Mattermost but iirc it has very limited access control unless you have the enterprise version and generally doesn't seem to be made for public groups. This in addition to probably the main problem, it will have higher barrier to entry especially for those already using Discord for other purposes. -Cynthia On Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 07:38 Karl Auer <kauer@biplane.com.au> wrote:
On Tue, 2021-03-23 at 07:22 +0100, Cynthia Revström via NANOG wrote:
Because Discord is proprietary, you can't host your own instance
For reasons of confidentiality we implemented a MatterMost server for company use. It is free, works well, runs on our own servers. It lacks some of the bells and whistles that Discord has (in particular it has no audio or screensharing), but as an instant messaging platform for us it's worked very well indeed.
Regards, K.
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
GPG fingerprint: 2561 E9EC D868 E73C 8AF1 49CF EE50 4B1D CCA1 5170 Old fingerprint: 8D08 9CAA 649A AFEF E862 062A 2E97 42D4 A2A0 616D
For persons considering mattermost, I would recommend instead looking into a self hosted Matrix + Synapse (matrix protocol server daemon) setup, which is fully open source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol) Element is one typical GUI client for it, but there are many options. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Element_(software) On Mon, Mar 22, 2021 at 11:45 PM Cynthia Revström via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
I have used Mattermost but iirc it has very limited access control unless you have the enterprise version and generally doesn't seem to be made for public groups.
This in addition to probably the main problem, it will have higher barrier to entry especially for those already using Discord for other purposes.
-Cynthia
On Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 07:38 Karl Auer <kauer@biplane.com.au> wrote:
On Tue, 2021-03-23 at 07:22 +0100, Cynthia Revström via NANOG wrote:
Because Discord is proprietary, you can't host your own instance
For reasons of confidentiality we implemented a MatterMost server for company use. It is free, works well, runs on our own servers. It lacks some of the bells and whistles that Discord has (in particular it has no audio or screensharing), but as an instant messaging platform for us it's worked very well indeed.
Regards, K.
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
GPG fingerprint: 2561 E9EC D868 E73C 8AF1 49CF EE50 4B1D CCA1 5170 Old fingerprint: 8D08 9CAA 649A AFEF E862 062A 2E97 42D4 A2A0 616D
On Tue, 23 Mar 2021 at 02:46, Cynthia Revström via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
I have used Mattermost but iirc it has very limited access control unless you have the enterprise version and generally doesn't seem to be made for public groups.
I'm going to chime in here since I admin the DNS-OARC Mattermost server, which is for public groups. For those not familiar with it, DNS-OARC is a NOG-like organization specific to the DNS. More info at <https://www.dns-oarc.net/>. I'm writing this just to provide information as someone who's already operating Mattermost in the use case under discussion .. not advocating for its use at NANOG. Less than a year after deploying it (replacing our Jabber server), we currently have a little under 400 users on their default 1000-seat not-for-profit license, which is at their E10 (E for Enterprise) level. Mattermost has three license levels: Free, E10, and E20. We use a chat platform for three main use cases: internal staff chat, member to member chat, and a public chat platform to accompany the dns-operations@dns-oarc.net mailing list, which—again—is a bit like a DNS-specific version of the public NANOG list. The main reason we selected Mattermost for the role is because of the option to self-host the platform. On top of the common motivation to not want our data to disappear because a proprietary platform went away, we have some additional information and data privacy concerns because we facilitate confidential communication between our members. I agree Mattermost isn't designed with public groups in mind, although we manage to make it work for that just fine. The main clue about their intended use case is that they seem to have made the assumption that anyone using the platform is well known to the admins of the platform. For example, finding and pruning idle users requires you to write a bit of your own code—the assumption seems to be that you're onboarding and deleting users as a reaction to some other process (such as hiring) and not that you might have users where it's unclear whether they're still using the platform. Other than that one glaring gap (and they seem to be working on fixing that) I have found it to do an excellent job. NANOG as an organization has a lot more financial resources than OARC and, if it was deemed desirable, I'm sure that something could be worked out for NFP pricing for more users than the 1000-user cap on the default NFP license, and probably even for E20 levels of features.
On 3/23/21 08:22, Cynthia Revström via NANOG wrote:
Using a chat system they are already familiar with to ask more casual questions is a lot easier for some. Especially if you are thinking of people who are just starting out, some of which will be part of the next generation of network engineers.
Many new, young engineers will also feel more comfortable posting on message apps because the group is small, well-known and reasonably private, i.e., they are less afraid about sounding clueless to the whole world, on record, forever. Mark.
Many new, young engineers will also feel more comfortable posting on message apps because the group is small, well-known and reasonably private, i.e., they are less afraid about sounding clueless to the whole world, on record, forever.
I think this is at least partially true, but I think it is more not wanting to be disrespected at the time they ask these questions. No one was born with this kind of knowledge, and everyone was clueless at some point in time. Also a permanent public archive is not a requirement of a mailing list even if it is common. Also, at least I often feel like the more casual conversational chat format is easier than emails and this is the case for many of my friends as well. -Cynthia On Tue, Mar 23, 2021 at 9:38 AM Mark Tinka <mark@tinka.africa> wrote:
On 3/23/21 08:22, Cynthia Revström via NANOG wrote:
Using a chat system they are already familiar with to ask more casual questions is a lot easier for some. Especially if you are thinking of people who are just starting out, some of which will be part of the next generation of network engineers.
Many new, young engineers will also feel more comfortable posting on message apps because the group is small, well-known and reasonably private, i.e., they are less afraid about sounding clueless to the whole world, on record, forever.
Mark.
On 3/23/21 11:35, Cynthia Revström wrote:
I think this is at least partially true, but I think it is more not wanting to be disrespected at the time they ask these questions. No one was born with this kind of knowledge, and everyone was clueless at some point in time.
Totally agree. It is the result of the centuries of an industrial revolution that has shaped us to consider anything less than expertise as being considerable of anyone's time. The kids have grown up in an age where information is democratized, i.e., you are far better off if you are curious and ask questions, rather than assume you know everything and don't need to learn anymore. Mobile messaging apps do not have this kind of pressure, compared to your garden-variety, 30-year old mailing list concept. Not to say that either is good or bad, but to realize what works for a generation that is more focused on outcomes and solutions, rather than outcomes, solutions, and many times, posturing.
Also a permanent public archive is not a requirement of a mailing list even if it is common.
Indeed. However, "just for posterity" is not an uncommon reason why folk that like mailing lists continue to do so.
Also, at least I often feel like the more casual conversational chat format is easier than emails and this is the case for many of my friends as well.
Couldn't agree with you more. Keeping it simple so you can reach your result faster and most efficiently is often understood more by the kids than us geezers. While we are fighting about whether Discourse or Mailman are appropriate, the kids have probably dumped both and found something that gets them to the promised land 5 seconds after they install the app. We'd be remiss to ignore this approach. Mark.
Hi, On 23.03.2021 14:49, Mark Tinka wrote:
[...] Keeping it simple so you can reach your result faster and most efficiently is often understood more by the kids than us geezers. While we are fighting about whether Discourse or Mailman are appropriate, the kids have probably dumped both and found something that gets them to the promised land 5 seconds after they install the app.
...only to end up with yet another account at yet another data mining (future) monopolist butchering standards... I'm all for moving with the flow and embrace new things as long as it's based on open standards, open protocols, does not lock people in to a specific platform, etc., is decentralised and federated and gives users the choice (e.g. choice of MUA / MTA, or XMPP client, etc.). The trend to force everything to web-based or only THAT particular app is a fundamental step backwards towards significant less of choice on the internet. To just give in (or up) and say, well, that's what the youngsters now prefer is to move even more towards a world dominated by a few global monopolistic players who don't give a darn about open standards, open protocols, not locking people in, decentralisation and fedaration... And youngsters - as with anything in life - need to be educated and made aware of that (spoken as a former teacher). Sec
[...] Keeping it simple so you can reach your result faster and most efficiently is often understood more by the kids than us geezers. While we are fighting about whether Discourse or Mailman are appropriate, the kids have probably dumped both and found something that gets them to the promised land 5 seconds after they install the app.
...only to end up with yet another account at yet another data mining (future) monopolist butchering standards... I'm all for moving with the flow and embrace new things as long as it's based on open standards, open protocols, does not lock people in to a specific platform, etc., is decentralised and federated and gives users the choice (e.g. choice of MUA / MTA, or XMPP client, etc.). The trend to force everything to web-based or only THAT particular app is a fundamental step backwards towards significant less of choice on the internet.
To just give in (or up) and say, well, that's what the youngsters now prefer is to move even more towards a world dominated by a few global monopolistic players who don't give a darn about open standards, open protocols, not locking people in, decentralisation and fedaration... And youngsters - as with anything in life - need to be educated and made aware of that (spoken as a former teacher).
Sec
(Excuses for not being a "real NANO", but have strong ties.) I would not use the same strong words, but I agree with this in spirit. As of today, email is the ultimate standard that helps me manage my relations in a similar manner to almost all of the professional communities I'm interested in (*). I do observe that multiple of them have proposals to move on to something else, in many cases to walled gardens. This bears a number of risks towards participation and keeping (long term) history. As for participation: I'm concerned that for me to keep up being involved in these communities, I'd have to engage an ever increasing number of (proprietary) platforms *all of which are incompatible with each other*. Different communities adopt different solutions, so the list started to include FB, github, discord, mattermost, etc. and will soon include signal, telegram, and everything else in between. A common denominator, being almost always email, is badly needed. And exists. OTOH once this becomes unbearable, I *will* stop participating in some. As for NANOG, such a move will surely make otherwise valuable members tune out? As for keeping history: there's surely a break when the whole community is moved to a new platform. If that ever happens again, there's another discontinuity. This is only worse with proprietary platforms where exporting / backing up history for long term preservation is likely hard, if not entirely impossible. All in all, I'm happier if email continues to be the backbone of communication here. Robert (*) sadly, this is already not entirely true
Chiming in as a somewhat-younger network engineer here (19) - I think that Discord should be more widely considered and approved as an option across the board here. I’m active on mailing lists, and while they work, at the end of the day I’d much rather be using an app like Discord, and I know this is true for a lot of the next generation of net engineers. The costs (main one is federation/lock-in?) outweigh the benefits entirely: - Clear and organized channels of communication - Threads (coming soon, which will help a lot for communities like NANOG) - Moderation bots - Roles that allow people interested in certain topics to join the channels they care about In terms of platform lock-in; I know some of the higher up team there pretty well and I know they’d welcome us with open arms and be happy to answer any questions or solve issues we’re having. There are also bots that allow you to export entire channel histories live or for archive. Phin On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 2:54 PM Robert Kisteleki <robert@ripe.net> wrote:
[...] Keeping it simple so you can reach your result faster and most efficiently is often understood more by the kids than us geezers. While we are fighting about whether Discourse or Mailman are appropriate, the kids have probably dumped both and found something that gets them to the promised land 5 seconds after they install the app.
...only to end up with yet another account at yet another data mining (future) monopolist butchering standards... I'm all for moving with the flow and embrace new things as long as it's based on open standards, open protocols, does not lock people in to a specific platform, etc., is decentralised and federated and gives users the choice (e.g. choice of MUA / MTA, or XMPP client, etc.). The trend to force everything to web-based or only THAT particular app is a fundamental step backwards towards significant less of choice on the internet.
To just give in (or up) and say, well, that's what the youngsters now prefer is to move even more towards a world dominated by a few global monopolistic players who don't give a darn about open standards, open protocols, not locking people in, decentralisation and fedaration... And youngsters - as with anything in life - need to be educated and made aware of that (spoken as a former teacher).
Sec
(Excuses for not being a "real NANO", but have strong ties.)
I would not use the same strong words, but I agree with this in spirit.
As of today, email is the ultimate standard that helps me manage my relations in a similar manner to almost all of the professional communities I'm interested in (*). I do observe that multiple of them have proposals to move on to something else, in many cases to walled gardens. This bears a number of risks towards participation and keeping (long term) history.
As for participation: I'm concerned that for me to keep up being involved in these communities, I'd have to engage an ever increasing number of (proprietary) platforms *all of which are incompatible with each other*. Different communities adopt different solutions, so the list started to include FB, github, discord, mattermost, etc. and will soon include signal, telegram, and everything else in between. A common denominator, being almost always email, is badly needed. And exists. OTOH once this becomes unbearable, I *will* stop participating in some. As for NANOG, such a move will surely make otherwise valuable members tune out?
As for keeping history: there's surely a break when the whole community is moved to a new platform. If that ever happens again, there's another discontinuity. This is only worse with proprietary platforms where exporting / backing up history for long term preservation is likely hard, if not entirely impossible.
All in all, I'm happier if email continues to be the backbone of communication here.
Robert
(*) sadly, this is already not entirely true
On 3/24/21 17:08, Phineas wrote:
Chiming in as a somewhat-younger network engineer here (19) - I think that Discord should be more widely considered and approved as an option across the board here. I’m active on mailing lists, and while they work, at the end of the day I’d much rather be using an app like Discord, and I know this is true for a lot of the next generation of net engineers.
The costs (main one is federation/lock-in?) outweigh the benefits entirely: - Clear and organized channels of communication - Threads (coming soon, which will help a lot for communities like NANOG) - Moderation bots - Roles that allow people interested in certain topics to join the channels they care about
In terms of platform lock-in; I know some of the higher up team there pretty well and I know they’d welcome us with open arms and be happy to answer any questions or solve issues we’re having. There are also bots that allow you to export entire channel histories live or for archive.
As much as my life would be over the day this happens, I completely accept that this is where it has to go, if we want to engage with the up & coming blood. Ultimately, our main interest is to keep this thing going, long after we've all ran through the vineyards on our way to eternity :-). Mark.
Thanks for chiming in Phineas. Just for the sake of clarity, the platform that NANOG is considering is Discourse ( https://www.discourse.org/ ) , not Discord ( https://discord.com/ ) . They are different use cases, for sure. Primary difference being one is for real time communication, and one is not. Personally, I tend to want to minimize the number of real time communication pathways, because as a wise person once told me earlier in my career, the most valuable resource I have is my time. Real time can be helpful when needed, but when it is not, it feels to me like it becomes significant noise, and often times impossible to track what conversations are when (and when they were.). On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 11:09 AM Phineas <phin@phineas.io> wrote:
Chiming in as a somewhat-younger network engineer here (19) - I think that Discord should be more widely considered and approved as an option across the board here. I’m active on mailing lists, and while they work, at the end of the day I’d much rather be using an app like Discord, and I know this is true for a lot of the next generation of net engineers.
The costs (main one is federation/lock-in?) outweigh the benefits entirely: - Clear and organized channels of communication - Threads (coming soon, which will help a lot for communities like NANOG) - Moderation bots - Roles that allow people interested in certain topics to join the channels they care about
In terms of platform lock-in; I know some of the higher up team there pretty well and I know they’d welcome us with open arms and be happy to answer any questions or solve issues we’re having. There are also bots that allow you to export entire channel histories live or for archive.
Phin
On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 2:54 PM Robert Kisteleki <robert@ripe.net> wrote:
[...] Keeping it simple so you can reach your result faster and most efficiently is often understood more by the kids than us geezers. While we are fighting about whether Discourse or Mailman are appropriate, the kids have probably dumped both and found something that gets them to the promised land 5 seconds after they install the app.
...only to end up with yet another account at yet another data mining (future) monopolist butchering standards... I'm all for moving with the flow and embrace new things as long as it's based on open standards, open protocols, does not lock people in to a specific platform, etc., is decentralised and federated and gives users the choice (e.g. choice of MUA / MTA, or XMPP client, etc.). The trend to force everything to web-based or only THAT particular app is a fundamental step backwards towards significant less of choice on the internet.
To just give in (or up) and say, well, that's what the youngsters now prefer is to move even more towards a world dominated by a few global monopolistic players who don't give a darn about open standards, open protocols, not locking people in, decentralisation and fedaration... And youngsters - as with anything in life - need to be educated and made aware of that (spoken as a former teacher).
Sec
(Excuses for not being a "real NANO", but have strong ties.)
I would not use the same strong words, but I agree with this in spirit.
As of today, email is the ultimate standard that helps me manage my relations in a similar manner to almost all of the professional communities I'm interested in (*). I do observe that multiple of them have proposals to move on to something else, in many cases to walled gardens. This bears a number of risks towards participation and keeping (long term) history.
As for participation: I'm concerned that for me to keep up being involved in these communities, I'd have to engage an ever increasing number of (proprietary) platforms *all of which are incompatible with each other*. Different communities adopt different solutions, so the list started to include FB, github, discord, mattermost, etc. and will soon include signal, telegram, and everything else in between. A common denominator, being almost always email, is badly needed. And exists. OTOH once this becomes unbearable, I *will* stop participating in some. As for NANOG, such a move will surely make otherwise valuable members tune out?
As for keeping history: there's surely a break when the whole community is moved to a new platform. If that ever happens again, there's another discontinuity. This is only worse with proprietary platforms where exporting / backing up history for long term preservation is likely hard, if not entirely impossible.
All in all, I'm happier if email continues to be the backbone of communication here.
Robert
(*) sadly, this is already not entirely true
On 3/24/21 17:31, Tom Beecher wrote:
Real time can be helpful when needed, but when it is not, it feels to me like it becomes significant noise, and often times impossible to track what conversations are when (and when they were.).
I agree with this when it comes to messaging apps. I made the conscious decision not to be beholden to these messaging apps. I'll get to it, when I get to it. Time is very precious; if you feel something is urgent, call. Sending me a text and getting cross because I didn't reply in 60 seconds just falls on deaf ears. As you say, time is our main asset. Not to sound aloof, but unless it's time-sensitive and I happen to be on app when the message comes in, I'll generally reply after a day, sometimes a week. I've setup my phones not to illuminate, vibrate or chime when messages or other such things come in. Phone calls being the only exception. It has allowed me to slow down, and make better use of my limited time (mostly drinking wine, but you get the idea). Which is why, for me, replicas of a NOG on Telegram or Signal just doesn't work - it's too real-time for me. I check e-mail more regularly (on my laptop) than I check my phones. Mark.
On 3/24/21 17:43, Mark Tinka wrote:
Time is very precious; if you feel something is urgent, call. Sending me a text and getting cross because I didn't reply in 60 seconds just falls on deaf ears. As you say, time is our main asset.
And I afford anyone I text the exact same courtesy as well. A message from me has no "reply by" date. You'll get to it, when you get to it. If what I have to say is urgent, I'll call you. Mark.
On Mar 24, 2021, at 11:43 AM, Mark Tinka <mark@tinka.africa> wrote:
On 3/24/21 17:31, Tom Beecher wrote:
Real time can be helpful when needed, but when it is not, it feels to me like it becomes significant noise, and often times impossible to track what conversations are when (and when they were.).
I agree with this when it comes to messaging apps.
I made the conscious decision not to be beholden to these messaging apps. I'll get to it, when I get to it.
Time is very precious; if you feel something is urgent, call. Sending me a text and getting cross because I didn't reply in 60 seconds just falls on deaf ears. As you say, time is our main asset.
Not to sound aloof, but unless it's time-sensitive and I happen to be on app when the message comes in, I'll generally reply after a day, sometimes a week. I've setup my phones not to illuminate, vibrate or chime when messages or other such things come in. Phone calls being the only exception.
It has allowed me to slow down, and make better use of my limited time (mostly drinking wine, but you get the idea).
Which is why, for me, replicas of a NOG on Telegram or Signal just doesn't work - it's too real-time for me. I check e-mail more regularly (on my laptop) than I check my phones.
Mark. An extension of Mark’s comments could include actually using a voice call if there really is an immediate need — voice message recording is built-in to many smart phones, wireless handsets, and VoIP services.
On 3/24/21 17:51, james.cutler@consultant.com wrote:
An extension of Mark’s comments could include actually using a voice call if there really is an immediate need — voice message recording is built-in to many smart phones, wireless handsets, and VoIP services. .
And this is where - per my observations in Africa - that I realized that formal literacy is not a prerequisite to digital literacy A good chunk of folk in my region that own smartphones have never been to a school, nor can they read or write in the technical sense. But they all have smartphones, know how to use Facebook, WhatsApp, et al, and communicate at speed using voice notes. I'm not into voice notes, as I type fast or can make a phone call. But for many others, especially folk who either are low on income or cannot read or write English very well, voice notes make plenty of sense because they are part of the messaging app's data bundle, they are easy to use, they work, and they are fast. And no, these users don't care about the infrastructure, until it tells them that they are out of data and need to reload. Mark.
On 3/24/21 8:08 AM, Phineas wrote:
Chiming in as a somewhat-younger network engineer here (19) - I think that Discord should be more widely considered and approved as an option across the board here. I’m active on mailing lists, and while they work, at the end of the day I’d much rather be using an app like Discord, and I know this is true for a lot of the next generation of net engineers.
I think age has something to do with that too, and I don't mean this as offensive at all because I've been there done that, but lack of other things going on in life. When I was 19 I had no problem being available on my cell phone at all times. I'd do weekends and nights with joy. I'd volunteer to take all the extra projects the older people didn't want. I'd make up projects just because. I'd respond to messages/emails/whatever immediately if I was awake no matter what time it was. Hell, I used to respond to NOC stuff while I was sitting in class rather than wait until the end. Now that I'm older and have things like a house and family, I slowly shifted to not wanting to be available constantly. I'd rather work on some house project, bake a cake, watch TV with the wife, or play games I missed out on when I was "busy" with stuff that hardly seems important now. I don't want my life to be a slave to apps or jump at every notification I get. I have a laptop just in case I need one, but my primary work area is my desk with desktop computer. When I step away from my desk I'm really stepping away, not transitioning to the sofa or dinner table to keep working on a laptop (something I did in my 20's). Now if someone messages me and I don't think it's time critical I'll get back to it when I feel like it. If it's emergency pick up the phone and dial a voice call: if it's not worth that much effort, it's not that important. I don't want to end up divorced or have a contentious home life because I can't separate work from the wife and kids. So the way I see it there will *always* be a general disconnect in how the younger and older groups prefer to interact because they're simply at completely different stages in their lives.
On 3/24/21 17:59, Seth Mattinen wrote:
I think age has something to do with that too, and I don't mean this as offensive at all because I've been there done that, but lack of other things going on in life. When I was 19 I had no problem being available on my cell phone at all times. I'd do weekends and nights with joy. I'd volunteer to take all the extra projects the older people didn't want. I'd make up projects just because. I'd respond to messages/emails/whatever immediately if I was awake no matter what time it was. Hell, I used to respond to NOC stuff while I was sitting in class rather than wait until the end.
Now that I'm older and have things like a house and family, I slowly shifted to not wanting to be available constantly. I'd rather work on some house project, bake a cake, watch TV with the wife, or play games I missed out on when I was "busy" with stuff that hardly seems important now. I don't want my life to be a slave to apps or jump at every notification I get. I have a laptop just in case I need one, but my primary work area is my desk with desktop computer. When I step away from my desk I'm really stepping away, not transitioning to the sofa or dinner table to keep working on a laptop (something I did in my 20's). Now if someone messages me and I don't think it's time critical I'll get back to it when I feel like it. If it's emergency pick up the phone and dial a voice call: if it's not worth that much effort, it's not that important. I don't want to end up divorced or have a contentious home life because I can't separate work from the wife and kids.
So the way I see it there will *always* be a general disconnect in how the younger and older groups prefer to interact because they're simply at completely different stages in their lives.
100%. Mark.
And to push this point further: I don’t claim to speak for all graybeards, but now that I am past the era of enjoying my kids' school activities, and resting on an empty nest, I once again don’t mind being involved in what younger engineers are doing far beyond “work hours”. There are a few reasons for that: it turns out that this is when “the kids” tend to be doing the most interesting and boundary-pushing work, and the observations that an old-head can offer are sometimes welcome; also, that lets me have a vital window on what they're doing and how it may affect the world as we know it; and finally, rather than being jealous of my time, my beloved speaks of being proud of 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. So .. ages and stages, +1. ..Allen
On Mar 25, 2021, at 00:26, Mark Tinka <mark@tinka.africa> wrote:
On 3/24/21 17:59, Seth Mattinen wrote:
I think age has something to do with that too, and I don't mean this as offensive at all because I've been there done that, but lack of other things going on in life. When I was 19 I had no problem being available on my cell phone at all times. I'd do weekends and nights with joy. I'd volunteer to take all the extra projects the older people didn't want. I'd make up projects just because. I'd respond to messages/emails/whatever immediately if I was awake no matter what time it was. Hell, I used to respond to NOC stuff while I was sitting in class rather than wait until the end.
Now that I'm older and have things like a house and family, I slowly shifted to not wanting to be available constantly. I'd rather work on some house project, bake a cake, watch TV with the wife, or play games I missed out on when I was "busy" with stuff that hardly seems important now. I don't want my life to be a slave to apps or jump at every notification I get. I have a laptop just in case I need one, but my primary work area is my desk with desktop computer. When I step away from my desk I'm really stepping away, not transitioning to the sofa or dinner table to keep working on a laptop (something I did in my 20's). Now if someone messages me and I don't think it's time critical I'll get back to it when I feel like it. If it's emergency pick up the phone and dial a voice call: if it's not worth that much effort, it's not that important. I don't want to end up divorced or have a contentious home life because I can't separate work from the wife and kids.
So the way I see it there will *always* be a general disconnect in how the younger and older groups prefer to interact because they're simply at completely different stages in their lives.
100%.
Mark.
But obviously my experience and age has failed to break me of top-posting .. sorry! ..Allen
On Mar 25, 2021, at 12:51, Allen McKinley Kitchen (gmail) <allenmckinleykitchen@gmail.com> wrote:
And to push this point further:
I don’t claim to speak for all graybeards, but now that I am past the era of enjoying my kids' school activities, and resting on an empty nest, I once again don’t mind being involved in what younger engineers are doing far beyond “work hours”. There are a few reasons for that: it turns out that this is when “the kids” tend to be doing the most interesting and boundary-pushing work, and the observations that an old-head can offer are sometimes welcome; also, that lets me have a vital window on what they're doing and how it may affect the world as we know it; and finally, rather than being jealous of my time, my beloved speaks of being proud of 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.
So .. ages and stages, +1.
..Allen
On Mar 25, 2021, at 00:26, Mark Tinka <mark@tinka.africa> wrote:
On 3/24/21 17:59, Seth Mattinen wrote:
I think age has something to do with that too, and I don't mean this as offensive at all because I've been there done that, but lack of other things going on in life. When I was 19 I had no problem being available on my cell phone at all times. I'd do weekends and nights with joy. I'd volunteer to take all the extra projects the older people didn't want. I'd make up projects just because. I'd respond to messages/emails/whatever immediately if I was awake no matter what time it was. Hell, I used to respond to NOC stuff while I was sitting in class rather than wait until the end.
Now that I'm older and have things like a house and family, I slowly shifted to not wanting to be available constantly. I'd rather work on some house project, bake a cake, watch TV with the wife, or play games I missed out on when I was "busy" with stuff that hardly seems important now. I don't want my life to be a slave to apps or jump at every notification I get. I have a laptop just in case I need one, but my primary work area is my desk with desktop computer. When I step away from my desk I'm really stepping away, not transitioning to the sofa or dinner table to keep working on a laptop (something I did in my 20's). Now if someone messages me and I don't think it's time critical I'll get back to it when I feel like it. If it's emergency pick up the phone and dial a voice call: if it's not worth that much effort, it's not that important. I don't want to end up divorced or have a contentious home life because I can't separate work from the wife and kids.
So the way I see it there will *always* be a general disconnect in how the younger and older groups prefer to interact because they're simply at completely different stages in their lives.
100%.
Mark.
On 3/25/21 18:51, Allen McKinley Kitchen (gmail) wrote:
And to push this point further:
I don’t claim to speak for all graybeards, but now that I am past the era of enjoying my kids' school activities, and resting on an empty nest, I once again don’t mind being involved in what younger engineers are doing far beyond “work hours”. There are a few reasons for that: it turns out that this is when “the kids” tend to be doing the most interesting and boundary-pushing work, and the observations that an old-head can offer are sometimes welcome; also, that lets me have a vital window on what they're doing and how it may affect the world as we know it; and finally, rather than being jealous of my time, my beloved speaks of being proud of 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.
So .. ages and stages, +1.
What impresses me about the kids and their approach to problems is that all they want to do is solve them (I'm talking 12 - 20 years old). They have zero time for job titles, who has the billions or all the trappings of "success". They are the ones who keep me up at night, because they will, inadvertently, drive the success of what one thinks their business is about. Mark.
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...
(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...
On 3/27/21 12:20, Cynthia Revström via NANOG wrote:
(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.
In Africa, at least, there is still quite a lot of interest from many youth to get into the nuts & bolts of how to build large scale Internet networks. What needs to evolve is how we support their training, as the way it was done before is coming under pressure due to the disappearance of traditional hands-on labs, the older generation of teachers slowing down in life, the pressure from industry to build and operate networks with a GUI, the pressure from software and automation confusing network engineers about whether they need to be great at IS-IS or Python, e.t.c. In the past year, we've found ways to virtualize the workshops and the labs, but also to virtualize the entire workshop over several days, and the signs are looking good for the evolution of how knowledge is transferred, in that respect. Many thanks to the good folk at the NSRC for making stuff like this possible, for various regions around the world, especially the developing ones. Mark.
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<mailto: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...
On 3/24/21 16:52, Robert Kisteleki wrote:
All in all, I'm happier if email continues to be the backbone of communication here.
Same here. But think about this... every smartphone the kids have comes with either an e-mail client, a web browser, or both. Plenty of free e-mail services abound. And yet, they still choose a messaging app, that probably sits right next to the e-mail and browser apps. Mark.
On 3/24/21 01:00, Sec Lists wrote:
...only to end up with yet another account at yet another data mining (future) monopolist butchering standards... I'm all for moving with the flow and embrace new things as long as it's based on open standards, open protocols, does not lock people in to a specific platform, etc., is decentralised and federated and gives users the choice (e.g. choice of MUA / MTA, or XMPP client, etc.). The trend to force everything to web-based or only THAT particular app is a fundamental step backwards towards significant less of choice on the internet.
To just give in (or up) and say, well, that's what the youngsters now prefer is to move even more towards a world dominated by a few global monopolistic players who don't give a darn about open standards, open protocols, not locking people in, decentralisation and fedaration... And youngsters - as with anything in life - need to be educated and made aware of that (spoken as a former teacher).
It's a bit difficult, nowadays, to push water up that hill, because the (content) folk who are able to chart this new Internet that has slowly developed over the last decade simply have too much money. A lot more money than classic telco and Hollywood have ever had, combined. Add to that, the majority of Internet users on this earth (the kids included, but more so) simply have no time to respect the purist ideologies of the engineers and operators of old. My American friend used to say, "They just want their MTV". In 2021, they just want their app to work, and your ability to win their hearts and minds over lies in the first 5 - 10 seconds that they install and try to use your app. They don't care how many hours you've slaved getting it to production - which is why they are constantly flipping between apps and screens; in constant search of that (perceived) value. The kids (and many people nowadays) don't want to know about the infrastructure. Infrastructure is this thing that stands in the middle of them and the service they want to so desperately and quickly get to. Have you ever heard the kids saying anything good about mobile data prices, signal quality or the connectivity they and fixed line providers deliver to them? All they will say is, "My Internet is down", and the reason may be as simple as 8.8.8.8 having a sneeze, which has nothing to do with the underlying infrastructure they are connected to. This horse has left the stable. There's no putting it back in. Our only hope is to modify our belief culture into what we perceive to be of "value", because that is all the kids care about. Not your precious MUA, MTA or big iron shelf with the line cards it holds :-). And yes, you could take on the content folk that are enabling this, but Australia is a good example of how that can go. Is unseating them insurmountable? No. Is it hard? Certainly. Funny, I was speaking at the previous AfPIF virtual peering conference about this very topic, just yesterday: https://www.afpif.org/virtual-peering-series-africa/death-of-transit-the-evo... For me, it comes down to leadership - in government at regulation, where they MUST create conducive entrepreneurial environments that allow local intellect to create alternatives to the global content folk (just look at WeChat in China). And secondly, leadership within infrastructure (fixed and mobile providers) to understand that the kids and the world don't see value in their product today. That infrastructure is just a means toward the real value, and if infrastructure wants to survive, we need to insert ourselves into the real value action, practically and deliberately. Mark.
On 3/23/21 7:00 PM, Sec Lists wrote:
To just give in (or up) and say, well, that's what the youngsters now prefer is to move even more towards a world dominated by a few global monopolistic players who don't give a darn about open standards, open protocols, not locking people in, decentralisation and fedaration
"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." :-) -- Bryan Fields 727-409-1194 - Voice http://bryanfields.net
On 3/22/21 11:22 PM, Cynthia Revström via NANOG wrote:
I haven't ever used facebook beyond receiving some invitation for an event, and I feel like that's the most common case for people around my age group. (not using Facebook that is)
Facebook has effectively become social media for old people. It's not the future IMO. The problem with other "social" formats I've found is that they're often an exclusive club you have to know about through connections or be invited to. You can also be excluded on a whim.
On 3/23/21 16:34, Seth Mattinen wrote:
The problem with other "social" formats I've found is that they're often an exclusive club you have to know about through connections or be invited to. You can also be excluded on a whim.
What you can learn from that is the new brand marketing models of today's Internet world. Standard over-the-top selling is not much of a model anymore. If an app (or service) is worth the value it purports, its users will do all the marketing for it that it needs. Mark.
On 3/23/21 7:40 AM, Mark Tinka wrote:
On 3/23/21 16:34, Seth Mattinen wrote:
The problem with other "social" formats I've found is that they're often an exclusive club you have to know about through connections or be invited to. You can also be excluded on a whim.
What you can learn from that is the new brand marketing models of today's Internet world.
Standard over-the-top selling is not much of a model anymore. If an app (or service) is worth the value it purports, its users will do all the marketing for it that it needs.
Okay great for those apps, but if nobody tells me where the new action is... how does that help me? With the list here at least it's on NANOG's website and they tell you how to join in. This feels like you're saying people are not worthy of being included in the future because they don't "know" when they should just know if they are worth being included.
On 3/23/21 17:11, Seth Mattinen wrote:
Okay great for those apps, but if nobody tells me where the new action is... how does that help me? With the list here at least it's on NANOG's website and they tell you how to join in.
This feels like you're saying people are not worthy of being included in the future because they don't "know" when they should just know if they are worth being included.
To be honest, if you don't hear about it, you probably aren't the target market :-). Happens to me all the time, don't take it personally. I recently found out about Clubhouse, for example. But it's been around, for a while now. I'm not saying that NOG lists are irrelevant - I'm just saying that the kids are flipping between screens faster than they can think. Us geezers are bound to lag in their world. But if the time is right, we shall hear about the Snapchat of the day so we can prepare our networks for ensuing breakage. Mark.
On 3/23/21 8:26 AM, Mark Tinka wrote:
On 3/23/21 17:11, Seth Mattinen wrote:
Okay great for those apps, but if nobody tells me where the new action is... how does that help me? With the list here at least it's on NANOG's website and they tell you how to join in.
This feels like you're saying people are not worthy of being included in the future because they don't "know" when they should just know if they are worth being included.
To be honest, if you don't hear about it, you probably aren't the target market :-). Happens to me all the time, don't take it personally.
I recently found out about Clubhouse, for example. But it's been around, for a while now.
I'm not saying that NOG lists are irrelevant - I'm just saying that the kids are flipping between screens faster than they can think. Us geezers are bound to lag in their world. But if the time is right, we shall hear about the Snapchat of the day so we can prepare our networks for ensuing breakage.
This happened to WISPA where a enough people decided to split off and make Facebook groups the new gathering place to the detriment of the mailing lists.
On 3/22/21 11:22 PM, Cynthia Revström via NANOG wrote:
Hi,
As someone from a "younger generation" (2001) who does use mailing lists, semi-actively participates in RIPE mailing lists but also created a network community on Discord, I want to chime in here.
Are they willing to use a (traditional) forum (of sorts) that is dedicated to the venue? Or Are they wanting things to come to them wherever they happen to be today? E.g. Facebook group, Discord, Slack, etc?
I haven't ever used facebook beyond receiving some invitation for an event, and I feel like that's the most common case for people around my age group. (not using Facebook that is)
I'm under the impression that for the younger generations that Facebook is deeply uncool. It's where grandma posts pictures of her knitting. Mike
On 3/22/21 11:22 PM, Cynthia Revström via NANOG wrote:
Hi,
As someone from a "younger generation" (2001) who does use mailing lists, semi-actively participates in RIPE mailing lists but also created a network community on Discord, I want to chime in here.
Are they willing to use a (traditional) forum (of sorts) that is dedicated to the venue? Or Are they wanting things to come to them wherever they happen to be today? E.g. Facebook group, Discord, Slack, etc?
I haven't ever used facebook beyond receiving some invitation for an event, and I feel like that's the most common case for people around my age group. (not using Facebook that is)
I'm under the impression that for the younger generations that Facebook is deeply uncool. It's where grandma posts pictures of her knitting.
Mike
Mike, You hit the nail on the head right there. Among the younger folk, the preferred methods and mediums of communication change faster than anything. MySpace two days ago, Facebook yesterday, Instagram today, Snapchat tomorrow, etc. etc. etc. Migrate the infrastructure to InstaTwitSpit today and by the time it is all migrated, FaceSplatVue is all the rage. Email has been here since the beginning of the ’net. It isn’t going away. Everyone knows how to use it. It is platform independent. It is not owned by Fuckerburg or Dorsey. -Andy
On 3/22/21 17:55, Grant Taylor via NANOG wrote:
Part of my struggle is that I fail to see how it scales to poll multiple sites (or app icon notifications) when there are 10s, 100s, or even more things to check. This is /exactly/ one of the reasons that I *strongly* /prefer/ email, it comes to me and gets filed in the proper folders. Where messages sit waiting to be read with the folder indicating that there are unread messages in it. I then go read them when it's convenient for me to do so. But most importantly, I don't have to go check multiple -> many places. The unread notification / count percolates up to one single location.
It's just a group of people on a "secure" messaging app. Props if the app has a desktop version so you don't break your knuckles typing on your i-thing. Mark.
On Mon, 22 Mar 2021, Grant Taylor via NANOG wrote:
If it's the latter, does that mean that you have to constantly keep changing /where/ messages are sent to in order to keep up with the latest and greatest or at least most popular (in your audience) flavor of the day / week / month / year social media site?
All good questions. I've been using IRC+email for 25+ years now and from what I can see, IRC has been replaced by slack/discord etc, and email has been replaced by Reddit or Github Issues discussions etc. I was on a project where the mailing list was shut down and all further discussions were pushed to github instead. I personally think the "web forum" format is inferior but that might be a way to reach out as well... -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se
On 3/23/21 1:44 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson via NANOG wrote:
On Mon, 22 Mar 2021, Grant Taylor via NANOG wrote:
If it's the latter, does that mean that you have to constantly keep changing /where/ messages are sent to in order to keep up with the latest and greatest or at least most popular (in your audience) flavor of the day / week / month / year social media site?
All good questions. I've been using IRC+email for 25+ years now and from what I can see, IRC has been replaced by slack/discord etc, and email has been replaced by Reddit or Github Issues discussions etc. I was on a project where the mailing list was shut down and all further discussions were pushed to github instead.
I personally think the "web forum" format is inferior but that might be a way to reach out as well...
The big problem with mailing lists is that they screw up security by changing the subject/body and breaking DKIM signatures. This makes companies leery of setting the signing policy to reject which makes it much easier for scammers to phish. The Nanog list is something of an outlier in that they don't do modifications and the DKIM signature survives. I wrote a piece about this a while back that companies should just set p=reject and ignore the mailing list problem. https://rip-van-webble.blogspot.com/2020/12/are-mailing-lists-toast.html Mike
On 3/23/21 1:40 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
The big problem with mailing lists is that they screw up security by changing the subject/body and breaking DKIM signatures.
What you are describing is a capability, configuration, execution issue with the mailing list manager software. Said another way, what you are describing is *NOT* a problem with the concept of mailing lists. MLMs can easily receive messages -- after their MTA imposes all germane filtering -- and generate /new/ but *completely* *independent* messages substantially based on the incoming message's content. These /new/ messages come /from/ /the/ /mailing/ /list/! Thus the mailing list operators can leverage all the aforementioned security / safety measure for the mailing list. SPF / DKIM / DMARC are mean to enable detection (and optionally blocking) of messages that do not come from their original source. Mailing lists are inherently contrary to this. But the mailing list can be a /new/ source. To whit, I am sending this reply to /exactly/ /one/ recipient, namely the NANOG mailing list. Said recipient will take my content and send it out in hundreds of /new/ and /discrete/ messages. The NANOG mailing list is the source of those new messages. My email server is not contacting your email server.
This makes companies leery of setting the signing policy to reject which makes it much easier for scammers to phish.
Hence, having the mailing list send out /new/ messages with /new/ protection measures mean less breakage for people that send messages to the mailing list. Treating the mailing list as it's own independent entity actually enables overall better security. Aside: It is trivial to remove things that cause heartburn (DKIM) /after/ NANOG's SMTP server applies filtering /before/ it goes into Mailman.
The Nanog list is something of an outlier in that they don't do modifications and the DKIM signature survives.
/Currently/, yes. I wouldn't hold my breath for future solutions. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
On 3/23/21 1:40 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
The big problem with mailing lists is that they screw up security by changing the subject/body and breaking DKIM signatures.
What you are describing is a capability, configuration, execution issue with the mailing list manager software.
Said another way, what you are describing is *NOT* a problem with the concept of mailing lists.
MLMs can easily receive messages -- after their MTA imposes all germane filtering -- and generate /new/ but *completely* *independent* messages substantially based on the incoming message's content. These /new/ messages come /from/ /the/ /mailing/ /list/! Thus the mailing list operators can leverage all the aforementioned security / safety measure for the mailing list. But they still have the originating domain's From: address. Manifestly using MLM signatures as means of doing a reputation check is a
On 3/23/21 2:55 PM, Grant Taylor via NANOG wrote: previously unsolved problem hence the silliness of the ARC experiment which relies on the same assumption you are making here. Since Google participated in ARC, that is a pretty tacit admission they don't know how to do mailing list reputation either.
SPF / DKIM / DMARC are mean to enable detection (and optionally blocking) of messages that do not come from their original source. Mailing lists are inherently contrary to this. But the mailing list can be a /new/ source.
The sticking point is the From: address. If I set up a DMARC p=reject policy, I should not be surprised that the receiver does what I asked and trashes mailing list traffic. The point in my blog post is that after over 15 years a solution is not going to be found, and trust me I have tried back in the day. That we should just give up caring about mailing list traversal and put the burden on MLM's to figure it out by either not changing the message body/subject, or using that horrible hack of rewriting the From address.
This makes companies leery of setting the signing policy to reject which makes it much easier for scammers to phish.
Hence, having the mailing list send out /new/ messages with /new/ protection measures mean less breakage for people that send messages to the mailing list.
Mailing lists have been sending out resigned messages for over a decade. We still have really low adoption of p=reject signing policy and at least part of the problem is because of fear of mailing lists affecting users.
Treating the mailing list as it's own independent entity actually enables overall better security.
Aside: It is trivial to remove things that cause heartburn (DKIM) /after/ NANOG's SMTP server applies filtering /before/ it goes into Mailman.
An unsigned message is treated the same as a broken signature. That doesn't help from the From: signing policy standpoint. Mike
On 3/23/21 4:16 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
But they still have the originating domain's From: address.
My opinion is that messages from the mailing list should not have the originating domain in the From: address. The message from the mailing list should be from the mailing list's domain. No matter how you slice it, you can't get around the fact that DMARC is meant to defend against unauthorized using of protected domains in the From: header.
Manifestly using MLM signatures as means of doing a reputation check is a previously unsolved problem hence the silliness of the ARC experiment which relies on the same assumption you are making here.
I do not think that any such endorsements / vouchers / etc. will ever work well. I believe that the mailing list being a terminal and originating entity is the way forward. We all send messages explicitly between two parties, ourselves and the mailing list. Subsequently the mailing list originates a new / independent message explicitly between itself and a single recipient. Don't try to graft "can I trust what the mailing list purports or not" question onto the problem. Simplify it to "does this message (from the mailing list) pass current best practice security tests or not". Notice how the second question is the same question that is already being posed about all email (presuming receiving server is doing so).
Since Google participated in ARC, that is a pretty tacit admission they don't know how to do mailing list reputation either.
IMHO ARC has at least a priming / boot strapping problem. How does a receiver know if they can trust the purported information they receive from the sending system or not. Simply put, it doesn't. Hence why I think that ARC, as I understand it, is going to fail to thrive. I personally believe that the mailing list manager, or better it's underlying SMTP server infrastructure, should uphold strict requirements on the incoming messages. Only clean messages should be emitted from the mailing list manager. Further, those messages should themselves adhere to the same high security standards. Think about it this way: Is there really anything (of significant value) different between a mailing list manager and a person (or other form of automation) receiving a message from a mailbox, copying and pasting it (work with me here) into a new message and sending it $NumberOfSubscribers times per message to the mailing list? -- I don't think there is. What would you want SPF / DKIM / DMARC to do if I took a message from you (directly vs passing through the mailing list manager) and changed the recipient(s) and re-sent it out to one or more other people? -- I'd wager a reasonable lunch that most people would want SPF / DKIM / DMARC to detect and possibly thwart such forwarding. -- So why is a mailing list held to different (lower) standards? Treat the mailing list as a terminal entity that generates a new outbound message which happens to be substantially based on the incoming message's body contents. Terminal as in all the SMTP protections for the original sender stop at the mailing list manager. Likewise a new independent set of SMTP protections start with the new messages from the mailing list manager to subscribers. Including the contents of the From: header.
The sticking point is the From: address. If I set up a DMARC p=reject policy, I should not be surprised that the receiver does what I asked and trashes mailing list traffic.
As well it should.
The point in my blog post is that after over 15 years a solution is not going to be found, and trust me I have tried back in the day.
IMHO: - Trying to pass original metadata /through/ the mailing list /and/ deliver it successfully is a fool's errand. - Treating the mailing list (or anything like it) as a terminal point avoids the problem.
That we should just give up caring about mailing list traversal and put the burden on MLM's to figure it out by either not changing the message body/subject, or using that horrible hack of rewriting the From address.
Is it /truly/ a horrible hack? I post a morbid scenario: $BenevolentEntity passes away, and states in their will and testament that $Beneficiary should receive $Something. -- The message did originate /from/ the benevolent entity, but the beneficiary heard / received the message from the $Executor, *NOT* the $BenevolentEntity.
Mailing lists have been sending out resigned messages for over a decade. We still have really low adoption of p=reject signing policy and at least part of the problem is because of fear of mailing lists affecting users.
As you can probably tell, I suspect that most of those mailing lists have not been configured to operate as a terminal entity. In Microsoft domain parlance, this is the difference of trusting a domain vs the transitive counterpart of trusting who the domain trusts. IMHO the former is a relatively simple problem. Conversely the latter is much more complex.
An unsigned message is treated the same as a broken signature. That doesn't help from the From: signing policy standpoint.
The original From: signature should have been validated, weighted, and judged /before/ it made it to the mailing list manager. Further, the mailing list manager should have removed any reference to the original signature. <full stop> Optionally, the mailing list manager could have re-added / renamed /some/ /of/ the original metadata as alternate headers so that down stream systems that understood and wanted to, could extract the metadata and maybe do something with it. A la. ARC. Alas ... fool's errand. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
On 3/23/21 4:34 PM, Grant Taylor via NANOG wrote:
On 3/23/21 4:16 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
But they still have the originating domain's From: address.
My opinion is that messages from the mailing list should not have the originating domain in the From: address. The message from the mailing list should be from the mailing list's domain.
This has the unfortunate downside of teaching people not to pay attention to the From: domain. For mailing lists maybe that's an OK tradeoff, but it definitely not a good thing overall. I noticed that the IETF list does From re-writing for DMARC domains that are p=reject.
Don't try to graft "can I trust what the mailing list purports or not" question onto the problem. Simplify it to "does this message (from the mailing list) pass current best practice security tests or not". Notice how the second question is the same question that is already being posed about all email (presuming receiving server is doing so).
That is the essence of the problem and always has been. If somebody resigns an altered message, does that change my decision of what to do in the face of DMARC p=reject? That means I need to know something about that mailing list if the answer is yes. Best practices have nothing to do with it. It is all about reputation. A message mangler can be Lawful Evil, after all.
Since Google participated in ARC, that is a pretty tacit admission they don't know how to do mailing list reputation either.
IMHO ARC has at least a priming / boot strapping problem. How does a receiver know if they can trust the purported information they receive from the sending system or not. Simply put, it doesn't. Hence why I think that ARC, as I understand it, is going to fail to thrive.
I went back to the DMARC mailing list wondering what magic that ARC provided that we didn't think about 15 years ago only to be disappointed that the answer was "none". I really don't understand how this got past IESG muster, but it was an experiment.
I personally believe that the mailing list manager, or better it's underlying SMTP server infrastructure, should uphold strict requirements on the incoming messages. Only clean messages should be emitted from the mailing list manager. Further, those messages should themselves adhere to the same high security standards.
Yes, I think that's a given and feeds into their reputation.
Think about it this way: Is there really anything (of significant value) different between a mailing list manager and a person (or other form of automation) receiving a message from a mailbox, copying and pasting it (work with me here) into a new message and sending it $NumberOfSubscribers times per message to the mailing list? -- I don't think there is.
From the standpoint of the receiving domain, it has no clue who mangled the original message. The only thing they know is that there isn't a valid signature from the originating domain and what the originating domain's advice is for that situation.
What would you want SPF / DKIM / DMARC to do if I took a message from you (directly vs passing through the mailing list manager) and changed the recipient(s) and re-sent it out to one or more other people? -- I'd wager a reasonable lunch that most people would want SPF / DKIM / DMARC to detect and possibly thwart such forwarding. -- So why is a mailing list held to different (lower) standards?
This is the so-called replay attack. It's nonsense. Email has always been essentially multicast.
An unsigned message is treated the same as a broken signature. That doesn't help from the From: signing policy standpoint.
The original From: signature should have been validated, weighted, and judged /before/ it made it to the mailing list manager. Further, the mailing list manager should have removed any reference to the original signature. <full stop>
Signatures shouldn't be removed: a broken signature is identical to a missing signature security-wise, but broken signatures can be used for forensics. I, for example, could reconstruct a very large percentage of mailing list messages to unbreak signatures. It was to the point that it was quite tempting to use that approach to deal with MLM traversal. Mike
On 3/23/21 8:04 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
This has the unfortunate downside of teaching people not to pay attention to the From: domain. For mailing lists maybe that's an OK tradeoff, but it definitely not a good thing overall. I noticed that the IETF list does From re-writing for DMARC domains that are p=reject.
This is another reason why DMARC is a shitty solution. NANOG will rewrite the From: as well in this case. -- Bryan Fields 727-409-1194 - Voice http://bryanfields.net
On 3/24/21 5:38 PM, Bryan Fields wrote:
On 3/23/21 8:04 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
This has the unfortunate downside of teaching people not to pay attention to the From: domain. For mailing lists maybe that's an OK tradeoff, but it definitely not a good thing overall. I noticed that the IETF list does From re-writing for DMARC domains that are p=reject. This is another reason why DMARC is a shitty solution.
NANOG will rewrite the From: as well in this case.
What's your solution to phishing then? FWIW, nanog doesn't alter messages. All lists have the option to follow suit. Mike
On 3/24/21 8:44 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
FWIW, nanog doesn't alter messages. All lists have the option to follow suit.
It does. There's a setting in mailman that's enabled for the nanog list. dmarc_moderation_action (privacy): Action to take when anyone posts to the list from a domain with a DMARC Reject/Quarantine Policy. It's set to Munge From. So if your domain had a reject policy on DMARC, nanog will munge the from: header to be 'Your Name via NANOG'<nanog@nanog.org>. -- Bryan Fields 727-409-1194 - Voice http://bryanfields.net
On 3/24/21 5:57 PM, Bryan Fields wrote:
On 3/24/21 8:44 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
FWIW, nanog doesn't alter messages. All lists have the option to follow suit. It does. There's a setting in mailman that's enabled for the nanog list.
dmarc_moderation_action (privacy): Action to take when anyone posts to the list from a domain with a DMARC Reject/Quarantine Policy.
It's set to Munge From.
So if your domain had a reject policy on DMARC, nanog will munge the from: header to be 'Your Name via NANOG'<nanog@nanog.org>.
Yes, the IETF list does that, for example. But NANOG's just not modifying anything is better, IMO. But the larger point is that people should set p=reject and put the burden on mailing lists to adapt. Mike
On Tue, 23 Mar 2021 17:34:37 -0600, Grant Taylor via NANOG said:
On 3/23/21 4:16 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
But they still have the originating domain's From: address.
My opinion is that messages from the mailing list should not have the originating domain in the From: address. The message from the mailing list should be from the mailing list's domain.
And if you do that, what's your preferred way of rearranging the RFC822 headers to denote who the mail was originally from? (Hint: this is something that RFC compliant MUAs must be able to figure out, and get it correct).
On Mon, 22 Mar 2021, 18:56 Grant Taylor via NANOG, <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
On 3/21/21 8:03 AM, Noah wrote:
Well baby boomers & gen-x will struggle to dump mail...I mean it simple and just works.
Indeed.
There's also the fact that it comes to you as opposed to you going to it.
We were trying to get a community of newbie techies mostly millennials & gen-z to actively engage on a list we subscribed them too for the past 2 years and believe me, I can count no more than 10 posts mainly from we few mailing list folk...
When we requested for feedback, them gen-z cried out loud for interactions to happen on some social media app through groups or channels, and since they are the target audience and the majority, we settled for discord and telegram which they actively engage on :-).
I must be ignorant as I don't grok this.
Are they willing to use a (traditional) forum (of sorts) that is dedicated to the venue? Or Are they wanting things to come to them wherever they happen to be today? E.g. Facebook group, Discord, Slack, etc?
We only attempted to get them to be active on the mailing list and not traditional forums... But to be honest, they are more active on the messaging apps like Telegram (which allows almost unlimited members per group or channel) and like I said, discord and we move them to discord after trying slack channels. Bottom line, the UI/UX seems to be what cuts for Gen-z members of our tech community. We still send important announcements via the mailing list for historical and archiving purposes also to allow those who miss chat messages (without scrolling through hundreds of chats messages) to get such important posts in their email inbox. Noah
Matt Harris|Infrastructure Lead 816-256-5446|Direct Looking for something? Helpdesk Portal|Email Support|Billing Portal We build and deliver end-to-end IT solutions. On Mon, Mar 22, 2021 at 8:34 AM Noah <noah@neo.co.tz> wrote:
Well baby boomers & gen-x will struggle to dump mail...I mean it simple and just works.
We were trying to get a community of newbie techies mostly millennials & gen-z to actively engage on a list we subscribed them too for the past 2 years and believe me, I can count no more than 10 posts mainly from we few mailing list folk...
When we requested for feedback, them gen-z cried out loud for interactions to happen on some social media app through groups or channels, and since they are the target audience and the majority, we settled for discord and telegram which they actively engage on :-).
We still maintain the mailing list though and most announcement are done via it but things are changing hey....
I'm a gen-x guy myself, but I've gotten into discord largely as a replacement for IRC as it's declined over the past decade and a half and there are some actual good communities on there at this point. There's actually a very good network engineering discord group, even. I definitely don't care for web-based forums personally, and like many other folks, I don't even have a facebook account. Email lists are extremely accessible as they don't require any third-party accounts, and there's a lot of transparency in terms of how you'll be exposed - that is, your email address/headers and the content of your messages may end up public, but no one's harvesting all of your web visits via intrusive cookies and such. - Matt
On 3/21/21 16:03, Noah wrote:
When we requested for feedback, them gen-z cried out loud for interactions to happen on some social media app through groups or channels, and since they are the target audience and the majority, we settled for discord and telegram which they actively engage on :-).
We still maintain the mailing list though and most announcement are done via it but things are changing hey....
This is the real problem - there are many NOG discussions shifting on to mobile messaging apps (Signal and Telegram, specifically) in the developing markets, even when mailing lists exist. Reasons abound as to why this is happening. The bottom line is that this is happening, and appears to be the preference. There's a GUI for you... Mark.
On 21/03/2021 16:00, nanog-request@nanog.org wrote:
Message: 13 Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2021 12:46:57 -0600 From: David Siegel <arizonagull@gmail.com> [...] The board has been thinking about enhancements to the NANOG list for a couple of years now, with the goal of creating a modern interface that the younger generation of engineers will be more comfortable using.
Is discontinuing youtube livestream and putting livestream behind paywall also an attempt to make NANOG more comfortable for the younger generation of engineers?
Hi,
On 21/03/2021 16:00, nanog-request@nanog.org wrote:
Message: 13 Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2021 12:46:57 -0600 From: David Siegel <arizonagull@gmail.com> [...] The board has been thinking about enhancements to the NANOG list for a couple of years now, with the goal of creating a modern interface that
. On 21/03/2021 17:29, Willy Manga wrote: the
younger generation of engineers will be more comfortable using.
May I suggest that if you *really* want such enhancement, perhaps upgrade the mailing-list to mailman3. It's still mailman but with those 'modern' features.
one example with APNIC . Here is what the frontend looks like. The available lists: https://mailman.apnic.net/hyperkitty/ Discussions within one list https://mailman.apnic.net/hyperkitty/list/sig-routingsecurity@apnic.net/ Content of one thread https://mailman.apnic.net/hyperkitty/list/sig-routingsecurity@apnic.net/thre... -- Willy Manga @ongolaboy https://ongola.blogspot.com/
participants (24)
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Allen McKinley Kitchen (gmail) -
Andy Ringsmuth -
Bryan Fields -
Cynthia Revström -
Eric Kuhnke -
Grant Taylor -
james.cutler＠consultant.com -
Karl Auer -
Mark Tinka -
Martijn Schmidt -
Matt Harris -
Matthew Pounsett -
Michael Thomas -
Mikael Abrahamsson -
Noah -
Phineas -
Robert Kisteleki -
Sec Lists -
Seth Mattinen -
Tom Beecher -
Tomasz Rola -
Valdis Klētnieks -
Willy Manga -
Yang Yu