I think that all that's needed are some loose guidelines. The sun-managers list, for example, loosely requires that all issues be discussed off-line (i.e. through direct e-mail to the submitter) after an issue has been initially submitted to the list. The submitter is then required to issue a summary of the results after all responses have been received. The only management that is in place (that I know of) is that the group mail-server rejects replies to the list address (which eliminates 95% of off-line discussions from being broadcast to the list). There are some habitual offenders of the rules, but it is largely an effective arrangement. I'm sure there are very many people (myself included) who have an interest in the NANOG discussions but simply can not take the sheer volume of messages. Peter On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Josh Gluck wrote:

I have been reading this list for a while now, and for the most part, just sitting back reading posts that interest me. I appreciate the early heads up on outages, new info on networking technology and the like. However, I do believe that moderating or "policing" the list would be a good idea. I hate downloading my mail sometimes, for all the nonsense posts that have been being sent to NANOG lately. Some of the threads go on forever or seem to attract many of the following replies:

{

From: whoever@nowhere.com To: Nanog@merit.edu Subject: One REALLY LONG THREAD ABOUT NOTHING

<<< <<< Some quoted non needed long email from the thread <<< that everyone has already seen about 20 times <<<

Agreed

:)

------------------------------------------------------------

...

A 20 line sig that no one really cares about anyway

---

}

These kind of replies are not needed. When I see these in my inbox, I will stop reading the list and just delete everything. Most of us that receive the list, don't need 3 pages of quoted material from the previous post. All of the subscribers recieve the threads, I personally dont need it more than once. Just use the original subject line and throw in a Re:

As for a subscription requirement, that may be a little difficult as the "good" information that passes through this list, is interesting to a great deal of people that may not fit into the subscription group. It wouldn't be fair to have them be denied from the right to see what is going on, however a posting credentials requirement might be a good idea, but then again who would enforce this, and what would the requirements be?

I like this list a great deal, and use some of the information that I gather from reading posts. I am willing to add any additional thoughts or what have you, in an attempt to get NANOG more stream lined. I don't want people to think that I am standing on a soap box, preaching, especially because I don't really post to the list, but I am just letting everyone know I would like to help make the list "a better place"

Josh Gluck - josh@tricreations.com Senior Unix System Administrator Tri Star Web Technical Support 888-757-4248

*The views expressed are my own and do not reflect at all on the part of my employer.