Before I write anything else, I wanted to say how much I enjoy reading NANOG and how much I appreciate all the things you have taught me in the past year I have been on the list. I realized today after the third person asked how I knew something obscure and technical that so much has rubbed off on me from your posts. I certainly look forward to what this next year brings. <snip> Nanog could have a set of similar topics - [OP-SEC] for operational security related issues, [OP-SPAM] for when members really do want to discuss spam issues that they consider operational, etc. </snip> To use the vernacular . . . that would rock. <snip> what is needed urgently is for this special meeting not to end up as a repetition of "the moderator is heavy handed", "list members always wander off topic, and we have to head them off somehow", and instead to develop on more productive lines. </snip> I certainly know if I were Susan or someone else at Merit, and I heard that I wouldn't respond well at all. It seems heavy handed because they can only ask for people to handle themselves professionally so many times before it becomes frustrating to them and it's just easier to ban or block then to explain rationally. On the same hand, none of us respond well to being told that we're straying and need to drop the issue. Let's face it, most people posting to the list know in their mind that they're always right (I know I am, at least) and to be told that we need to stop without the last word stings. People need to realize that it only stings their pride, and they need to move on. Some of the emails I wrote when I wandered a few weeks ago had to be deleted and re-written because I couldn't believe how nasty I was. Luckily, I dropped it. Just like I am dropping this issue now, because this is way off Operational topics. Joe Johnson