RE: nanog-l moderation (was Re: Dead Thread was (Re: Security gain from NAT))
* More statistics on mailing list usage: ** Top posters ** Top threads The IETF discuss list does this. It's a good idea, if it is posted to the list on a weekly basis. * Curious stats - number of unsubscriptions vs posts /day Somebody thinks that volume chases people away and looks for backup of their assertion. It would be better to provide some general churn statistics and not just static snapshots of the list then and now. Note that people do unsubscribe and resubscribe under a different email address when changing companies or when simply changing email providers, i.e. the Google mail effect. * More active participation by mailing list team in guiding discussion and more aggressive moderation. I remember a presentation at ONE ISPCON back in 1996 where the presenter talked about his experience with the WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) and Prodigy (the IBM and Sears joint venture). These services were both based on the concept of discussion forums, not unlike the NANOG list. They ran hundreds, maybe thousands of such forums, so they were able to learn something about what makes forums thrive and survive. This fellow said that the key element was a good sysop (moderator) who intervened to guide the discussion, steer things back onto topic, and introduce new topics (threads) when things got too quite. Otherwise, a new forums would slowly grow, then suddenly mushroom with excited discussions, and fade away after the few hot issues were dealt with. I believe that the only reason NANOG continues to exist and thrive is because there are several list members who do tend to fill that type of informal moderator role guiding the discussion and keeping things moving. These people tend to be domain experts with an interest in some specific area. No single person is around all the time; they fade away when they are busy and come back when they have time. Some examples are William Leibzon, Sean Donelan, and Gadi Evron. I know Gadi is controversial but he is a domain expert, and when he posts, it generates a lot of discussion, some of which indicates that a certain subset of the list is interested in what he says. The secret is NOT trying to please all of the people all of the time, but trying to regularly please some of the people, some of the time. The biggest single thing that the MLC could do to improve the list would be to try and cultivate more such contributors. Perhaps some of the people who complain about list content could be persuaded to contribute more of the kind of stuff they would like to see. Maybe we need more questions to be posted in order to guide the discussion. Or, at the meetings, encourage a presenter to actively follow through on the list with their topic. Only a small percentage of the 10,000 list members are present at any given meeting. Or maybe try and get summaries in the style of Stan Olan Barber posted to the list. * Possibly more editorial activity by mailing list team. That's exactly what I mean. A good editor shepherds their publication, choosing focal themes and soliciting writers. --Michael Dillon
RE: nanog-l moderation (was Re: Dead Thread was (Re: Security gain from NAT))
On Thu, 7 Jun 2007 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: * More statistics on mailing list usage: ** Top posters ** Top threads The IETF discuss list does this. It's a good idea, if it is posted to the list on a weekly basis. We'll try to get this done once we have our own server in place. * Curious stats - number of unsubscriptions vs posts /day Somebody thinks that volume chases people away and looks for backup of their assertion. It would be better to provide some general churn statistics and not just static snapshots of the list then and now. Note that people do unsubscribe and resubscribe under a different email address when changing companies or when simply changing email providers, i.e. the Google mail effect. Yes, that'd be interesting to validate this assertion of correlation of unsubscription vs list traffic. The unsubscribe/resubscribe cycle would clearly not affect this correlation. * More active participation by mailing list team in guiding discussion and more aggressive moderation. I remember a presentation at ONE ISPCON back in 1996 where the presenter talked about his experience with the WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) and Prodigy (the IBM and Sears joint venture). These services were both based on the concept of discussion forums, not unlike the NANOG list. They ran hundreds, maybe thousands of such forums, so they were able to learn something about what makes forums thrive and survive. This fellow said that the key element was a good sysop (moderator) who intervened to guide the discussion, steer things back onto topic, and introduce new topics (threads) when things got too quite. Otherwise, a new forums would slowly grow, then suddenly mushroom with excited discussions, and fade away after the few hot issues were dealt with. Yes, if only we had enough volunteer time to do this. With amount of traffic nanog-list has, it is a challenge just to *read* all of messages, much less try to understand, validate, collate and guide the discussion. I believe that the only reason NANOG continues to exist and thrive is because there are several list members who do tend to fill that type of informal moderator role guiding the discussion and keeping things moving. These people tend to be domain experts with an interest in some specific area. No single person is around all the time; they fade away when they are busy and come back when they have time. Some examples are William Leibzon, Sean Donelan, and Gadi Evron. I know Gadi is controversial but he is a domain expert, and when he posts, it generates a lot of discussion, some of which indicates that a certain subset of the list is interested in what he says. I agree with you that the informal moderation is a good idea. I won't comment on the rest of this paragraph. :) The secret is NOT trying to please all of the people all of the time, but trying to regularly please some of the people, some of the time. I want to point out an important thing, the list has a very specific charter: our constituency are network operators and the focus of the list is Internet operational issues. We are not trying to please all people - only network operators. The rest can eat dirt. :) The biggest single thing that the MLC could do to improve the list would be to try and cultivate more such contributors. Perhaps some of the people who complain about list content could be persuaded to contribute more of the kind of stuff they would like to see. Maybe we need more questions to be posted in order to guide the discussion. Or, at the meetings, encourage a presenter to actively follow through on the list with their topic. Only a small percentage of the 10,000 list members are present at any given meeting. Or maybe try and get summaries in the style of Stan Olan Barber posted to the list. I was thinking more in style of kerneltraffic.org but yes, that's generally the idea. If you (or anyone else) is volunteering to write weekly nanog-list summary, that certainly could be welcome! * Possibly more editorial activity by mailing list team. That's exactly what I mean. A good editor shepherds their publication, choosing focal themes and soliciting writers. We may be going that direction. Are you volunteering? -alex
RE: AUP enforcement, cont'd
I fully agree with #7, and if everyone acted reasonably and polite, we wouldn't need rules at all. Unfortunately, we *do* need some sort of method to deal with ones who won't listen. What's wrong with private warnings to each offender? a) As I said above, I've asked [politely] to kill the thread about NAT on nanog-l - I don't think you will disagree that the thread has long outlived itself. It did seem to have outlived itself until after your warning when there were a couple of good replies that really did add to the discussion. Sometimes a dull thread will suddenly revive itself. b) What was voiced on the community meeting that MLC should be more involved in moderation (with suggestions for more editorial behavior by MLC team), and current passive moderation results in high amount of noise. NAT thread was mentioned as one example, thus my request to the list to kill the thread. I don't consider that editorial behavior. But then maybe you have never been an editor (or a writer who had to deal with an editor). An editor would have posted a summary of the thread, trying to create the definitive reference for the pros and cons of NAT. Once that is posted, you can rightly slam people for repeating what was already clearly posted in your summary. An editor would lay down some guidelines for further postings on the topic. Less opinion, more facts and no facts without a reference to backup your assertions. Then you can rightly slam someone who posts only opinion, who doesn't back up their facts, or whose so-called facts are wrong according to a reference on the topic. An editor would assign further reading (with tested and working URLs) for people to read before posting another message in the thread. Then you can rightly slam someone who clearly did not read the references. I think that editorial behavior would be to focus on the actual content of the messages and the clarity of the writing and less on whether or not it is in accord with the AUP or some set of rules. In fact, I would go so far as to say that you should slam people for ungrammatical English, quoting too much of another message, top posting, unclear thinking, rambling, and anything else that an English teacher or an editor would critique. If people try to continue a thread that has gone on too long, make them pay for it, and help raise the quality of the list postings as well. In fact, this editorial behavior could be done semi-publicy by copying any critiques to the nanog-futures list as well as to the offending writer. --Michael Dillon P.S. Whenever you are between a rock and a hard place, fly!
RE: AUP enforcement, cont'd
As one of our resident experts on excessive posting (some of it even on topic), how do you suggest we approach the problem without acting dictatorial? Act editorial instead. --Michael Dillon
