When I started attending IETF meetings in 1996, it was after about 6 years of reading mailing lists, at a time when "netetiquette" or "Internet 101" was actively taught. We (because I taught others after learning it) taught people enough about how email worked so that they would understand basic things like quoting intelligently. Further, in 1996, the IETF had not entered the "endless September" (even though the Internet might have as a whole), and had time to actually guide people, and I am thankful to have learned what I did. The newcomer's orientation were simpler (because there was less to learn), but they occurred, and having attended Scott's orientation again this year (in Paris), I think they continue to do a very good job for the person who is attending. They don't work at all for the person who has yet to attend a meeting. We have a slow influx of very smart people who can and do read all of rules, but like all organizations, not all of our rules are equally applied. It's also possible that some grey beards who have only remote attended for years (Yes, I thinking about you Melinda, Keith...) might have missed some subtle change in process. The IETF's endless september mostly ended after the bust, leaving us, I think, in a summer session with few new people; I'd put us in January now. Few freshmen joining. What I am writing about is that I think that we a problem with transfer students... those who did their september elsewhere, and have now switched schools for the winter semester. It doesn't occur to them that they don't know how the IETF works... it must work like other SDOs, they think. Worse of all, I think, many of these people have doing what they thought was email for around a decade, (yes, using Outlook), they have no idea how email works, nor do they even know there is another interface. They simply do not know what happens to their mis-formatted emails, and why often this results in people being unable to listens to them in the mailing list. I don't have an answer to this; I'm not even sure there is a problem; I have a problem of writing too long emails. I got thinking about this while reading this blog entry about structureless-ness: http://eaves.ca/2009/07/06/structurelessness-feminism-and-open/ In particular he notes the way that Elites form/exist. I would quote it here, but it's hard to take it out context, so please read it. Let me suggest that at the IETF, where the mailing list is king, you can't join the Elite if you can't quote email properly. Maybe we should *state* this. Maybe I'm also concerned because many in the former "elite" have moved to Apple Mail, and it seems that it is bug compatible with Outlook in it's assumption that format=flowed is the default, an act which destroys email quoting, and therefore discussion. -- Sent from my android transformer, running CM9