At 08:52 AM 8/12/2014, Eliot Lear wrote: > If this list is to be >taken seriously by serious people then people need to be have in a >serious manner towards it. Hi Elliot - There's this element of shared cultural that I think you're missing. We've got 40+ years of a developed IETF culture (yup - starting pre-IETF and pre-Internet) and the general discussion style on IETF@xxxxxxxx is really formed from that culture. I'm not writing on that list for the outsiders and I don't really need it to be any more serious than a conversation at the watercooler would be. We have other lists for that and we moderate some of them for that purpose. With respect to the list, I note that a substantial amount of the noise comes from people complaining about the noise - the engineering term is feedback. Sometimes if you can't say anything to the topic of the thread saying nothing is a better choice and THAT is the message I would provide, rather than one of absolute seriousness. By the way - for PHB's posting: I answered it because it: a) Asked an engineering question (admittedly not a network related one) b) Indicated he had sought help elsewhere first c) did not insult, denigrate or otherwise disparage anyone d) was something I had some experience with. The "Great Shout" to ask for help - even off topic help - has been part of the culture going back to usenet and that specific thread was - until the end - substantially less noisy than the thread on the Hilton Hawaiian village construction. So how about adding to the signup message you get when you subscribe to ietf@xxxxxxxx something like: "This list is the equivalent of the water cooler discussions you might have in real life at a business. While the overwhelming majority of the discussions are going to be work related, sometimes you're going to see discussions on how a favorite team did, someone's favorite cake recipe, questions about whether an IETF venue has child care, or how the management isn't addressing our issues as well as other wide ranging topics. Please keep your discussions civil, avoid personal and cultural insults, avoid taking insult where it isn't obviously offered and avoid denigrating other's choice of topics. If you're not interested in a topic, please avoid participation in that thread. N.B. complaining about a topic being off-topic for the list is generally not productive, is generally off-topic both for the list and the thread, and generally results in feedback noise in the specific topic thread and in the list in general. " These are my thoughts on what this list is or should be based on more years of reading it than I care to name. YMMV. Mike