[I hope that anyone who cares to object to my posts will take the time to READ them and address their substance rather than claiming that I argue one thing and then making a poorly-formed argument against it or attempting to use my own argument against me.] Rabid Wombat: You are an example against yourself and are just as guilty of what you decry as those you denounce in your next message. In fact, most of the arguments that you attempt to employ against me are arguments that I made myself already. In short: at best you agree with me and at worst you misunderstand me. Please forgive me for having to reiterate myself in the face of plain neglect of my previous posts, to which you have done considerable violence. I have never, anywhere called for the moderation of this list as a whole by anyone but the authors of the messages, except in off-list posts to the moderator in which I felt that a given subscriber was being abusive and needed to have his posting rights removed or his posts moderated. You can look at the archive if you wish. I first called for the list to self-moderate because I believed that the list volume is up considerably while the quality is sliding. I am just as disappointed as you to see that a great number of responses to my calls, both pro and contra (yours included), ignore most of what I have to say. This does not bode well for the viability of the list. I find that I must repeat myself on this: if there is so much content on the list that people can't take the time to read it and post responses *that are thoughtful and otherwise responsive to the specific nature of the problem at hand*, what good is this list? In the case of this particular post, you exemplify the problem: you neglected what I wrote in the first place in favor of amplifying Mr. Casti's post. Both Mr. Casti's post and your response were just as illiterate as those "me toos" that you are now ridiculing. > In the old days of this list, most of the discussion was technical, and > oriented around building / coding firewalls. Most of the people doing that > are far enough along in their commercial ventures that they couldn't > discuss such issues, even of they had the time. [snip] > Splitting up the list will seperate the few remaining technically elite > from those they occasionally still find time to help. I have never dismissed the problems that firewall administrators encounter in their numerous official capacities and that motivate posts to this list, whether these problems are matters of technology strictly speaking or not. What I object to is posting messages that are in no way equal to the substance of the problems people are encountering. All that I have ever asked is that a reply be a response in substance and not just another message in a thread. As I have said before (repeatedly!), the issue is precisely whether this list will lose its "technical elite" and otherwise expert component because the volume grows to the point where even the highly motivated, expert or not, can't keep up with the posts. What I have proposed is to match those who are proficient in firewall technology with those who have questions about firewall technology, to match those who are proficient in firewall policy with those who have questions about firewall policy, and to greatly reduce the crosstalk and other noise generated by putting these on discrete lists. These subjects are sufficiently distinct that one may be interested in one but not the other and the volume of discussion is such that those who are not interested in both need relief. That is the substance of what I have said. I should hope that you will give it due consideration before honoring me with a reply. -Bayard Bell Emory University
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