[outages] List comment

Tue Jun 24 15:54:16 EDT 2008

Howdy folks.  I don't post much here ,but since this is about the  
list, here's my two cents.

I think there are more than two (report, discussion) topics reltated  
to an outage.  Here's my list, including what I would find informative  
(useful) vs. interesting (take it or leave it)  vs. annoying (leave  
it).  This is assuming that the outage is a major network outage  
(affects more than a handful of sites).  I'm not really interested to  
know that myspace or facebook is down again…i get enough of that on  
the nanog list.

1) planned outages. These would be informative if they met the  
criteria but the fact that AboveNet is doing yet another switch  
upgrade at boone doesn't really qualify.  Also any planned maintenance  
is nto a planned outage.
2) Current outages (reporting outages as they are happening-e.g. So- 
and-so is down here-or-there): informative.
3) Troubleshooting.  Take it elsewhere.  If you want a traceroute from  
Burkina Fasso, fine a looking glass.  On a sidenote, I would be OK  
with someone actually currently working for an outage asking for some  
type of help from the list (e.g. a traceroute from specific areas) but  
replies should not go to the list
4) Ongoing outage discussion.  This can be very informative and  
interesting if there's real data on a real outage (e.g. ordered new  
parts for X equipment, expect delivery in Y hours, back up in Z  
time).  Better yet, however, the original outage post should have a  
link where updates are provided for those interested.
5) post-mortem.  This is always helpful.  At best it helps us learn  
from our mistakes, at worst it makes me feel better knowing I'm not  
the only idiot out here.
6) ad-nauseum post-mortem discussion.  This can be between interesting  
and annoying…but if kept within a thread I can delete the whole  
thread.  Mostly these start out interesting and then turn into  
opinionated banter.

However many of these there are, I would still like to see only one  
thread per outage. If I want to drill further, I can read all the  
replies.

Bottom line: I read this list before I read the news, so things like  
the issues with florida a few months back, or a network outage, etc,   
are what I would like to see here.   After the outage, a description  
of what happened is also nice to have, as is ongoing reports for  
_major_ outages.  Anything more becomes noise.

Best,
Y

--
Mickey Panayiotakis - mickey at srtdata.com
http://www.grassroots.org/
P Think before you print.

On Jun 24, 2008, at 3:28 PM, Derrick Bennett wrote:

> When I signed up for outages I was really hoping for something like  
> what Sean Donelan used to do for Nanog. He had an occupation where  
> he knew about every major cable cut or issue and reported it to the  
> Nanog mailing list. I really miss that level of outage knowledge  
> that we used to see.
>
> I think that something like outages alert could work even with the  
> current group. The issue is one of is it a real issue that affects a  
> large enough group. For this I think the mailing list with the  
> website could put in a voting idea. Using a footer in the message  
> people could click that to vote and say this is a confirmed issue  
> and select if it's minor or major and regional or larger impact.  
> After a set number of votes hit then the system could send an email  
> to outage-alerts which would be a much lower traffic but a much  
> higher confidence list. That would allow outages to still discuss  
> troubleshooting without imapct the blackberry and pager audience.
>
> I have always looked for a way to be alerted to outages but only  
> one's that truly are an issue. Maybe this is one way to accomplish  
> that ?
>
> Derrick
>
> From: outages-bounces at isotf.org on behalf of Jay R. Ashworth
> Sent: Tue 6/24/2008 2:29 PM
> To: outages at isotf.org
> Subject: Re: [outages] List comment
>
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 10:48:38AM -0700, Michael K. Smith - Adhost  
> wrote:
> > I like your breakdown. How about a general consensus to preface
> > subject lines with either "Outage" or "Discussion" until there is
> > enough momentum to break the list into two?
>
> That trick *never* works.
>
> People who are not interested in discussion -- and those who are, say,
> forwarding to a Blackberry -- should probably filter out messages  
> whose
> subject lines include "[Rr][Ee]: ".
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth                   Baylink                      jra at baylink.com
> Designer                     The Things I  
> Think                       RFC 2100
> Ashworth & Associates     http:// 
> baylink.pitas.com                     '87 e24
> St Petersburg FL USA      http://photo.imageinc.us             +1  
> 727 647 1274
>
>              Those who cast the vote decide nothing.
>              Those who count the vote decide everything.
>                -- (Joseph Stalin)
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