< rant >
Ripe NCC wages a continuous war against this sort of thing.
that's nice. but when it happens to me, were do i send the error?
Unfortunately there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of idiots.
ad homina. our culture has 492 non-obvious conventions; one of them being not to have your vacation message or noc ticket responder reply to mailing list postings. and it is not always easy to convince your software to detect a mailing list message. and the learning curve is steep. the ripe culture is so frelling complex that the ncc provides training courses and webinars (what a miserable word) to teach members how to use the basic product. there is likely a webinar explaining what all the webinars and courses are; or there probably needs to be one. if the ncc did not have a monopoly on renting integers, it would be out of business in six months. where are the webinars on how to be a good mailing list citizen, both technically and socially? what's consensus (the ietf has tried)? how to best make your point on the list sans flaming and ad homina? and don't tell me it's on the web site. when a coworker first visited the maze of ncc offices, she said she finally understood the web site design. the list goes on. we are obscure and intimidating; and a newcomers' session for those who can afford flights and fancy hotels is a drop in the ocean. the outreach to regional meetings is a great step, credit to that. randy