I honestly wondered whether to wade in here, as I'm another person that seems to have drifted away from the NANOG community.
But why have I drifted? Partly because I've only got so much T&E budget to go at, and sometimes I need to be somewhere else that isn't a NANOG meeting. NANOG has stopped being a "must attend" event for me, and become a "nice to do", probably once a year to catch up with some people, and only if I'm not too busy already. I've also not renewed my NANOG membership since it lapsed last year despite having previously been a member since NANOG memberships were first offered in 2011. One of the things that lost my continued membership was a recent election where a number of candidates ran as a slate. I felt it to be cringeworthy and unwarranted. When the opportunity to renew came, I chose not to give NANOG any more money because members of the incumbent Board had taken an action that had disappointed me. I strongly believe the NANOG community is best served by candidates elected based on their individual merit and their stated platform. Right now, the Board is all too easily perceived as an unassailable hegemony of powerful, successful individuals, who hold senior roles in their (successful) parent orgs, and that's regardless of the positive and community-spirited intentions they may have had when standing for election. It feels as though we need to wait for people to term-out and hope one of their powerful buddies isn't standing to continue the dynasty. Is that what the Board really wants? It seems not, but that's how it's ended up looking. There's also something of an "escalator" assumption about passage through committees and eventually becoming a Board member. While I don't doubt the experience of the other committees is useful, this "escalator" isn't necessarily a healthy path to Board membership. Back to the meetings themselves, I feel NANOG has become less of a welcoming meeting of technical peers and feels more like a trade fair, dominated by cliques, cabals, suites & private side rooms. The trade fair mentality likely attracted the undesirable trade fair antics that have been spoken of on this thread, perhaps unsurprisingly. Meanwhile, the governance seems to have become rather politicised and less representative of the community. That said, I'm pleased to see there's some recognition of the shortcomings and a desire to change the status quo. How that's done? Well that's a whole different question, but I think Dan made a few good points earlier in the thread. Maybe part of the solution is having some proportion of Board seats appointed by some sort of nominating process, while retaining the elections for others, to try and achieve a more balanced Board. Thanks, Mike
