Good Morning,
I really tried very hard to stay calm but at least someone has to say
it. I think operating relays / bridges can be described as a cutting
edge job or experience.
It seems that everybody wants to be an node operator these days but
sadly enough there is absolutely no test or qualification that proves
that one has at least something like minimum admin skills or other
capabilities to do the job. Anybody who wants to drive a car needs a
license though.
Honestly, its great that it is getting a little bit easier to operate a
tor node but when there are discussions over a period of days on how to
adjust a VPS clock or basic lectures about udp / tcp ports, 100 % cpu
load and so on then there is only so much to say:
If you don't know what you are doing, then be honest to yourself and
stop doing it !
Neither is this mailing list nor the tor project in general the right
place to make first steps as an admin. This project needs serious people
with serious skills in this serious time which are capable to operate
reliable, stable and when possible of course fast systems. There is a
reason why most operators are it professionals with years and years of
experience in operating different systems all over the world.
And further, i strongly disagree with the text Robert wrote today that
the project should provide more material for newbies because there is
already more than enough material. And if you feel that this is
insufficient then thats just proving my point that you and others are
way out of your depth and i seriously doubt that flooding the relay list
with "linux for dummies" questions is helping the project with its
limited personal and technical resources in any way.
I would like to propose a new list which may or may not be called
"tor-relays-new" or so. New operators should start there for a certain
period of time and if everything seems to be in order they may be
transferred to tor-relays. Of course this is just a very rough proposal,
there may should be other criteria involved, like uptime, received flags
etc. Im sure that there could be a reasonable list of achievements for
new relay operators.
I expect a bit of resistance and a bit of a shitstorm right now. Please
feel free to direct this straight to me and not to the list. I also
would like a discussion regarding the facts of the matter to take place
on this list very much.
Keep in mind that i'm just the messenger and probably just saying out
loud what a lot of people are thinking ...
--
Mit freundlichen Grüssen / Sincerely yours
Sebastian Urbach
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In time of war, the first casualty is
always truth.
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Hiram Warren Johnson (1866-1945)
US Senator, California