Sandwich,
I think you will greatly benefit from looking for groups in meetup.com and
find more topics that seem well-aligned with your interests (which are many).
I follow a few local groups on there, like the Penguins.

I personally prefer to keep off-topic subjects short. Like, for example, any
sustainability discussion is only tangent to anything Linux or TC. I hope
this makes sense. I think the mesh discussion was quite tangential to this
list and, clearly, it has de-railed.

I also echo the sentiment of trying to use an email client that respects your
formatting. I use Mutt and I am typing in "vi" in a terminal right now. That
is why you may see my emails look like truncated text, but I try to keep them
as organized as possible.

With much respect.