Subject: RE: Splitting the IETF-Announce list?

From: Brijesh Kumar <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 17:06:22 -0800

Why is it a good idea? That's what mail filters are for. With filters, you
can create as many folders as you like, and treat them as separate lists.
You can even auto delete the messages that you are not interested in.

IETF Announce is just fine- it has existed for years in its current form.
Splitting the list on one complain doesn't make much sense at all, all Pete
need to do is to take help from someone who can define filters on his
system.

Cheers,

--brijesh
Corona Networks Inc.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Crocker [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 4:29 PM
> To: Pete Resnick
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Splitting the IETF-Announce list?
> 
> 
> good idea.
> 
> offhand, I would make the split be between publishing 
> activity and other 
> announcements.
> 
> Hence, both I-Ds and RFC announcements would be on one list, 
> whereas IETF 
> Meeting, IETF Last call, Working Group Action announcements 
> would be on the 
> other.
> 
> d/
> 
> At 04:02 PM 11/13/2001 -0600, Pete Resnick wrote:
> >I am interested in getting all of the posts to the 
> IETF-Announce list 
> >*except* for the greatest bulk of those posts: Internet Draft 
> >announcements. I find it hard to believe that I
> 
> ----------
> Dave Crocker  <mailto:[email-masked]>
> Brandenburg InternetWorking  <http://www.brandenburg.com>
> tel +1.408.246.8253;  fax +1.408.273.6464
>

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 10:08:36 -0600

Just some followups:

Re filters: As Paul already joked, I obviously do use an e-mail 
client with filters. But of course the problem is that filters don't 
stop the intial problem, which is an awful lot of traffic through my 
poor little server. Even worse, when I am on the road and over a 
lowly 33.6K link, downloading the hundreds of I-D announcements just 
to filter them only serves to slow down the whole process.

Re "everyone should read the drafts anyway": WGs always get the 
announcements for the WG drafts, so I always read the one's for WGs 
with which I am involved. Other drafts can be dealt with by the 
occasional search. Those who really have lots of time on their hands 
can subscribe to the I-D announce list.

Re announcing all documents separately: Since RFC's are not nearly as 
numerous, and I am interested to see what's been finalized and 
published in all areas, I wouldn't be in favor of that split.

And again, this might significantly cut traffic out of the secretariat.

Any other objections to such a move?

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:[email-masked]>
QUALCOMM Incorporated

---

From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 12:12:27 -0500

I don't really care if they are split -- I can as easily re-join
them in my inbox.

But I do find the discussion has unearthed something that rather
disturbs me... hyperfocus on drafts only in your own WG's strikes
me as dangerous.  A lot of stuff (even relevant stuff!) comes out
as personal submissions (not announced in any WG).  And, having
a sense of what else is going on gives you a clue about what
things not to reinvent/where to inject some clue.

Personally, I find it hard to (find the motivation to) keep up
with the IETF-discuss list, but I make a point of scanning all
the announcements.  If I'm that much in the minority, perhaps
this explains why we've gotten divergent threads happening.  We
could help the IESG out a lot if we paid more attention, individually.
And, a helped IESG is a happy IESG; a happy IESG means our WGs
go more smoothly...

IMO.

Leslie.

-- 

-------------------------------------------------------------------
"An essential element of a successful journey
    is recognizing when you have arrived."
   -- ThinkingCat

Leslie Daigle
[email-masked]
-------------------------------------------------------------------

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 12:26:08 -0600

On 11/14/01 at 12:12 PM -0500, Leslie Daigle wrote:

>hyperfocus on drafts only in your own WG's strikes me as dangerous.

I agree. However, that's not what *I'm* doing. With regard to I-D's:

1. I want immediate notification of drafts in WG's that I follow 
because I will likely contribute to them immediately. That 
notification I get from the WG list.

2. I want immediate notification of drafts going to IETF Last Call 
because time is of the essence and we want to keep the IESG happy by 
helping them. That notification I get in the Last Call announcement.

3. I can survive going to the IETF-Announce archive once a month and 
scanning other I-D submissions instead of getting immediate 
notification. The vast majority of them I'll have minimal input into 
and the ones of interest can usual survive without my direct 
attention for a few weeks.

Over the past week, we've been averaging 23 I-D announcements per 
day, usually all in the AM. That's a good hunk of mail, especially on 
those days when I'm out and about and sputtering over my poor little 
mobile phone as my data link.

pr

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 12:37:57 -0800

At 12:12 PM 11/14/2001 -0500, Leslie Daigle wrote:
>the announcements.

As Pete notes, the issue he is raising is less about wanting to get only 
part of the data, and more about wanting the streams separated, for 
differential acquisition.

d/

----------

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 15:12:42 +0700

Date:        Wed, 14 Nov 2001 12:26:08 -0600
    From:        Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
    Message-ID:  <a05100316b818642aca03@[216.43.25.67]>

I don't care if the I-Ds get announced someplace else - it is just one
more list to join .. which is the sole downside to the proposal really,
not for most of us here, but to have to attempt to explain to everyone
new just what the dozen different (general, rather than WG) lists that
we could divide things among are all for.   It's bad enough with the
two we have now...

But:

  | Over the past week, we've been averaging 23 I-D announcements per 
  | day, usually all in the AM. That's a good hunk of mail, especially on 
  | those days when I'm out and about and sputtering over my poor little 
  | mobile phone as my data link.

Pete - you need better mail software.   Not in your UA, but in your
server.   It should be filtering your mail for you, so when you're
travelling you get only the stuff that you really want to see now, and
not all the rest of the junk.   That way, when you're back connected
via some reasonable path (either back home, or connected to a good net
temporarily) you can fetch the rest - and then you won't have to troll
the archives to find announcements of all the rest of the IDs (I can
really just imagine people hunting through archives to locate I-D
announcements for random I-Ds ... that's something that sounds like
a highly appealing occupation).

kre

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 15:23:23 -0500

for another possible approach, it wouldn't bother me at all to see
all of the new internet-drafts submitted in a day summarized in a
single HTML message, with links to the appropriate documents.

(hmmm.  maybe I could just filter the existing ietf-annouce list
to remove everything but internet-draft announcements, and run
the result through a MIME digestifier.   unfortunately, not all
MUAs present digests in a user-friendly form.)

Keith

---

From: Fred Douglis <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 10:00:59 -0500

> single HTML message, with links to the appropriate documents.

Nice idea.  Even better, if the IETF mail server software could support it (via
mailman or your other favorite list software), people could specify whether to
receive individually or as a digest, the software would batch up a digest daily
or after some fixed number of messages, etc.  Another reason to split the list,
since people might well want to digestify I-Ds but not time-critical
announcements like when the conference hotel is announced.

Fred

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 12:02:01 -0500

> moore> for another possible approach, it wouldn't bother me at all to see
> moore> all of the new internet-drafts submitted in a day summarized in a
> moore> single HTML message, with links to the appropriate documents.
> 
> No, please not an HTML message.  Many people, including myself, use a mail
> reader to read their mail, not a web browser.

that's the beauty of an opt-in list.  it doesn't affect those who don't
ask for it.

Keith

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 12:18:09 -0500

>that's the beauty of an opt-in list.  it doesn't affect those who don't

I think a reasonable compromise here is to send a text message
that includes URLs.  For those who use GUI-based mail readers
the software will usually convert the URLs into links anyway, and
those who use text-based mailers on a windowing system can use
cut-and-paste.

Melinda

---

From: Gregory Neil Shapiro <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 08:36:28 -0800

---

From: "Meritt James" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 14:45:52 -0500

There exist security problems associated with HTML-enabled mail readers,
and the security of this list (given the MASSIVE number of viri
distributed through it) is sufficiently suspect to disable that in many
systems.

I recommend against it.

-- 
James W. Meritt CISSP, CISA
Booz | Allen | Hamilton
phone: (410) 684-6566