Subject: Re: [Asrg] 0. General - ASRG Direction - PLEASE READ

From: "John Fenley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 12:02:28 -0600

From: "Yakov Shafranovich" <[email-masked]>
>To ASRG Group Members,
>
>We need volunteers urgently and they have not been forthcoming.
…
>We have over 600 subscribers with only a small amount participating, where 
>are the others?!?!?!
…

>The purpose of the ASRG is to find solutions to spam.
…
>While talking on the mailing list in some way leads to that goal and the 
>archive does touch on every aspect of spam, results are what counts not the 
>chatter.

Perhaps we should have a meeting as is mentioned on the website.
We could set aside one day to really get down and dirty on each of the 
projects at hand.
Face to face communication is often a good way of getting ideas together.

"Meetings
The ASRG meetings will be held 2-3 times a year generally concurrent with 
IETF meetings and possibly concurrent with other conferences."

The next IETF meeting is November 9-14 in Minneapolis, MN, USA
This seems like a perfect opportunity to gather and discuss.

Another solution might be to make the documents available for editing with 
version changes being tracked, that way anyone can contribute to the 
documents without first having to become a "volunteer" in order to add 
something.
There are a few different systems that allow this. I believe that a wiki can 
do this, and could be a solution.

...
>More is needed - we need volunteers, people who are willing to give of 
>their time to get down, get dirty and produce results.
...
>It is very sad to see that the two foundational documents for the group, 
>the requirements document and the technical considerations document, got 
>three and one response respectively. The spam bibliography guidelines had 
>zero response. This is considering that the mailing list has over 600 
>subscribers ((plus uncounted numbers who read the web and gmane archives) 
>but at any given time at most only 30 are active! That constitutes less 
>than 10% of the entire membership! What about the other 90%?!?!?!?

Perhaps when there are so many willing, but so few participating it is time 
to re-evaluate the methods for allowing them to contribute.

Personally I thought I was volunteering by reading and discussing ideas on 
this list. I use my own time, and I do not get paid. What I do get is 
berated for not volunteering.

I think of this group as a virtual think tank.
To me, increasing meaningful understanding is the goal.
Understanding is about bouncing ideas back and forth. In a climate that 
demands results of specific "volunteers" it is obvious why so few have 
stepped forward to that responsibility.

>We need to move the group forward. While jumping straight to proposals may 
>seem very good to many, we cannot do that.

It seems good because each of us has an agenda, and each of us wants to be 
the one that comes up with the solution.
(or I could be different)

>We seek to understand and analyze the spam problem, before we can hope to 
>objectively evaluate proposals. That is why we need to focus on the 
>foundation of the group which includes inventory of problems, requirements, 
>evaluation model, consent framework, technical considerations document, 
>analysis, bibliography, survey of solutions, identification of 
>standardization requirements, etc. All of these things either do not have 
>volunteers or are not getting very little feedback from the group members. 
>Without a solid foundation for the group we cannot hope to be able to 
>evaluate any proposals objectively and consider its impact on the Internet.

Perhaps the various documents could benefit from gedanken experiments using 
the solutions people want to present.
This group has already generated a huge number of messages of this sort.

This could be a format:

Here is idea for evaluation.
Oooh here's a problem with that.
Problem is restated in a general form and added to it's respective document.
Problem is applied to all previous ideas to see how this new knowledge 
effects it.

In this way as much meaning as possible comes from our talk without forcing 
it.

>There are many things that can be done but without volunteers we cannot do 
>them. These include:
>o Volunteering to lead or participate an area

Obviously volunteering can't be done without volunteers.

>o Editing and reviewing documents
>o Simply participating in the list discussions on foundational documents
>o Proposing suggestions to improve the group

These are all easily done without official "volunteers" given a proper 
framework.

>o Volunteering to write up or do something

Again...Volunteers for volunteers sake.

>At this point we want to focus on working toward the next drafts of the 
>requirements document, technical considerations document and inventory of 
>problems, as well as other foundational documents. Please step up and help! 
>We need help with almost every single item and area, we also need 
>suggestions and comments for improvement. We need YOU to make the anti-spam 
>work possible and to bring a solution to reality.

This almost sounds like a flyer on a bulletin board, not a message to a 
group of people who have already indicated their interest by signing up for 
this list in the first place.

John Fenley

Just to sum up:
I think we should all meet at the IETF meeting.
Perhaps a collaborative document solution could help the various documents 
move forward better.
I feel that to demand specific volunteers alienates 99% of this list.
We need a way for list volume to be made useful.
We are all volunteers already. This is a noble cause, and I know that we are 
all doing our best.

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---

From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 21:31:55 -0400

John Fenley wrote:
> >> We have over 600 subscribers with only a small amount participating, 
>> where are the others?!?!?!
> > …
> >> While talking on the mailing list in some way leads to that goal and 
>> the archive does touch on every aspect of spam, results are what 
>> counts not the chatter.
> > 
> The ASRG meetings will be held 2-3 times a year generally concurrent 
> with IETF meetings and possibly concurrent with other conferences."
> 

I don't know how many people are planning on going and due to today's 
economic climate how many companies are willing to pay for it. I think 
it would be best if group members give some feedback on the idea of 
having a meeting at the next IETF so we can gauge better whether there 
will be enough participants. An alternative might be a meeting at a 
different location, or perhaps a teleconference. Some form of an online 
chat might work as well, but I am not sure it it will be as good as a 
real meeting.

> Another solution might be to make the documents available for editing 
> with version changes being tracked, that way anyone can contribute to 
> the documents without first having to become a "volunteer" in order to 
> add something.
> There are a few different systems that allow this. I believe that a wiki 
> can do this, and could be a solution.
> 

We are looking at some systems on this. If you can, provide some more 
information off or on-list.

>> It is very sad to see that the two foundational documents for the 
>> group, the requirements document and the technical considerations 
>> document, got three and one response respectively. The spam 
>> bibliography guidelines had zero response. This is considering that 
>> the mailing list has over 600 subscribers ((plus uncounted numbers who 
>> read the web and gmane archives) but at any given time at most only 30 
>> are active! That constitutes less than 10% of the entire membership! 
>> What about the other 90%?!?!?!?
> 
> 
> Perhaps when there are so many willing, but so few participating it is 
> time to re-evaluate the methods for allowing them to contribute.
> 
> Personally I thought I was volunteering by reading and discussing ideas 
> on this list. I use my own time, and I do not get paid. What I do get is 

It is a think tank definatly, but we need a way to somehow produce or 
present results. List comments are good IF we have the volunteers to 
capture the results. Since everything is archived, we can get that later 
but it would be a much harder task for them. At this point, I would like 
to encourage people to comment more on the posts that interest them and 
not be afraid to speak out.

> 
>> We need to move the group forward. While jumping straight to proposals 
>> may seem very good to many, we cannot do that.
> 
> 
> It seems good because each of us has an agenda, and each of us wants to 
> be the one that comes up with the solution.

Many proposals would benefit from working in concert with other 
proposals, but someone has to think that through. Many times people have 
been pushing their pet proposals without considering its impact or how 
to fit it in with other proposals.

>> We seek to understand and analyze the spam problem, before we can hope 
>> to objectively evaluate proposals. That is why we need to focus on the 
>> foundation of the group which includes inventory of problems, 
>> requirements, evaluation model, consent framework, technical 
>> considerations document, analysis, bibliography, survey of solutions, 
>> identification of standardization requirements, etc. All of these 
>> things either do not have volunteers or are not getting very little 
>> feedback from the group members. Without a solid foundation for the 
>> group we cannot hope to be able to evaluate any proposals objectively 
>> and consider its impact on the Internet.
> 
> 
> Perhaps the various documents could benefit from gedanken experiments 
> using the solutions people want to present.
> In this way as much meaning as possible comes from our talk without 
> forcing it.
> 

Ok, the problem is that in many areas there aren't people who are 
capturing the results of the discussions. While the foundational 
documents have authors, many other topics do not have anyone in 
particular working on producing a document or capturing the useful 
comments on the list.

>> There are many things that can be done but without volunteers we 
>> cannot do them. These include:

Let me explain myself - there are two things that we are looking for - 
one is simply people commenting on the list. Two, people volunteering to 
do things. I would like to see a large number of people commenting with 
various volunteers "capturing" and publishing those as results. Since 
everything is archived, "specific volunteers" can come later.

> I think we should all meet at the IETF meeting.

Lets hear from others.

> Perhaps a collaborative document solution could help the various 
> documents move forward better.

Lets get some input on that, we are looking at that already. I am not 
familiar with Wikis, so if you can enlight me, please.

> I feel that to demand specific volunteers alienates 99% of this list.

Commenting on different things would help and I will tone down my demands :)

> We need a way for list volume to be made useful.

GOOD point - this has been discussed many times. What is the best way to 
do that - perhaps we should split the list, or maybe other approaches?

> We are all volunteers already. This is a noble cause, and I know that we 
> are all doing our best.
> 
>

Definatly and I am sorry guys if I came across too harsh.