Subject: RE: gmail users read on...

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 15:20:03 +0000

Counterpoint: I know of a 20person company that ran off google apps and gmail (under an owned domain) for over a year, and are only transitioning off it to inhouse corporate Exchange after the subsequent acquisition and IPO.

Many use these services, because they're better and more reliable for their purposes than the alternatives available to them. They're making professional choices.

Lloyd Wood
http://about.me/lloydwood
________________________________________
From: ietf <[email-masked]> on behalf of Rich Kulawiec <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, 29 August 2014 10:11:01 PM
To: IETF discussion list
Subject: Re: gmail users read on...

On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 05:05:53PM +1200, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> I hate to bring this topic up again but people should perhaps be aware
> that some legitimate IETF mail is now being automatically spam filtered
> for gmail recipients.

Gmail, like Yahoo and Hotmail and AOL, is sporadically useful for casual
purposes where mail transmission and receipt isn't terribly important.
But it's much too poorly operated to be acceptable for professional use.
And of course it's well-known that attempts to contact a clueful human
behind the Google monolith are nearly always destined to fail.

---rsk

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From: Ross Finlayson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 08:36:34 -0700

> Counterpoint: I know of a 20person company that ran off google apps and gmail (under an owned domain)

Yes, using your own (or your company's, or your school's) domain name is fine - even with hosted email services like GMail and Yahoo Mail.  (In fact, if Yahoo Mail users choose use their own domain name - rather than "@yahoo.com" - then the email that they send won't be subject to DMARC.)  It's just the "@yahoo.com" or "@gmail.com" domain name that looks unprofessional.

	Ross.

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From: Ted Faber <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 08:35:36 -0700

> Many use these services, because they're better and more reliable for their purposes than the alternatives available to them. They're making professional choices.

I agree.

I've also seen many people who keep a gmail or other mass market account
as a professional address knowing that they will move between
institutional addresses.  As companies come and go faster and people
transition between them more often, keeping a semi-permanent
professional contact point is a sound strategy.

I think that it is unwise to use gmail as a "bozo filter" these days.

-- 
Ted Faber
http://www.isi.edu/~faber           PGP:
http://www.isi.edu/~faber/pubkeys.asc
Unexpected attachment on this mail? See
http://www.isi.edu/~faber/FAQ.html#SIG

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From: Ross Finlayson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 08:54:03 -0700

> professional contact point is a sound strategy.

Can these people really be confident that "gmail.com" will outlive their professional life?  At the very least, they should use their own domain name - even if they use a GMail or Yahoo Mail-type service to host their email.  (As an extra benefit - to keep this message on-topic - the email that they send won't be subject to DMARC.)

The fact that such services are useful is undeniable.  As is the fact that "@yahoo.com" and "@gmail.com" email address look unprofessional.  They just do.

	Ross.

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From: Riccardo Bernardini <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 18:02:30 +0200

I am a professional, but to the IETF lists (and other mailing list) I
subscribe via gmail because (i) the largest quota of gmail (ML, especial
open  source related ones,   can easily clog your mailbox) and (ii) I find
more convenient the "label" approach of gmail, rather the usual
"folder-based" approach.   In other words, gmail has features that the mail
of my university has not.

On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 5:54 PM, Ross Finlayson <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> Can these people really be confident that "gmail.com" will outlive their
> professional life?  At the very least, they should use their own domain
> name - even if they use a GMail or Yahoo Mail-type service to host their
> email.  (As an extra benefit - to keep this message on-topic - the email
> that they send won't be subject to DMARC.)
>
> The fact that such services are useful is undeniable.  As is the fact that
> "@yahoo.com" and "@gmail.com" email address look unprofessional.  They
> just do.
>
>         Ross.
>
>

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From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 09:05:41 -0700

> The fact that such services are useful is undeniable.  As is the fact that "@yahoo.com" and "@gmail.com" email address look unprofessional.  They just do.

More unprofessional than making blanket statements for the whole world based on your personal opinions?

--Paul Hoffman

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From: TJ <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 12:08:43 -0400

"The fact that such services are useful is undeniable.  As is the fact that
"@yahoo.com" and "@gmail.com" email address look unprofessional.  They just
do."

I would go so far as to say "less professional, but still very commonly
accepted - especially under certain circumstance*" ...

* - circumstances such as mailing list participation, for example ...

/TJ

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From: Ted Faber <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 09:09:57 -0700

> Can these people really be confident that "gmail.com" will outlive their professional life?  At the very least, they should use their own domain name - even if they use a GMail or Yahoo Mail-type s…

They probably do not believe that gmail is forever, but they are one of
the best bets at the moment.  I'm not asserting that these people are
solving the IMHO impossible problem of "can I have an e-mail address
that lasts my lifetime?" but the problem of "how can I get a
quasi-permanent Internet presence for a reasonable investment?"  People
have widely differing values of "reasonable investment."  I think gmail
meets that criteria for a large set of professionals (especially those
who are not primarily networking professionals). Your mileage may vary,
and evidently does.

> The fact that such services are useful is undeniable.  As is the fact that "@yahoo.com" and "@gmail.com" email address look unprofessional.  They just do.

I think that the assertion that anything "looks unprofessional" is a
subjective assertion.  My understanding is that facts are objective,
hence I don't consider such assertions facts.

You do what you think is best, though.

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From: joel jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 09:11:30 -0700

Yeah, hi guys...

Brian Carpenter's original email had a useful point, e.g. gmail with
respect to mailing list handling.

The ensuing discussion is not about that point.

I would ask for some self-restraint with respect to the topic.

thanks
joel

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From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 14:16:22 -0400

> More unprofessional than making blanket statements for the whole world based on your personal opinions?

Quite.

I have my own domain and use it because that avoids the trap of being
dependent on some other party's email service. But
[email-masked] is forwarded to [email-masked]

I didn't move from gmail because I considered it unprofessional though.

I moved to using gmail for all my IETF mail a long time ago because it
floods the corporate mail server otherwise and I really don't like
waiting for POP or IMAP to sync. It took four days to sync my Gmail
account to a new machine (I am using 9GB).

But the long term solution has to be to take mailing list applications
off SMTP. SMTP is not a good protocol for the requirements and the
legacy infrastructure is horrid.