Subject: new directions in mlm traffic: integration

From: Michael Thomas <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2021 15:38:11 -0800

One of the big objections to the new fangled tools is that things get 
spread out over hell's half acre. They were in fact already spread out 
before github came along because on the one hand you have the actual 
mailing list, and on the other for archives, issues, etc, etc you have 
the ietf site. The deployment of email makes it close to impossible to 
have an integrated experience with MUA's alone.

Forum software has been around for decades at this point though and 
doesn't have the limitations of being tied to MUA UI. One advantage of 
Forum style sites is that it is possible to alter the chrome so that 
there is an integrated experience. For example, if I were viewing a 
message and wanted to check on its veracity, say, i could press a search 
button and get a popup to the list archives right at my finger tips. All 
of the relevant drafts could be at your finger tips too. If I want to 
see how the document has evolved, I can diff it. If I want to see who 
did what and why, I could view the check-in notes. It allows centralized 
navigation without all of the clunkiness of having to find the relevant 
tools. I doubt I'm the only one who just googles working group names to 
navigate to charters, archives, drafts and all of the rest which is far 
from ideal.

The best part of it is that nobody need be forced to use the integrated 
environment since a MLM->Forum gateway could be built (they probably 
exist already). I drew up a bit of ascii art to show how such a beast 
could be designed:

                    "Forged" New User Mail
                    (forum is a trusted
  +-------------+    source)            +-------------------------+
  |             |                       |                         |
  |List Manager +<----------------------+    Forum Based Site     |
  |(IETF)       |                       |    (integrated w/       |
  |             |                       |    source ctl, etc)     |
  |             |   Feed from IETF Lists|                         |
  |             +----------------------->                         |
  +----^----+---+                       +-------^------+----------+
       |    |                                   |      |
       |    |                                   |      |
       | +  |                                   |  +   |
       | |  |                                   |  |   |
     +-+-+--v-+                                ++--+---v+
     |        |                                |        |
     |        |                                |        |
     |        |                                |        |
     |        |                                |        |
     |        |                                |        |
     |        |                                |        |
     +--------+                                +--------+

Old School User                            New School User
(unaffected)                               (all tools integrated)

Before anybody freaks out about the "forgery", lists break DKIM 
signatures all of the time but in this case, we would trust the forum 
mail since it would be admin'd by IETF itself so we know it's not a 
forgery in the classic sense even though it wouldn't be incoming with a 
DKIM signature. It would have the added benefit of giving an interface 
to people who can't use external mailing lists based on email policy 
settings, and  would allow us to phase out the horrible hack and 
security risk of From header rewriting: they can use the new school 
method instead. There is tons of open source forums out there, and 
they're pretty infinitely flexible, and if doesn't do what you want, you 
can always fork it and hack away.

If there's any interest, I could write an I-D with it a little bit more 
baked. Apologies if this has already been discussed.

Mike

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 9 Jan 2021 22:19:21 -0500

In article <[email-masked]> you write:
>doesn't have the limitations of being tied to MUA UI. ...

>baked. Apologies if this has already been discussed.

It sems ike a reasonable thing to look into but I'd think a more
productive way to go would be to see what software already exists that
does this kind of stuff, preferably with credible paid support. We
already have too much custom bespoke stuff for applications that
aren't really all that unusual.

R's,
John

---

From: Larry Masinter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2021 21:25:06 -0800

When I was working on https://going-remote.info I did a little investigation.
Most pointed me at Discourse - open source, maintained. Reasonable business model. 

It looks to me like Discourse is what GitHub uses for it's support forums.
(Just a FYI that GitHub doesn't think GitHub is always the best
for network intermediated discussions).

--
https://LarryMasinter.net https://interlisp.org

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ietf <[email-masked]> On Behalf Of John Levine
> Sent: Saturday, January 9, 2021 7:19 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: new directions in mlm traffic: integration
> 
> It sems ike a reasonable thing to look into but I'd think a more productive
> way to go would be to see what software already exists that does this kind of
> stuff, preferably with credible paid support. We already have too much
> custom bespoke stuff for applications that aren't really all that unusual.
> 
> R's,
> John

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 02:53:03 -0500

On 1/9/21 10:19 PM, John Levine wrote:

>   We already have too much custom bespoke stuff for applications that aren't really all that unusual.

I've seen this particular handwaving argument too many times, always 
without any support, and have come to seriously question its validity.

I suspect that the argument is at least equally valid when flipped 
around - we are already too dependent on applications that aren't a 
great fit for what is needed, and either aren't adaptable to better suit 
our needs or are adaptable only at great expense. The tendency to adopt 
proprietary applications rather than "bespoke" ones paints us into 
corners, restricts our ability to change, increases our costs, and has a 
potential of siloing different kinds of information in ways that 
hamstring the ability to use them together.   Indeed, this is _exactly_ 
what I see in every organization I work with that adopts commercial 
communications tools.  (Slack is just one sad example.)

So basically, this kind of argument simply doesn't hold water without 
analysis.

Keith

---

From: Jaap Akkerhuis <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 10:55:47 +0100

> aren't really all that unusual.

The RIPE-NCC uses a platform whichs allow email and forum discussions.
I think it is home grown but am not sure,

	jaap

---

From: Michael Thomas <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 08:26:53 -0800

> aren't really all that unusual.
The right thing to do would be to look at what "integration" actually 
means, as well as what constitutes an agreeable message UI before 
hunting down candidate software. The message UI is likely to be a source 
of friction since there are so many MUA's with their own quirks and 
advocates.

Of course the right answer might just be to hack up gnus because... 
emacs. I'm sure it has embedded webkit by now.

Mike