Subject: Redundant email floods

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 10:48:39 -0500

Hi.

I hope this won't set off a long discussion, but, especially
when I'm traveling and need to check email quickly during short
breaks or equivalent, I'm becoming increasingly irritated with a
side-effect of what is certainly well-intentioned increased
communications.  Support I'm subscribed to a WG list, a document
has gone into Last Call, and a new version is posted.  I get:

(1) A new I-D announcement on i-d-announce
(2) A copy of that announcement on the WG mailing list
(3) A "New Version notification" for the I-D
(4) An IETF Secretariat ID Tracker State update notice
     and, if I'm really lucky,
(5) A note from the author, editor, or WG Chair that is
basically a copy of the first and second, maybe with a change
summary.

If the document has not going into Last Call or some other "the
IESG to paying sufficient attention" state, only one of these is
eliminated.

Is this bothering anyone else?  Can something be done about it?

Yes, I can filter most of it out, but such filters either
require careful design, perhaps on a per-WG basis, or risk
losing follow-up comments or important stuff from other WGs or
individuals.  Taking (4) as an example, I may want to see
critical status changes or AD reviews from the tracker, but
don't need to know that an I-D has been updated when I've
already been told that three times.

     john

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 08:10:00 -0800

On Dec 18, 2014, at 7:48 AM, John C Klensin <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Is this bothering anyone else?

Not me.

>  Can something be done about it?

Yes, but please don't. The heuristics of whom *not* to send the messages to should be handled by your MUA, not by the Secretariat.

--Paul Hoffman

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 17:21:13 +0100

> Can something be done about it?

I have wondered whether there should be a field in the submit interface where the authors can say why this new version is being submitted.  That could then be the most prominent part of the I-D announce and would obviate at least one additional message.  (With that, potentially there should be an option to have the I-D announce sent to one WG, for an individual draft, too.)

Grüße, Carsten

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 10:26:39 -0600

> I hope this won't set off a long discussion, but, especially

You're kidding, right?  :)

> basically a copy of the first and second, maybe with a change

(5) could get folded into (1).  The submitter could provide text and any
additional lists to cc on the upload page that will be sent along with
the announcement in (2).

(3) could get folded into (1).
(4) could get folded into (1).

(2) is unavoidable for WG work items, I think, but the Message-ID should
be the same as in (1), and the two (or more) lists all be in the
announcement's distribution list, thus enabling duplicate detection in
your MUA.  And anyways, getting down from max 5 distinct notifications
to 2 (or a few more if multiple lists cc'ed), all with the same
Message-ID, would be a huge improvement, and perhaps the most you can
expect.

(Duplicate detection by the MUA is quite useful.)

> Is this bothering anyone else?  Can something be done about it?

"meh"

Once you're used to the noisiness...  (And there's so much noise that
you have to be.)  Someone will now come out of the woodwork to condemn
doing our business over e-mail (perhaps they'll propose web forums)...
I don't see how we could keep track of so many things with any other
technology, so I'll take all this extra noise, because with it comes all
the value of doing business over e-mail.

Nico
--

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 11:27:01 -0500

--On Thursday, December 18, 2014 08:10 -0800 Paul Hoffman
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Yes, but please don't. The heuristics of whom *not* to send
> the messages to should be handled by your MUA, not by the
> Secretariat.

Paul,

If you are not bothered, than that is probably the end of it for
you.  As to what should be done, if this is bothering and/or
interfering with others getting work done, the most I'd consider
asking for is capability for more selective opt-outs on lists
that are used for multiple purposes.  Not more lists and
certainly not less distribution of information.

On the other hand, Carsten's suggestion seems generally useful
to me.   We already include the abstracts in the announcement;
including a sentence or two of change summary would help, IMO.
Independent of whether it helped with the issue I identified or
not, it would save needing to retrieve a draft just to figure
out that it was updated to correct a few obvious typos.  I'd
find that a big advantage.  Don't know if others would too.

    john

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 11:52:05 -0500

--On Thursday, December 18, 2014 10:26 -0600 Nico Williams
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Once you're used to the noisiness...  (And there's so much
> noise that you have to be.)  Someone will now come out of the
> woodwork to condemn doing our business over e-mail (perhaps
> they'll propose web forums)... I don't see how we could keep
> track of so many things with any other technology, so I'll
> take all this extra noise, because with it comes all the value
> of doing business over e-mail.

Nico,

(after this, I'm not going to make things worse by responding
more today.)

While I agree with what you say and have many reasons to prefer
working by email, I have a different issue wrt "taking the
noise".   Occasional appearances aside, I'm not a professional
standardizer.   I have zero support for participation in IETF
work (and haven't had any for years).  The more busy I get, the
more I need to put limits on time I spend on IETF things.   From
my point of view, the more efficiently I can apply that time to
things that count, the more efficiently work the IETF seems to
think I should do gets done.  The more noise I have to spend
time dealing with; the more the "real" IETF work is delayed.
So, from my point of view, if the IETF is going to call on me to
review documents, follow discussions, contribute text in various
areas, etc., the more it becomes part of the IETF's
responsibility to do things in a way that make me (and everyone
else in even vaguely similar situations) as efficient as
possible.

Yes, many of us could invest more time on filters.  And, yes,
better provisions for duplicate message detection would probably
help with that.  However, for those with limited time, that
involves some economy of scale issues and the same tradeoff
suggested above.   Less painfully, I could filter out
substantially all the noise associated with a WG I'm trying to
keep an eye on but in which I'm not actively participating by
dropping off its mailing list, meaning that the only times I'd
see and comment on documents would be during Last Call (and have
applied that remedy), but people then (justifiably) complain
about late input and late surprises.  

As an alternative, the IETF could explicitly conclude that
anyone who doesn't have a lot of time to spend should either get
out of here or focus narrowly on a single WG or document and
ignore the rest and the system.    I think that would be very
bad, but I'm sure there are folks out there who would disagree.

best,
    john

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 08:33:23 +1300

> (2) A copy of that announcement on the WG mailing list

If you set 'no duplicates' globally in mailman, you only get
one of these.

> (3) A "New Version notification" for the I-D

I have no idea what the purpose of this message is.
It arrives a few seconds after clicking the confirmation
button, and a few seconds or minutes before the I-D
announcement, but conveys no additional information.

On the other hand, I think the tracker state updates
and any hand-crafted follow-ups do convey information.

   Brian

---

From: Warren Kumari <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 11:31:48 -0500

On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 11:21 AM, Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]> wrote:
> I have wondered whether there should be a field in the submit interface where the authors can say why this new version is being submitted.  That could then be the most prominent part of the I-D announce

Whoh. I'd never thought of that, but what a great idea. IMO this
should be an optional field, but I'd love the ability to add in a:
"Integrated Bob's comments, protocol now supports foo if bar is
negotiated. Also fixes spelling mistakes and clarifies section 3.2.4"

This would be useful, both as an author (I already try add stuff like
that to the "Author's Changelist" section of drafts), and even more so
for reviewers / readers.
I've often gotten notice that some draft has been updated, and I
intend to go read it, but quickly lose the will to continue after I
realize I have no idea what's different. The "diffs" links help some,
but often there are many unsubstantive changes that clutter up the
view. Also, a posting summary that says:
"Removed all security options and privacy stuff. Also added IPR
encumbered technology X. Fixed 300 occurrences typing "definetly"
instead of "definitely" will get me to read the update, but I think I
can safely skip:
"Fixed 300 occurrences typing "definetly" instead of "definitely",
renamed bit 7 of Encapsulation Option filed from 'Fast' to 'Express'"

W

>  and would obviate at least one additional message.  (With that, potentially there should be an option to have the I-D announce sent to one WG, for an individual draft, too.)
>
> Grüße, Carsten
>

-- 
I don't think the execution is relevant when it was obviously a bad
idea in the first place.
This is like putting rabid weasels in your pants, and later expressing
regret at having chosen those particular rabid weasels and that pair
of pants.
   ---maf