Redundant email floods

John C Klensin <john-ietf@jck.com> Thu, 18 December 2014 15:48 UTC

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Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 10:48:39 -0500
From: John C Klensin <john-ietf@jck.com>
To: ietf@ietf.org
Subject: Redundant email floods
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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