Re: I-D Action: draft-nottingham-discussion-recharter-00.txt

[Jay Daley <[e-mail]>]

One more thing ...

> 
> I am in the process of determining data like this for a number of reasons and so I can give you some interim results now.  
> 
> First the disclaimer:
> 
> * I’m relying on mailman storing email addresses consistently and I have not completely checked that it does
> * I am counting address with different +box notation as a single subscriber
> * Addresses that have been disabled by bounce processing are counted the same as those that are not (one of the main reasons these are only interim results)

A quick scan of the mailman membership page for this list shows approx 158 disabled addresses, so around 9% of the total.  I don’t know how representative that is across all lists.

Jay

> * This data is from three weeks ago and will have changed since then
> 
> With that in mind, the interim results are:
> 
> 1. The membership of ietf@ was 1796 distinct subscribers 
> 
> 
> 2. There were 55,894 distinct email addresses subscribed to mailing lists that allow open subscription
> 
> 3. 123 subscribers to ietf@ did not subscribe to any other list
> 
>> 
>> If I had to guess, I'd use ietf-announce as a proxy for active participation,
>> and that would suggest that at (most) 1799/3037 = 59% of active participants
>> were on the ietf list at the end of July. That imperfect measurement is a
>> good deal higher than the estimates in the draft.
> 
> 4. Three weeks ago the membership of ietf-announce was 3038
> 
> 5. 800 were subscribed to ietf-announce@ and no other list
> 
> 6. 1087 were subscribed to ietf@ but not ietf-announce@
> 
> Jay
> 
>> 
>> As I said earlier, there is evidence that only a small fraction (10%?) of
>> the ietf list is interested enough in policy/process/admin to subscribe to
>> lists on those topics. So using my imperfect measurement above, we find that
>> at a generous estimate, 6% of IETF participants care about policy/process/admin.
>> 
>>>  2.  The IESG should not consider the IETF discussion list as an
>>>       appropriate venue for notifying IETF participants of its actions
>>>       or items under consideration. 
>> 
>> That's not new. The formal channel has been ietf-announce (which is not a
>> discussion list) for 20+ years. True, the IESG sometimes puts the ietf list
>> in Cc:, but since ietf-announce is not a discussion list, that's a natural
>> thing to do. Thus:
>> 
>>>  More suitable channels include the
>>>       IETF Announcements list and the GENDISPATCH Working Group,
>>>       depending on the notification.
>> 
>> is standard operating procedure.
>> 
>>> 
>>>   3.  The IESG should not consider the IETF discussion list as
>>>       representative of the broader IETF community.
>> 
>> Then where can the IESG go for that? (Of course, when something reaches
>> a formal Last Call, we know the answer, but that is the very last stage
>> in discussing a topic).
>> 
>>>   4.  IETF participants who wish to make proposals about or discuss the
>>>       IETF's direction, policy, meetings and procedures should do so in
>>>       GENDISPATCH or other Working Group, if one more specific to that
>>>       topic should exist.
>> 
>> Here's where it gets tricky. That is indeed what should happen as a
>> proposal crystallizes. But is the draft really saying that the plenary
>> discussion list shouldn't be used for the early rounds of discussion of
>> an IETF-wide topic? That such topics should be discussed *from the start
>> to finish* by the self-selected 6% or fewer of participants who are process
>> wonks? That the rest of the IETF will only hear about it when a Last Call
>> comes out?
>> 
>> That sounds like mushroom management to me.
>> 
>>>   5.  IETF participants who wish to make proposals about or discuss
>>>       technical issues should do so in the most appropriate Working
>>>       Group or Area mailing list to the topic
>> 
>> That's mainly what people do. Just occasionally somebody (usually not
>> a regular participant) sends a technical query to the ietf list, and
>> usually gets politely redirected. I think it's great when that happens.
>> 
>> 
>>>   7.  There should be no explicit or implicit requirement for IETF
>>>       leadership or any other person to be subscribed to the IETF
>>>       discussion list.
>> 
>> I absolutely utterly violently disagree. I must confess that the day
>> I stepped down from the IAB, I dropped the ietf list, but after a year
>> or so I realised that just wasn't viable unless I only wanted to work
>> in my own tiny corner of the protocol stack, and I rejoined. (There is
>> a handy delete button in my MUA, which I have always used very freely on
>> [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> threads.)
>> 
>> It isn't acceptable to me that IAB or IESG members would *not* keep an
>> eye on the list.
>> 
>> In summary, I think the proposed changes would change the list from
>> being mainly useful but sometimes toxic, to being mainly toxic and rarely
>> useful.
>> 
>> Regards
>>   Brian Carpenter
>> 
>> On 17-Aug-20 13:00, [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>        Title           : Rechartering the IETF Discussion List
>>>        Author          : Mark Nottingham
>>> 	Filename        : draft-nottingham-discussion-recharter-00.txt
>>> 	Pages           : 7
>>> 	Date            : 2020-08-16
>>> 
>>> Abstract:
>>>   This document updates RFC3005, the charter of the IETF discussion
>>>   list.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> The IETF datatracker status page for this draft is:
>>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-nottingham-discussion-recharter/ <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-nottingham-discussion-recharter/>
>>> 
>>> There are also htmlized versions available at:
>>> https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nottingham-discussion-recharter-00
>>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-nottingham-discussion-recharter-00
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Please note that it may take a couple of minutes from the time of submission
>>> until the htmlized version and diff are available at tools.ietf.org.
>>> 
>>> Internet-Drafts are also available by anonymous FTP at:
>>> ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> I-D-Announce mailing list
>>> [e-mail]
>>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/i-d-announce
>>> Internet-Draft directories: http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html
>>> or ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf/1shadow-sites.txt
>>> 
>> 
> 
> -- 
> Jay Daley
> IETF Executive Director
> [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>
-- 
Jay Daley
IETF Executive Director
[e-mail]