Re: RFC793#ietf.org (was: Re: Proposed ietf.org email address policy)

[Toerless Eckert <[e-mail]>]

Spencer:

I think i asked the tools team similar questions and i think the answers where:

- there are not and never where rfc*@ietf.org aliases.
- draft-*@ietf.org aliases are also retired after a while.
  I think something like one or two years after expiry or becoming RFC (cannot remember).

Extrapolating from todays discuss also about stable addresses
such as [e-mail], i have to conclude that
you will get any positive feedback from the IETF tools team
to improve communications about RFC than what we have today:

-> To figure out current adresses of authors you have to name match them
   on datatracker and hope they have an account there and are
   updating their email addresss, and if they do not have any active
   role or recent RFC put their current email into the bio section
   (which almost nobody has).

-> To figure out a working group or non-working group mailing list 
   address to discuss an RFC you first need to track back the WG and
   hope its list wasn't closed without being superceeded when it is closed.

Now, of course this is all convoluted and also IMHO not as good as it could
be, but then in fairness to IETF tooling: Show me an SDO that does better.

Cheers
    Toerless

On Fri, Jun 11, 2021 at 02:51:56PM -0500, Spencer Dawkins at IETF wrote:
> Following up on one point ...
> 
> On Fri, Jun 11, 2021 at 12:31 PM Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>
> wrote:
> 
> >
> > I know we have [e-mail] aliases, and those can get updated via
> > the
> > DT, I'm unclear if I can email [e-mail] to reach the authors, and
> > that's not what's listed in the RFC.
> >
> 
> I just made sure - I sent to the address that would be my most recent RFC,
> and got back "550 5.1.1 <[e-mail]>: Recipient address rejected:
> User unknown in virtual alias table".
> 
> So, that's a "nope".
> 
> The minor question is that I'd expect such addresses to be
> [e-mail](*) addresses, but let's ignore that for now.
> 
> We might be able to pull this off, going forward, but we're doing AUTH48 on
> drafts in the 9040 range now. I'd bet that there are a *lot *of past
> authors who aren't reachable at an email address that the RFC Editor knows
> about for a variety of reasons
> 
> So it would be good to figure out what the objective would be - to find
> someone who might still be knowledgeable about the topic of the RFC, or
> still caring about the topic of the RFC, or still reading e-mail, or what,
> exactly?
> 
> One objective might be to find someone who "is responsible for" the RFC -
> I was chasing down who was responsible for the work produced by a concluded
> WG, literally "yesterday", so that objective seems worthy, but I'm sure
> there are others.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Spencer
> 
> (*) Yes, I chose one of Jon Postel's RFCs on purpose ... ????