Re: [Tools-discuss] Draft email aliases aren't forever

[Carsten Bormann <[e-mail]>]

On 11. May 2022, at 04:40, Martin Thomson <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> I just tried mailing the authors of an expired draft using the [e-mail] alias.  The mail bounced.
> 
> What sort of guarantees exist for these email aliases?  The name of a draft is forever, so I'd suggest that it makes sense for the aliases to be kept indefinitely also.

We had this discussion a couple of years ago and I was very surprised to learn that these aliases time out.

> Or is this an important part of maintaining the fiction that drafts expire?

I don’t remember what the rationale was, but it still doesn’t make any sense to me either.

One thing that probably should be done is to record the datatracker IDs behind the authors’ addresses at the time of submission, and replacing the original addresses by current ones recorded under that datatracker ID, when the alias is being used.  (If there is a datatracker ID, that is.)
People often publish their drafts proudly exposing the newest startup they are in (or whoever is sponsoring their IETF work), and that email address may not live very long.

Grüße, Carsten