Re: Proposal: an "important-news" IETF announcement list

[Christian Huitema <[e-mail]>]

I think I am with Bob and Brian on this one. With some nuances.

On 9/25/2021 9:03 AM, Bob Hinden wrote:
> Lars, IESG,
>
> I have some questions that would be helpful to know before evaluating this proposal.  See below.
>
> Bob
>
>
>> On Sep 24, 2021, at 12:25 AM, IETF Chair <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> at the moment, ietf-announce is the main announcement list of the IETF,
>> seeing regular posts from various roles and bodies in the organization,
>> and from the Datatracker. Over the last year, ietf-announce has seen
>> around 1200 emails, averaging around 4.6 emails per workday.
> Like what Brian and other have said, 4.6 emails per workday doesn’t seem like a burden to me.  BTW, assuming “workday” means Monday-Friday, it’s only 3.3 emails per day over a year.
The problem is that if most of those emails feel like noise, the 
receivers will most likely filter the mailing list and either ignore it 
all or put it in some folder for "view that when I have time". Noisy 
mailing lists get ignored, or just not subscribed.
>
>> The ietf-announce lists currently distributes the following types of
>> announcements. All but the first type are automatically generated by
>> various tools:
>>
>> 1.  Announcements sent manually by the IETF Chair, the IAB Chair, the
>>     IRTF Chair, the Chair of the LLC Board, the IETF Executive Director,
>>     the NomCom Chair, and the IETF Secretariat
>> 2.  Announcements of new and updated WG charters
>> 3.  WG closure announcements
>> 4.  Announcements of new non-WG mailing lists
>> 5.  Announcements of new RFCs
>> 6.  IESG and LLC telechat announcements
>> 7.  Announcements of document actions
>> 8.  Announcements of IESG conflict-review results
>> 9.  Last call announcements for I-Ds
>> 10. Interim WG meeting announcements
> Please break this down further.   That is, how many emails of each type per year.  It’s hard to evaluate this proposal without knowing that.
It feels like a lot of this looks like "the log of the IETF". Rather 
than splitting the mailing list in parts, have we considered not using a 
mailing list in the first place? If the point is to have a log, then 
have a log on the web site, and use keywords so people can quickly view 
"what is new in transport or security", or some such preferences.
>> The ietf-announce list currently has 3095 subscribers, which is a
>> fraction of the overall IETF community. Only 961 of these subscribers
>> have Datatracker accounts; out of 13311 overall Datatracker account
>> holders.
> This is disturbing.   How can one function in the IETF when you aren’t getting information about meetings, draft deadlines, new working groups, BOFs, etc.?
>
> How many of these data tracker accounts are active?    I wouldn’t be surprised that a large portion of them haven’t been used for a while, or sent email, etc.
How many of the subscribers do actually read it?
>> When asking IETF participants about why they are not
>> subscribed, the volume of email on the list
>> - especially automatically-generated Datatracker email - is the most often
>> mentioned reason.
> How many "automatically-generated Datatracker email” are there?  Are all except for 1. in the numbered lists data tracker generated?
>
>> The IESG is therefore considering creating a new mailing list for
>> important organizational announcements only. We are hoping that a
>> subscription to a new low-volume mailing list will be acceptable to
>> IETF participants that find ietf-announce too noisy, and will help us
>> disseminate important news and announcements more widely and effectively.
>>
>> Here are the details about this proposal:
>>
>> * The name of the new mailing list is important-news.
> Suggest “ietf-important-news”, like “ietf-announce”.
>
>
>>   - The ietf-announce mailing list will continue to operate as-is.
>>
>>   - Posting rights to important-news are restricted to the same set of
>>     roles as for ietf-announce.
>>
>>   - All emails sent to important-news will be CC’ed to ietf-announce.
>>
>> * Posts
>>
>>   - important-news will only receive the first type of announcements in
>>     the numbered list above, i.e., important announcements that are
>>     manually sent by various organizational roles.
>>
>>   - important-news will not receive any of the other types of email sent
>>     to ietf-announce. In the rare case that one of these is of
>>     sufficiently broad community interest to be distributed via
>>     important-news, this will occur as a manual action by one of the
>>     roles authorized to post to important-news.
>>
>> * Subscriptions
>>
>>   - Every participant with a current Datatracker account will be
>>     automatically subscribed to important-news.
>>
>>   - Every participant creating a new Datatracker account will
>>     automatically be subscribed to important-news.
>>
>>   - important-news is also open to manual subscriptions to anyone
>>     without a Datatracker account. A welcome message will be sent to
>>     new important-news subscribers, explaining what it’s for and that
>>     we’d hope they stay subscribed. It will also include instructions
>>     or ideally a link for unsubscribing.
>>
>>   - Any important-news subscriber can unsubscribe at any time.
>>
>> The IESG is inviting community feedback to [e-mail] about this
>> proposal by 7 October 2021.

I have two different sources of mixed feelings about this.

First, If we create an "important" list, will more people unsubscribe 
from the "announce" list? Is that the desired effect? If we do this 
experiment, will we monitor the "announce" list?

Second, who exactly defines what is important? Is that another way to 
empower people in elected positions, relative to the average participant?

-- Christian Huitema