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

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Friday, October 1, 2021 09:35 +0100 tom petch
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 30/09/2021 21:01, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>> On 01-Oct-21 07:05, Michael Richardson wrote:
>>> Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> > On 30-Sep-21 04:07, Michael Richardson wrote:
>>> >> 
>>> >> Barry Leiba <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> >> > I think that 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10 should be in a
>>> >> > weekly summary, one single message per week.
>>> >> 
>>> >> Mailman has a digest mode.  Would that suffice?
>>> 
>  >> > No, because from observation, most people who reply to a
> digest don't
>>> > change the Subject to a useful string. This would be
>>> > disastrous for Last Call workflows in particular.
>>> 
>>> The categories proposed that would be on a list that would
>>> be digestable would be (based upon what Barry wrote):
>>> 
>>>>>>> 2.  Announcements of new and updated WG charters & WG
>>>>>>> closures = 44 5.  Announcements of new RFCs = 275
>>>>>>> 7.  Announcements of document actions = 175
>>>>>>> 8.  Announcements of IESG conflict-review results = 14
>>>>>>> 9.  Last call announcements for I-Ds = 174 (+ 4 for
>>>>>>> other actions) 10. Interim WG meeting announcements = 256
>>> 
>>> So, we'd need to not include Last Call Announcements in that
>>> list. Then would it work for you?
>> 
>> Not if it ever leads me to receive a message with a subject
>> like
>> 
>> Re: document-actions Digest, Vol 52, Issue 41
>> 
>> That one would take many times longer before I could hit
>> delete than
>> 
>> Re: Document Action: 'Boring Stuff' to Informational RFC
>> (draft-ietf-boring-stuff-10.txt)
> 
> Spot on. Digests are dire, uninformative header, hard to find
> the real content in, unsuitable Reply to.
> 
> By contrast, I think that Last Call announcements get it
> almost right. The Subject line tells me whether or not I am
> interested, I only need the body for the date (which I would
> like to be more prominent).
> 
> I suggested earlier that while Last Call should each have a
> separate e-mail on some list, yet a weekly summary would cut
> by a factor of three the traffic on whatever is the new list.
> I did not mean digest! rather a customised e-mail taking the
> subject line of each Last Call announcement and putting it on
> a separate line in the body
> 
> e.g.
> 
> Last Call: <draft-ietf-regext-rfc7484bis-04.txt> (Finding the
> Authoritative Registration Data (RDAP) Service) to Internet
> Standard
> 
> Last Call: <draft-ietf-tsvwg-rfc4960-bis-15.txt> (Stream
> Control Transmission Protocol) to Proposed Standard
> 
> Last Call:
> <draft-ietf-netconf-notification-capabilities-17.txt> (YANG
> Modules describing Capabilities for Systems and Datastore
> Update Notifications) to Proposed Standard
> 
> or, less expansive,
> 
> Last Calls week ending ....
> 
> <draft-ietf-regext-rfc7484bis-04.txt> to IS
> 
> <draft-ietf-tsvwg-rfc4960-bis-15.txt> to PS
> 
> <draft-ietf-netconf-notification-capabilities-17.txt> to PS
> 
> PS: Proposed Standard
> IS: Internet Standard

Yes.  And then including the expiration dates would be even more
important.  I note that you have "week ending" but I'd suggest
two sections: 
  New announcements 
  Previously announced

Any resemblance between that and the "New items" and "Returning
items" breakdown on the IESG agendas -- and the fact that the
first three lines of each item identify file name, proposed
status, title, and relevant Area--  reinforce the value of such
a summary.  Like you, I'd add Last Call expiration dates (not
needed on the IESG agenda because documents don't show up there
until they are close to or past those dates).

best,
   john