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

[Tim Wicinski <[e-mail]>]

As someone who files ietf-announce into a folder because there are too many
messages, I feel most able to respond to this....

I propose the name be "ietf-announce-announce" because it tells me as a
consumer that "this is more important messages that must be read, rather
than the regular important messages like Yet Another interim for anima or
cbor (*)".

I do think that the whole focus on Datatracker accounts is really the wrong
way to look at engagement.

tim

(*) no offenses to anima or cbor working groups, they do fine work.


On Sat, Sep 25, 2021 at 12:03 PM Bob Hinden <[e-mail]> 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 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.
>
> > 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.
>
>
> > 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.
> >
> > Lars Eggert
> > IETF Chair (on behalf of the IESG)
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > IETF-Announce mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-announce
>
>