Subject: [Tools-discuss] Tools Workshop : Mail Processing either 22 or 23 Nov.

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2021 17:32:08 -0500

The tools team will be holding a series of workshops focused on 
different aspects of our applications and environment.

The first will focus on Mail Processing

We expect to go over the processing flow of email going to our lists, 
and discuss the following:

*    IDN support
         What a Mailman 3 migration would require
         What would be different with Mailman 3
         what would have to change in the rest of the processing chain
*    Spam abatement
         Virus scanning
         Spamassassin
         Postconfirm
         Use of mailman’s mechanisms
*    Ability to moderate a given participant
*    DMARC rewriting
*    Alias maintenance (<group>-chairs@, <document>-authors@, etc.)

We are planning to hold this first workshop 1800-2100 UTC on either 22 
or 23 Nov.

If you would like to participate, please add yourself to the doodle at 
https://doodle.com/poll/2whrpnyxn3iavpr5.

The workshop will be recorded and made available later, but the majority 
of it will be discussion, and there's no substitute for being part of 
that discussion.

RjS

---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2021 16:33:36 -0500

Through my oversight, I set this to days that Glen could not make, and 
it would be a better workshop if he were there to contribute.

The doodle at https://doodle.com/poll/2whrpnyxn3iavpr5 has been updated.

If you've already answered, please return and indicate your availability 
on the new dates and accept my apologies for the inconvenience.

I didn't remove the old dates - if we have a group that is 
overwhelmingly more available on them, I'll work out proceeding without 
Glen, but hopefully the other dates will work as well for everyone.

RjS

On 10/12/21 5:32 PM, Robert Sparks wrote:
> The workshop will be recorded and made available later, but the 
> majority of it will be discussion, and there's no substitute for being 
> part of that discussion.
>
> RjS
>
> ___________________________________________________________
> Tools-discuss mailing list - [email-masked]
> This list is for discussion, not for action requests or bug reports.
> * Report datatracker and mailarchive bugs to: 
> [email-masked]
> * Report tools.ietf.org bugs to: [email-masked]
> * Report all other bugs or issues to: [email-masked]
> List info (including how to Unsubscribe): 
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tools-discuss

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Oct 2021 23:12:01 -0400

>>         what would have to change in the rest of the processing chain

By IDN support, do you mean EAI mail with UTF-8 on both sides of an e-mail address, or just
IDNs in URLs and the like?

If you mean the former, RFC 6783 offers some advice but nowhere near enough.

The old rule of thumb that the first 90% of the work takes the first 90% of the
time, and then the other 90% of the work takes the other 90% of the time
definitely applies here.

R's,
John

---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2021 09:17:07 -0500

> time, and then the other 90% of the work takes the other 90% of the time

Indeed, and yes, we mean the former - it's a project that's had action 
on and off for several years. Its time to look again to see if we can 
finish taking the step.

I hope you'll be able to be at the workshop!

> * Report datatracker and mailarchive bugs to: [email-masked]
> List info (including how to Unsubscribe): https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tools-discuss

---

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 14 Oct 2021 11:59:29 -0400

On Thu, 14 Oct 2021, Robert Sparks wrote:
>> By IDN support, do you mean EAI mail with UTF-8 on both sides of an e-mail 
>> address, ...

> Indeed, and yes, we mean the former - it's a project that's had action on and 
> off for several years. Its time to look again to see if we can finish taking 
> the step.

FYI, ICANN is also planning to add EAI support to their Mailman lists, 
although I am reasonably sure they have no clue how hard it is.  It is 
also on the roadmap for Mailman 3 although I doubt they will do anything 
soon unless someone gives it to them.

I can say more about this in December but my strong advice, having been 
doing EAI work for the UASG for several years, is first to enable EAI on 
the IETF's regular mail system.  In theory this is just turning on a 
postfix flag,  In practice, things break and we will learn interesting 
things from what breaks and what is involved in fixing it.

While the smoke clears we can figure out whether it is plausble to EAI-ize 
our mailing lists.  The first 90% of the work is enabling EAI features on 
inbound and outbound mail and the archive which I would expect to be 
fairly straightforward.  The other 90% is that if you want your EAI 
support to be useful, there has to be some way for EAI and ASCII users to 
be on the same list, to arrange to deliver messages from EAI users to 
ASCII mail systems that do not handle EAI mail, and make it at least 
somewhat possible to reply, preferably without making things worse for 
people at systems like Gmail which have ASCII addreses but can send and 
receive EAI mail.  The EAI working group tried to solve the gateway 
problem for a decade and failed, so it seems unlikely that we will do much 
better.  (Needless to say, any solution starting "You can just ..." has 
been tried and failed already.)

R's,
John

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From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2021 18:50:14 -0500

(Reusing much of an earlier message, if this looks familiar, there's a 
reason. The important bit is fixing the date.)

*    IDN support

This first workshop will be held 1800-2100 UTC on 6 Dec.

Coordinates for the workshop will follow.

RjS