Subject: RE: Reminder: please maintain mailing list archive at ietf.org

From: Eastlake III Donald-LDE008 <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 14:28:50 -0400

(1) Well, I went to look at the secretariate archive for TRADE and, besides the real mail, it has lots of spam which isn't in the real WG archive. It would appear that the archive addresses are on spammers lists. This greatly reduces the utility of the archives in my mind. Seems to me the headers could be checked and almost all mail directly to the archives tossed. (Ideally the archives would have only the mail really send out on the mailing list, but that would probably requires the exploders to sign outgoing mail which is another whole discussion.)

(2) Having the right secretariate archive address on a WG mailing list always struck me as something whose checking would be pretty easy to automate. You just send an automated test message near the beginning of each month to every WG mailing list. About a week later, you check if they all made it into the archive files (just check for some unique string in the body of the test mail like a hash of the date sent and WG name). If you don't find it in the archive for some WG, you send off a ping to the WG chairs/ADs/whoever...

Donald

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Thomas Narten
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 2:05 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Reminder: please maintain mailing list archive at ietf.org

I happened to need to go look in some WG mailing list archives today,
and in doing so, I was reminded that not all WG mailing lists are
being properly archived. I've followed up with some individual WG
chairs, but suspect there are others as well. Please take a moment to
verify that your mailing list is being properly archvied at:

       ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf-mail-archive/

Also, be sure that there is actually something in the current months
archive!

The need for this is documented in RFC RFC 2418, which says:

>          As a service to the community, the IETF Secretariat operates a
>          mailing list archive for working group mailing lists. In order
>          to take advantage of this service, working group mailing lists
>          MUST include the address "[email-masked]"
>          (where "wg_acronym" is the working group acronym) in the
>          mailing list in order that a copy of all mailing list messages
>          be recorded in the Secretariat's archive.  Those archives are
>          located at ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf-mail-archive.  For
>          robustness, WGs SHOULD maintain an additional archive separate
>          from that maintained by the Secretariat.

Thanks,
Thomas

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 13:47:58 -0700

--On 25. mai 2004 14:28 -0400 Eastlake III Donald-LDE008 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> (1) Well, I went to look at the secretariate archive for TRADE and,
> besides the real mail, it has lots of spam which isn't in the real WG
> archive. It would appear that the archive addresses are on spammers
> lists. This greatly reduces the utility of the archives in my mind. Seems
> to me the headers could be checked and almost all mail directly to the
> archives tossed. (Ideally the archives would have only the mail really
> send out on the mailing list, but that would probably requires the
> exploders to sign outgoing mail which is another whole discussion.)

we're hoping that yesterday's spamtrap update will help with this. I'd like 
to investigate access control as you note, but first the new systems need 
to be stable.

> (2) Having the right secretariate archive address on a WG mailing list
> always struck me as something whose checking would be pretty easy to
> automate. You just send an automated test message near the beginning of
> each month to every WG mailing list. About a week later, you check if
> they all made it into the archive files (just check for some unique
> string in the body of the test mail like a hash of the date sent and WG
> name). If you don't find it in the archive for some WG, you send off a
> ping to the WG chairs/ADs/whoever...

agreed. again, something we (IESG) have suggested a number of times, but it 
is not yet first on the list of what the secretariat intends to implement.

                  Harald

---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 15:40:49 -0400

Hi Don.

> besides the real mail, it has lots of spam which isn't in the real
> WG archive. It would appear that the archive addresses are on
> spammers lists. This greatly reduces the utility of the archives in
> my mind. Seems to me the headers could be checked and almost all
> mail directly to the archives tossed. (Ideally the archives would
> have only the mail really send out on the mailing list, but that
> would probably requires the exploders to sign outgoing mail which is
> another whole discussion.)

Note: Ralph has been complaining about this for some time. The
most-recent secretariat response has been something like "will be
dealt with as side-effect of server migration". Since that is underway
now, maybe things will be better going forward.

> (2) Having the right secretariate archive address on a WG mailing
> list always struck me as something whose checking would be pretty
> easy to automate. You just send an automated test message near the
> beginning of each month to every WG mailing list. About a week
> later, you check if they all made it into the archive files (just
> check for some unique string in the body of the test mail like a
> hash of the date sent and WG name). If you don't find it in the
> archive for some WG, you send off a ping to the WG
> chairs/ADs/whoever...

Yep, there are a bunch of ways to automate the check. For better or
worse, this hasn't been a priority relative to the long list of other
things that also needs getting done.

Thomas