Subject: Multiple E-mail Addresses for IETF Participants

From: "Fuller, Barbara" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 09:49:55 -0400

Dear IETF Working Group Chairs:

While most IETF participants use one e-mail address for all of their
IETF-related activities, several that we know of use multiple e-mail
addresses.  For example, they might use one e-mail address for
submitting Internet-Drafts, and another e-mail address for subscribing
to the IETF Announcement List.

The current model in our system is: "one e-mail address per
participant."  As a result, if someone submits an Internet-Draft, and
his or her e-mail address is different from the address listed in our
Rolodex, then we update the Rolodex with the latest address.

Changing the model from "one e-mail address per participant" to
"multiple e-mail addresses per participant" is not difficult to do.
However, it will take some effort by the Secretariat to implement and
maintain the system.

While the current Secretariat system can store multiple e-mail addresses
for each participant, we will need to enhance the existing tool that we
use to manage the profiles of IETF participants to associate a given
e-mail address with a specific activity.  We will also need to update
some Web-page generating scripts so that each Web page displays the
proper e-mail address.  For example, if a working group chair would like
one e-mail address associated with the working group charter and another
e-mail address associated with the Internet-Drafts-Database-Interface
(for documents that he or she has authored), then that would
automatically happen.  Finally, once the system and Web scripts have
been updated, then we will need to revise several operational procedures
for obtaining and recording addresses so that people can tell us which
address is associated with each activity.

In order to decide whether or not to proceed, it would be useful to know
how widespread the practice is for using multiple e-mail addresses.
Would investing in these updates affect 10 people? 100 people? 1,000
people?

We would appreciate your thoughts on, and experience with, this issue.
If you would like to weigh in, then please hit "reply all" on this
message.

Cheers!!

Barbara

---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 09:26:36 -0500

I am affected.

While I try hard to keep my IETF activities sourced from one of the  
addresses I send from regularly, its far too easy to accidentally use  
the others. Observing the effect this has had on the IETF systems has  
been entertaining at times, but also frustrating. I'm glad to see  
attention focused on this for a bit.

If it matters, I regularly send from two addresses (though I  
occasionally
send from 5-ish at any given point in time).

Thanks,

RjS

---

From: Alper Yegin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 17:46:53 +0300

Hi Barbara,

My official contact address in IETF records is
[email-masked].
But I regularly use my [email-masked] for communication.

I hope this info helps.

Alper

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Fuller, Barbara [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 4:50 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: Ray Pelletier; Brian E Carpenter; Lindberg, Jon; Lee, Michael
> Subject: Multiple E-mail Addresses for IETF Participants
>

---

From: David Harrington <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 10:52:14 -0400

Hi,

I regularly use three email addresses.

One is my company's email, and I use this when authoring a
company-sponsored draft. I usually do not send email to the IETF using
this address, so the address used to submit a draft usually is not the
same as that in the draft.

One is an ietf-specific email address, used when chairing and
subscribing to mailing lists.

One is a personal address that I sometimes slip into by default when
posting, that I used long before creating the ietf-specific name so I
am registered using this name for some mailing lists. For drafts I
author that are not sponsored by the company, I use this personal
address.

David Harrington
[email-masked] 
[email-masked]
[email-masked]

> Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 9:50 AM
> To: [email-masked]

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 18:36:13 +0300

Barbara,

I use 2 emails.  One is my work address and one is my private address.
I use
work for work things and private for issues unrelated to my employer.

John

>From: ext Fuller, Barbara [mailto:[email-masked]] 
>Sent: 28 August, 2006 16:50
>To: [email-masked]
>Cc: Ray Pelletier; Brian E Carpenter; Lindberg, Jon; Lee,Michael
>While most IETF participants use one e-mail address for all of 
>their IETF-related activities, several that we know of use 
>multiple e-mail addresses.  For example, they might use one 
>e-mail address for submitting Internet-Drafts, and another 
>e-mail address for subscribing to the IETF Announcement List.
>
>participant."  As a result, if someone submits an 
>Internet-Draft, and his or her e-mail address is different 
>from the address listed in our Rolodex, then we update the 
>Rolodex with the latest address.
>
>Changing the model from "one e-mail address per participant" 
>to "multiple e-mail addresses per participant" is not difficult to do.
>However, it will take some effort by the Secretariat to 
>implement and maintain the system.
>
>While the current Secretariat system can store multiple e-mail 
>addresses for each participant, we will need to enhance the 
>existing tool that we use to manage the profiles of IETF 
>participants to associate a given e-mail address with a 
>specific activity.  We will also need to update some Web-page 
>generating scripts so that each Web page displays the proper 
>e-mail address.  For example, if a working group chair would 
>like one e-mail address associated with the working group 
>charter and another e-mail address associated with the 
>Internet-Drafts-Database-Interface
>automatically happen.  Finally, once the system and Web 
>scripts have been updated, then we will need to revise several 
>operational procedures for obtaining and recording addresses 
>so that people can tell us which address is associated with 
>each activity.
>
>In order to decide whether or not to proceed, it would be 
>useful to know how widespread the practice is for using 
>multiple e-mail addresses.
>Would investing in these updates affect 10 people? 100 people? 
>1,000 people?
>
>If you would like to weigh in, then please hit "reply all" on 
>this message.
>
>Cheers!!
>
>Barbara
>
>

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 08:44:48 -0700

I use multiple email addresses because I represent different 
organizations when I do different things.

More to the point of the question, many people use different 
addresses when they post to a mailing list than when they write 
Internet Drafts or RFCs. They may post to a mailing list from a 
personal account, but when an official document affiliates them with 
their employer, they *need* to have a company email address in the 
document. It is fairly important that the IETF process can handle 
this situation.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 09:10:28 -0700

Hi,

> Dear IETF Working Group Chairs:

IMO, you should not touch the WG or other mailing list subscriber base EVER.
There are lots of complicated reasons for subscribing different names.
One obvious case is when a company uses internal mailing lists to monitor
IETF WGs, and subscribes just one email address to each WG.

This situation has been the norm for about 15 years.
Why is this all of a sudden a problem?

What problem exists here?  Do you want one canonical email address
per participant, that must match their author email address in I-Ds,
and even the 'foo' in 'draft-foo-blah-00.txt' I-D submissions?
(Presumably that solves some problem we are having with I-D submissions?)

It seems a solution is being proposed here, without explaining the
problem first.

Is the problem that an email address must represent an individual,
and not a company?  That's what I've heard.  IMO, there is no algorithm
you can possibly write that will reliably automate this ID-nit check.

I suggest you simply add a paragraph to the submissions page declaring
this policy, and warn people that if an email address is later found
not to represent an individual, the draft will be removed, and an
ietf-wide announcement sent that an inappropriate draft was removed
because company X violated the submission policy.

Andy

> participant."  As a result, if someoFrom [email-masked] Mon Aug 28 12:34:59 2006
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 09:10:28 -0700
From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
To: "Fuller, Barbara" <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked], "Lee, Michael" <[email-masked]>,
	Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>, "Lindberg,
	Jon" <[email-masked]>, Ray Pelletier <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Multiple E-mail Addresses for IETF Participants

Hi,

> Dear IETF Working Group Chairs:

IMO, you should not touch the WG or other mailing list subscriber base EVER.
There are lots of complicated reasons for subscribing different names.
One obvious case is when a company uses internal mailing lists to monitor
IETF WGs, and subscribes just one email address to each WG.

This situation has been the norm for about 15 years.
Why is this all of a sudden a problem?

What problem exists here?  Do you want one canonical email address
per participant, that must match their author email address in I-Ds,
and even the 'foo' in 'draft-foo-blah-00.txt' I-D submissions?
(Presumably that solves some problem we are having with I-D submissions?)

It seems a solution is being proposed here, without explaining the
problem first.

Is the problem that an email address must represent an individual,
and not a company?  That's what I've heard.  IMO, there is no algorithm
you can possibly write that will reliably automate this ID-nit check.

I suggest you simply add a paragraph to the submissions page declaring
this policy, and warn people that if an email address is later found
not to represent an individual, the draft will be removed, and an
ietf-wide announcement sent that an inappropriate draft was removed
because company X violated the submission policy.

Andy

---

From: Peter Koch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 18:31:50 +0200

On Mon, Aug 28, 2006 at 09:49:55AM -0400, Fuller, Barbara wrote:

> his or her e-mail address is different from the address lne submits an Internet-Draft, and

---

From: Peter Koch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 18:31:50 +0200

> Rolodex, then we update the Rolodex with the latest address.

thanks for documenting the current practice.

I'd like to join the choir: I use at least two different email addresses
for WG chair and other IETF business. I'd appreciate if there was no
automatic change to the WG charter page based on the address that appears
in an Internet-Draft since the difference is intentional.
Of course, being able to post to wg-chairs from different addresses would
be fine.

Thanks,
  Peter

isted in our
> Rolodex, then we update the Rolodex with the latest address.

thanks for documenting the current practice.

I'd like to join the choir: I use at least two different email addresses
for WG chair and other IETF business. I'd appreciate if there was no
automatic change to the WG charter page based on the address that appears
in an Internet-Draft since the difference is intentional.
Of course, being able to post to wg-chairs from different addresses would
be fine.

Thanks,
  Peter

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:38:23 +0300

Paul Hoffman wrote:

> More to the point of the question, many people use different addresses
> when they post to a mailing list than when they write Internet Drafts
> or RFCs. They may post to a mailing list from a personal account, but
> when an official document affiliates them with their employer, they
> *need* to have a company email address in the document. It is fairly
> important that the IETF process can handle this situation.

+ 1

--Jari

---

From: Jeffrey Altman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 13:25:58 -0400

I have multiple e-mail addressses.  Different addresses for different
purposes.  I would appreciate seeing these updates implemented.

Jeffrey Altman

---

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 13:26:54 -0400

I've also seen the Rolodex apparently be updated because of a different
address being *listed* in an internet-draft. Is this true?

(I tend to send email using one of two addresses, but list a variety of
addresses in the internet-drafts I submit. These I-D addresses use
subaddressing to help me differentiate messages sent about different
topics. Since all of the addresses get to me eventually, it hasn't
bothered me that the Rolodex seems to have gotten updated.)

	Tony Hansen
	[email-masked]

---

From: "Susan Hares" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 11:50:02 -0600

I use multiple email address (company and personal) for IETF.

Sue

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey Altman [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 1:26 PM
To: Fuller, Barbara
Cc: [email-masked]; Lee, Michael; Brian E Carpenter; Lindberg,Jon;
Ray Pelletier

Jeffrey Altman

> While the current Secretariat system can store multiple e-mail
addresses

---

From: Rob Austein <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:04:20 -0400

> If you would like to weigh in, then please hit "reply all" on this

Sigh.

I use multiple email addresses for IETF business.  While most of this
is just to simplify automated sorting of mailing list traffic into
folders (and thus is a private convenience for me, which I could learn
to live without if necessary), there's one aspect of this which
matters for uglier reasons.

My employer, understandably enough, wants me to use my "company" email
address on drafts that I write, when contributing technical comments
on public mailing lists, etcetera.  As a WG chair, though, I need to
receive email related to my WG directly, because my employer's email
system implements spam filtering rules that are not under my control.
This has been the subject of threatened process appeals against me,
albiet by someone who appears to have, shall we say, other issues.

While this is an extreme case, I suspect that I am not the only IETF
participant who finds his or her employer's email system to be an
impediment of one kind or another at times.

For this reason I must agree with Andy Berman's comment that -nothing-
should ever automatically update the email addresses listed on a
charter.  The address listed for me on my WG's charter page was chosen
for a reason after consultation with my Area Directors, and the
Secretariat would be inviting another process appeal if one of the
Secretariat's scripts were to change it.  Please don't.

---

From: "Ian Chakeres" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 11:03:38 -0700

I use multiple email addresses (work/personal).
Ian Chakeres

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:38:42 +0300

Barbara,

You asked how frequent this situation is.

In the sample of int-area subscribers (308 members) I found
120 people who have a current draft declaring the same e-mail
address as they were subscribed on. 20 people had the
same username part in their e-mail addresses from the
subscriber list as in the I-D author list, such as
[email-masked] and [email-masked].
14 out of the 20 appeared to point to the same
person according to my unreliable manual check.
In addition there may be people who use different
addresses but whose user names differ. For instance,
this would happen to me if I would use [email-masked]
and [email-masked]. There is no easy way to
count these people.

Bottom line: at least 10% of people in this sample
appear to use different addresses for list subscription
and draft authorship information.

--Jari

---

From: Martin Duerst <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 16:18:04 +0900

I personally am using only one email address.
But I know many people who use more than one.
 From my experience, and from the reports on this list,
it seems that it's very important to distinguish two
patterns:

1) Somebody uses several addresses for different ROLES.
2) Somebody uses several addresses by convenience.

Also, 1) can change to 2) by chance, because it's extremely
difficult to make sure one always uses the right address.

The mail below seems to make two premises:
- People use only one email address (per ROLE)
- When IETF administration gets a mail from another
  address, the existing address is updated without
  checking.

To really take into account 2) above, I think this needs to
be changed:
a) allow email from more than one address per ROLE
   (one of these could be the primary one)
b) do not update email addresses automatically, to avoid
   that an email that is used by chance or on a one-time
   basis gets stuck in a database.

Regards,    Martin.

>If you would like to weigh in, then please hit "reply all" on this

#-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-#-#  http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp       mailto:[email-masked]

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 11:58:49 -0400

>>>>> "Paul" == Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]> writes:

    Paul> I use multiple email addresses because I represent different
    Paul> organizations when I do different things.

Agreed.  And the secretariat is never going to guess correctly if they
try and interpret this.  I'd be really annoyed if an action like
submitting a draft from one address caused any updates.

I consider all of the following distinct:

* The Address from which I submit a given draft
*  The address I choose to list in that draft in the authors' addresses section
* Where I subscribe to a list from
* Where I send to a list from
* What I want to appear on ietf.org web pages

To give an example on how complicated it would be for the secretariat
to guess this, the address I use to send a given message may well
depend on whether I'm speaking as an AD, as a Kerberos impleneter, or
in some other role.

---

From: Derek Atkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 10:57:00 -0400

I agree with Martin here..  But I personally use multiple email
addresses.  While I try to be consistent I don't always succeed. But
like Rob Austein, I chose the WG Chair Address for a reason and would
appreciate it not getting changed automatically.

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
       [email-masked]             www.ihtfp.com
       Computer and Internet Security Consultant

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 09:21:14 -0700

> depend on whether I'm speaking as an AD, as a Kerberos impleneter, or

I hope at the end of this discussion somebody explains to
me why the email addresses Sam (or anybody else) uses in the IETF
is the source of so much concern to the Policy Makers.

I wasn't aware we needed an Official Policy on Email Addresses,
let alone that there is a One Address Policy, in stark contradiction
to long-standing practices of using multiple email addresses
in the IETF.

Andy

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 13:22:06 -0700

Barbara,

> to the IETF Announcement List.

I use several email addresses for a variety of reason.

> Rolodex, then we update the Rolodex with the latest address.

This must be a new system because it didn't used to be that way.

Could you explain why there is an "IETF Rolodex" in the first place?   
I don't understand why the secretariat needs to be doing this.   
People should be able to subscribe to email lists, register for  
meetings, take on a IETF role, etc. with whatever address they want.   
Why does the IETF need to correlate these email addresses?

For example, I can be a w.g. chair with one address, subscribe to my  
working group mailing list with two different addresses, and  
subscribe to the IETF list with a third address.  I don't see any  
reason why this needs to be correlated?

Thanks,
Bob

---

From: Dave Thaler <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:26:11 -0700

I only use one email *account*, but the From address and the address I
want to appear on drafts, web pages, etc is different.  That is,
orthogonal to the issue of multiple email accounts is the issue of such
email aliasing which from my understanding is not uncommon.  For
example, anyone can get an [email-masked] address that just forwards email
to a real address.

The real address may change over time, whereas the alias can remain
stable and be easier for people to type.

For example, the main address I want to appear ([email-masked],
or in theory, [email-masked]) is just an "alias" which actually goes to
my current real address ([email-masked]).

-Dave

> Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 6:50 AM
> To: [email-masked]
addresses

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 08:11:47 -0400

I also do this - at one point, I used a web browser based emailer which
didn't respect this aliasing, so posts from the IETF terminal room  
would bounce (this was a while ago), so
I resubscribed to all of my IETF lists using the account name at the  
meeting. It didn't
seem to perturb anything then; I would hope that the
same flexibility would continue into the future.

Regards
Marshall

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 16:29:17 +0200

> I wasn't aware we needed an Official Policy on Email Addresses,

There isn't one. There is a practical question of how the secretariat
keeps track of which addresses to use for what purpose.

> This must be a new system because it didn't used to be that way.

I think what's new is that more and more secretariat actions
are taken by tools, and tools have less common sense than
people.

> Could you explain why there is an "IETF Rolodex" in the first place? 

You can't expect the secretariat to operate without an address book
any more than you do. The reason for Barbara's question was to figure
out what the underlying usages and requirements are. So actuallly,
how it's done today is not a very interesting question - the real
question is what model should we use?

    Brian

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 16:59:26 +0200

Actually I like the idea of a rolodex, and I wonder if we could set up
something with the RFC Editor to take advantage of it.  For instance,
people are always trying to contact authors of various RFCs.  Of course
those addresses change over time, and if the IETF is monitoring those
changes, perhaps something can be done to have an alias per RFC -
somehow.  There are concerns about security and how the author list gets
updated, IMHO, but heck, as we say, that's an implementation detail ;-)

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 11:54:11 -0400

The other issue (and one I am sure is on Brian's mind) is spam  
filtering -
if we have NSS start to filter people who are _not_ subscribed to  
lists, it would be useful
if that allowed through all of the variants and aliases of people who  
_are_
subscribed.

Regards
Marshall

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 11:59:16 -0400

> updated, IMHO, but heck, as we say, that's an implementation detail ;-)

Have RFCs authored by [email-masked] or
[email-masked]?

		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

---

From: David Mitton <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 01:12:07 -0400

>question is what model should we use?
Brian,
         I have a real problem with this last point.

Why does the Secretariat have to contact me?

The context of that contact would determine what address to use.
In the past I believed that they were pretty "stateless" in this 
regard, except across the transaction.

Very rarely has the Secretariat have need to contact me without me 
initiating contact from some email address first.  In fact I'm hard 
pressed to think of any unsolicited contact.

Is the IETF becoming a long term stateful machine with respect to participants?
How are the transactions correllated and maintained?
This is new ground.

Dave (going into the geek engineer take on this problem).

----
I'll toss my other comment in here too,

I use multiple emails for some of the reasons mentioned.
One particular reason is I use an external (to my employer) address 
because it allows me to control how email is accessed when I TRAVEL 
to a MEETING!    My employers have not always had ways to securely 
read email when off-site.   I also get the pick of tools for sorting 
and archiving.  And given the recent situations, continuity on 
mailing lists across employers.

But I really do not like the assertion of an address in a published 
Draft to change any mailing list subcription(s).   A process I 
recently discovered on this list.

Dave.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 10:36:34 +0200

> Why does the Secretariat have to contact me?

For example, to remind you about WG milestones in your WG chair role,
or to send tracker updates in your PROTO shepherd role, or to send
expiry notices in your I-D Author role. I am sure there are others.
The common feature is that these messages are sent by robots,
i.e. database-driven.

...
> Draft to change any mailing list subcription(s).   A process I recently 
> discovered on this list.

Yes. This procedure will be dropped.

    Brian

---

From: "Joe Macker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 14:45:55 -0400

I use multiple emails for multiple reasons and need to continue to do so.

---

From: "Joe Macker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 14:45:55 -0400