Subject: RE: WG notifications of new IDs is causing problems

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:31:02 -0500

James:

When a new WG document, or an update of an existing WG document, is 
posted, the posting is sent to the I-D Announce list, with a CC to 
the WG mailing list.  I believe that this is the proper action since 
not all IETF participants subscribe to the I-D Announce list.  The CC 
to the WG mailing list has been the procedure for a very long 
time.  This procedure is now part of the I-D Submission Tool.

Another form of notification is sent by the I-D Tracker when a new 
version of a document is posted.  That goes to a list of people 
specified by the Area Director that is sponsoring the document.  It 
is usually the authors, the WG Chairs, and the PROTO shepherd.  The 
message also goe to any AD that is holding a DISCUSS ballot position 
for the document that was updated.  It sounds like the AD added the 
WG mail list to the set of recipients.

What is the document?  We can remove the WG mail list.

Russ

 >Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:37:34 -0600
 >To: [email-masked]
 >From: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
 >Cc: [email-masked]
 >Subject: WG notifications of new IDs is causing problems
 >
 >Secretariat
 >
 >It appears the ID submission tool (or poster) started a practice
 >that's becoming a real pain in the behind in late September.  This
 >involves sending a notification to a WG that a new version of a WG
 >level document has been submitted.  For example, take a message with
 >the Subject line of
 >
 >         "[Geopriv] New Version Notification for (draft-X)"
 >
 >Unfortunately, on several lists I'm part of, individuals reply or
 >even start threads based on these messages. Most folks mailers, but
 >not all I imagine, do not show the (draft-X) part of the above
 >subject lines (hitting a line length limitation), making sorting and
 >even identifying messages real tough, if not impossible (short of
 >opening each and every one).  This is especially troublesome when
 >sorting threads on active lists.
 >
 >Further, these messages are essentially identical to your postings
 >with a Subject line of
 >
 >         "[Geopriv] I-D Action:draft-ietf-..."
 >
 >So I'm also confused why 2 messages are necessary.
 >
 >AS a specific example, look at the Geopriv archives. Of the last 20
 >messages on that list (from the last 3 days), half have the
 >"[Geopriv] New Version Notification for (draft-X)" Subject line, yet
 >there are several different threads among those messages.  This is
 >becoming increasingly noticeable as we go through the ID version
 >deadlines. I imagine next week this will be worse than this week.
 >
 >As chair (of TSVWG) and as an active individual participant of more
 >than 50 IETF lists, can I ask that you stop sending out WG
 >notification messages that have a Subject line starting with
 >"[<wg-name>] New Version Notification for (draft-X)".
 >
 >Thanks
 >James
 >TSVWG co-chair
 >
 >
 >

---

From: "David Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:52:46 -0500

Hi,

Can we simply change the subject line to be shorter, such as
[WG] NEW draft-ietf-xxxxx ?
Wouldn't that solve the problem being raised? 

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Russ Housley [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 3:31 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; 
> [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: WG notifications of new IDs is causing problems
> 
> James:
>

---

From: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:49:10 -0600

David

I'm fine with shorter Subject lines, since the new one is 31 
characters PLUS the WG name *before* the draft filename is 
shown.  That's much more than a lot of mailers can display.

James

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 02:31:35 +0100

Hi David,

> Wouldn't that solve the problem being raised?

I don't think so -- we'd still having *2* notifications going
to the WG mailing list for each new draft, within minutes of each
other, which (to my way of thinking) is slightly excessive.

	Henrik

---

From: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:46:44 -0600

>other, which (to my way of thinking) is slightly excessive.

I don't care, myself, about the number of notifications, I'm 
frustrated with a generic Subject line for each of these messages 
*and* each reply/reply-all to the originals that make tracking 
threads nearly impossible.

I (unfortunately?) do a lot of work in both ECRIT and GEOPRIV, where 
each have some members (and it's not the chair's faults) who (re)act 
without thinking and have the same Subject line for 50-150 message 
long threads, even though the topic of the thread changes a dozen 
times since the original message.  This has happened on SIP and 
SIPPING in the past, though much less frequently lately.

I fear this long character preamble notification for each new WG ID 
will make email an utter mess on our lists, which goes to the heart 
of how we communicate.