Subject: Fwd: Question about who can submit to WG Chairs

From: Cullen Jennings <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 09:00:46 -0700

Forwarded from one of the unwashed masses

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Bill Fenner" <[email-masked]>
> Date: July 2, 2008 7:35:40 AM PDT
> To: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
> Cc: "James M Galvin" <[email-masked]>, "Cullen Jennings" <[email-masked] 
> >
> Subject: Re: Question about who can submit to WG Chairs
>
> On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 10:24 AM, Hallam-Baker, Phillip
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> There lies the road to creating an 'ietf-insiders' list which is  
>> not exactly
>> a good idea for a consensus based organization.
>
> [wg chairs list cc removed, so that I don't have to suffer the
> indignity of being rejected; feel free to forward if you think that
> the list won't be dirtied by having the opinion of an unannointed one
> sent to it]
>
> That's my point exactly.  While there is a whitelist of additional
> authorized posters which should be let through automatically, which is
> the list that James supplied, I think that the moderation policy for
> messages from other posters should simply be "if it is not spam then
> it should be put through".  Any white list will be incomplete sooner
> or later (e.g., what if some other wg chair asks some other random
> knowledgeable person to comment on some other issue by cc'ing that
> person and the list)?
>
>  Bill

---

From: James M Galvin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:08:46 -0400

-- On Wednesday, July 02, 2008 9:00 AM -0700 Cullen Jennings 
<[email-masked]> wrote regarding Fwd: Question about who can 
submit to WG Chairs --

> > That's my point exactly.  While there is a whitelist of
> > additional authorized posters which should be let through
> > automatically, which is the list that James supplied, I think
> > that the moderation policy for messages from other posters
> > should simply be "if it is not spam then it should be put
> > through".  Any white list will be incomplete sooner or later
> > (e.g., what if some other wg chair asks some other random
> > knowledgeable person to comment on some other issue by cc'ing
> > that person and the list)?

Cullen did not post the full documentation for the policy I wrote, 
perhaps because he did not have it.  This was one of my points from 
the transition, by the way, the complete lack of documentation on 
what we actually do operationally.  I wrote a fair amount of stuff 
for the benefit of AMS but even that, I'll quickly admit, was 
incomplete.

Moving on, I understand what you're saying.  The moderation policy 
for the IETF list (which I also wrote and is done by the 
Secretariat) is exactly what you say, if it's not obviously SPAM 
release.  The WGChairs list was deemed to be just a little more 
restrictive.  This could be wrong, of course, and I'm okay with 
that.  Honestly, I just wrote what I understood to be the case, 
based on my experience and some limited discussion.

As far as cc'ing wgchairs, another part of the policy I wrote for 
wgchairs is that messages from non-subscribers for a thread on 
wgchairs is supposed to be released.  This is distinct from threads 
where wgchairs is just one of several mailing lists that are cc'ed 
on a message, in which case the message should simply be discarded 
(not rejected).

So, what you are proposing is supposed to work, at least it's 
documented that way.  The model is that threads on wgchairs should 
be permitted to continue, while at the same reducing duplication of 
messages.

Here again, I'm okay with change if that's what folks want.  I was 
just trying to document what logically made sense given what I 
understood the purpose of the list to be.  If I got that wrong, 
well, fine.  Let's change it.

Jim