From: "Yakov Shafranovich" <research(_at_)solidmatrix(_dot_)com>
To ASRG Group Members,
We need volunteers urgently and they have not been forthcoming.
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We have over 600 subscribers with only a small amount participating, where
are the others?!?!?!
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The purpose of the ASRG is to find solutions to spam.
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While talking on the mailing list in some way leads to that goal and the
archive does touch on every aspect of spam, results are what counts not the
chatter.
Perhaps we should have a meeting as is mentioned on the website.
We could set aside one day to really get down and dirty on each of the
projects at hand.
Face to face communication is often a good way of getting ideas together.
"Meetings
The ASRG meetings will be held 2-3 times a year generally concurrent with
IETF meetings and possibly concurrent with other conferences."
The next IETF meeting is November 9-14 in Minneapolis, MN, USA
This seems like a perfect opportunity to gather and discuss.
Another solution might be to make the documents available for editing with
version changes being tracked, that way anyone can contribute to the
documents without first having to become a "volunteer" in order to add
something.
There are a few different systems that allow this. I believe that a wiki can
do this, and could be a solution.
...
More is needed - we need volunteers, people who are willing to give of
their time to get down, get dirty and produce results.
...
It is very sad to see that the two foundational documents for the group,
the requirements document and the technical considerations document, got
three and one response respectively. The spam bibliography guidelines had
zero response. This is considering that the mailing list has over 600
subscribers ((plus uncounted numbers who read the web and gmane archives)
but at any given time at most only 30 are active! That constitutes less
than 10% of the entire membership! What about the other 90%?!?!?!?
Perhaps when there are so many willing, but so few participating it is time
to re-evaluate the methods for allowing them to contribute.
Personally I thought I was volunteering by reading and discussing ideas on
this list. I use my own time, and I do not get paid. What I do get is
berated for not volunteering.
I think of this group as a virtual think tank.
To me, increasing meaningful understanding is the goal.
Understanding is about bouncing ideas back and forth. In a climate that
demands results of specific "volunteers" it is obvious why so few have
stepped forward to that responsibility.
We need to move the group forward. While jumping straight to proposals may
seem very good to many, we cannot do that.
It seems good because each of us has an agenda, and each of us wants to be
the one that comes up with the solution.
(or I could be different)
We seek to understand and analyze the spam problem, before we can hope to
objectively evaluate proposals. That is why we need to focus on the
foundation of the group which includes inventory of problems, requirements,
evaluation model, consent framework, technical considerations document,
analysis, bibliography, survey of solutions, identification of
standardization requirements, etc. All of these things either do not have
volunteers or are not getting very little feedback from the group members.
Without a solid foundation for the group we cannot hope to be able to
evaluate any proposals objectively and consider its impact on the Internet.
Perhaps the various documents could benefit from gedanken experiments using
the solutions people want to present.
This group has already generated a huge number of messages of this sort.
This could be a format:
Here is idea for evaluation.
Oooh here's a problem with that.
Problem is restated in a general form and added to it's respective document.
Problem is applied to all previous ideas to see how this new knowledge
effects it.
In this way as much meaning as possible comes from our talk without forcing
it.
There are many things that can be done but without volunteers we cannot do
them. These include:
o Volunteering to lead or participate an area
Obviously volunteering can't be done without volunteers.
o Editing and reviewing documents
o Simply participating in the list discussions on foundational documents
o Proposing suggestions to improve the group
These are all easily done without official "volunteers" given a proper
framework.
o Volunteering to write up or do something
Again...Volunteers for volunteers sake.
At this point we want to focus on working toward the next drafts of the
requirements document, technical considerations document and inventory of
problems, as well as other foundational documents. Please step up and help!
We need help with almost every single item and area, we also need
suggestions and comments for improvement. We need YOU to make the anti-spam
work possible and to bring a solution to reality.
This almost sounds like a flyer on a bulletin board, not a message to a
group of people who have already indicated their interest by signing up for
this list in the first place.
John Fenley
Just to sum up:
I think we should all meet at the IETF meeting.
Perhaps a collaborative document solution could help the various documents
move forward better.
I feel that to demand specific volunteers alienates 99% of this list.
We need a way for list volume to be made useful.
We are all volunteers already. This is a noble cause, and I know that we are
all doing our best.
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