Dear Sir;
On Feb 11, 2009, at 6:06 PM, MBR wrote:
Dear Noel,
It's unfortunate, but I know of no way to tell the difference
between an email address that's the main point of contact for an
organization and an email address that distributes to a huge mailing
list. I sent email to ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org, naively assuming that the
Internet Engineering Task Force was established enough to have an
office somewhere with a secretary who read the emails and forwarded
those of interest to the appropriate people.
Part of the rough democracy of the IETF is that there are basically no
filters to reaching any person in a position of responsibility. The
IETF Chair, the IAB Chair, the IESG, the general discussion list,
Working Group Chairs, all can be easily contacted by anyone who feels
that they have a need to. (Of course, there are means to filter
abusive people once they demonstrate their abuse, but there is no
filter to the newcomer.)
Had I known ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org was an email list, I wouldn't have emailed
the list. However, having inadvertently done so, I hope I won't be
accused of repeat mailbombing for sending this explanation in
response to your accusation.
If you'd like to suggest a way I can tell whether an email address
represents a single individual or an email list, I'm all ears.
In some circles, this is called due diligence. If I was requested to
send an email about issue blah to
something(_at_)foo(_dot_)org, I would try and find at least something about
foo.org.
This could be done through a search engine, or by going to the
appropriate web site.
In our case, the first search item I found upon entering ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
into a common engine was
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
which I think is pretty clear.
For the direct approach, right on the home page
there is a link marked "Mailing Lists," which (after the "Note Well"
click through), takes you to a page
http://www.ietf.org/maillist-new1.html
which has a general description of the mailing lists, and a link to a
description of the ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org list.
Did you try either course ? If you did, and feel that you were
confused about appropriate processes, I for one would like to hear
about it. Many of these web pages are quite old, and there is
certainly room for improvement.
In my experience the IETF is very welcoming to new people and new
points of view, but it can be hard to figure out what the pieces do in
the beginning. If you want to continue, I would recommend that you
start with the TAO, join
the mailing lists of interest to you, and monitor the discussion for a
while to get a feel of the local culture.
Regards
Marshall Eubanks
Mark Rosenthal
Noel Chiappa wrote:
Thank you for being part of a crowd of hundreds of people who have
mailbombed
the mailboxes of thousands of IETF 'members' (since we don't have
any formal
membership, just an email list). As a result, we all have such
positive
feeling about the FSF.
Noel
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