Subject: Re: [Tools-discuss] posting to tictoc wg mailing list

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:56:36 -0500

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 2:42 PM, Karen O'Donoghue <[email-masked]> wrote:
> I see that you have posted some messages that are being held for the
> moderator. Non-members need to join the mailing list in order to post. I've
> approved these messages, but please join the mailing list in order to post
> further.

I won't.  The IETF needs to have an option for any subscriber to any
IETF list to be allowed to post on all the others.  I can't subscribe
to every IETF list just on account of occasional cross-postings.  If
this means I get to participate less by having my posts kept out of
lists I refuse to subscribe to, so be it.

Tools-discuss cc'ed.  Please, please, someone fix this problem.

Nico
--

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2011 09:17:19 +1300

This is a non-problem, since mailman allows an admin to very easily add
someone to the "allowed" list at the same time as approving their
message. You just check a button in the GUI. I do this as a matter of
course on lists that I administer, and it is *not* a signficant burden.
It does have to be a human action, however, to avoid letting spammers in.

Nico's proposal has two problems:

1. It won't help for non-IETF participants that want to temporarily join
an IETF discussion.

2. It would allow spammers to join one IETF list and get to spam all of them.

Regards
   Brian Carpenter

On 2011-10-19 08:56, Nico Williams wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> Tools-discuss mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tools-discuss
>

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 15:25:53 -0500

> It does have to be a human action, however, to avoid letting spammers in.

I had forgotten about this.  Of course!  There is no problem.  List
moderators should just add non-spammers to the whitelist.

> 1. It won't help for non-IETF participants that want to temporarily join

Sure, but they have other options (e.g., just post and let the
moderator add them to the whitelist, or subscribe to the lowest noise
list).

> 2. It would allow spammers to join one IETF list and get to spam all of them.

Sure, but if they can subscribe to one IETF list so they can spam it,
they can also subscribe to all IETF lists  anyways.

Nico
--

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From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:26:11 -0700

On Oct 18, 2011, at 1:17 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:

> This is a non-problem,

-1

> since mailman allows an admin to very easily add
> message.

+1

> You just check a button in the GUI. I do this as a matter of

Other WG chairs / secretaries are not as diligent as you or I.

If anyone on the Tools Team has done any modding of Mailman, it would be grand to add a feature that would allow Someone to say "this address is allowed to post to any list on this server".

> It does have to be a human action, however, to avoid letting spammers in.

+1, but not necessarily by every WG chair.

> 1. It won't help for non-IETF participants that want to temporarily join

True, but that wasn't the scenario. The scenario is "someone who almost everyone would agree should be able to post to any WG mailing list". Nico, you, and I all qualify for that.

> 2. It would allow spammers to join one IETF list and get to spam all of them.

Nico didn't propose that the option is turnable on by the person subscribing, so I disagree.

--Paul Hoffman

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From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:32:46 -0700

Hi Nico,
>lists I refuse to subscribe to, so be it.

It is tedious to have to subscribe to an IETF mailing list for a 
one-off posting.  The moderator could allow postings from your email 
address.  There are times when people actually prefer the message not 
to be posted to a mailing list, e.g. incorrect email address used for 
that mailing list.

Most of the IETF mailing lists are administered by volunteers who 
might also have some WG role.  Some of them might ask you to "please 
subscribe" or "please do not cross-post to a dozen IETF mailing 
lists".  If you do not want to do that, there is not much the moderator can do.

Regards,
-sm

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From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:49:32 -0500

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 4:32 PM, SM <[email-masked]> wrote:
> It is tedious to have to subscribe to an IETF mailing list for a one-off
> posting.  The moderator could allow postings from your email address.  There
> are times when people actually prefer the message not to be posted to a
> mailing list, e.g. incorrect email address used for that mailing list.
>
> Most of the IETF mailing lists are administered by volunteers who might also
> have some WG role.  Some of them might ask you to "please subscribe" or
> "please do not cross-post to a dozen IETF mailing lists".  If you do not
> want to do that, there is not much the moderator can do.

Yes there is something they can do: they can add me to the list's
whitelist.  I've done this for the one IETF list I have admin rights
to (I had forgotten about that).  So should other IETF list admins.

They could also choose to block all my posts till I subscribe.  For
now that would be *their* loss, and their list subscribers'.  But
eventually this will become a problem.  The IETF should have a policy
about this, and that policy should be that the list admins add
non-spammer non-subscriber posters to the whitelist.

Let's follow-up, if at all we must, on the main IETF list.

Nico
--

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From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:03:22 -0500

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 5:01 PM, Karen O'Donoghue <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Just for the record, I am happy to add you to the whitelist and I value your
> contributions. I just didn't think of it at the time. I do think a policy or
> guidance
> might be helpful. It may already exist and I missed it or forgot about it.

I'd forgotten about it also :(  So much so that I thought a feature
needed to be added so that no one need ask me again to subscribe :)  I
did not mean that anyone was being lazy -- if anything, I was.

And now the problem is gone.  Thanks!

Nico
--

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From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:04:10 -0700

Hi Nico,
>to (I had forgotten about that).  So should other IETF list admins.

That's covered by "allow postings from this email address" (see my 
previous message).

>They could also choose to block all my posts till I subscribe.  For

That can end up being problematic.

>now that would be *their* loss, and their list subscribers'.  But

Karen O'Donoghue serves as the volunteer IAOC Scribe.  It would be my 
loss if she did not volunteer.

>non-spammer non-subscriber posters to the whitelist.

See http://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/spam-control.html and 
http://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/moderated-lists.html

It's better to allow a contribution and not put up a barrier for 
people to contribute.   The IETF mailing lists are generally 
well-administrated in my opinion.  You can actually expect a response 
if a posting is blocked or there is a problem with the mailing 
list.  If you want to line all that up in a policy, consider:

  (a) Broadcasts about "review my I-D".

  (b) Cross-postings to IETF world

  (c) Moderation bit when applicable

The above is not an exhaustive list.  It's easier to set a wiki entry 
to discuss about all this.

>Let's follow-up, if at all we must, on the main IETF list.

I prefer not to open that box. :-)

Regards,
-sm

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From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:10:31 +0200

On 2011-10-18 22:26, Paul Hoffman wrote:

> If anyone on the Tools Team has done any modding of Mailman, it would be grand
 > to add a feature that would allow Someone to say "this address is 
allowed to
 > post to any list on this server".

Yes, that would be nice for the admins.  For users like Nico or me some 
kind of single sign on would be also very important.  (@Brian: of course
one of the admins should check this if requested.)

But from my POV "this server" is at least nine servers (your lists, 
Harald's lists, Ned's majordomo, "genuine" IETF lists, SPF discuss,
IANA lists hosted by IANA plus IANA lists hosted by ICANN, Lisa's
lists, and RFC-I)  Presumably there are far more servers.

It was quite embarrassing when I reported malware in an archive (as it
happens allegedly posted by you) to abuse@ietf, when the list + archive
in question wasn't a "genuine" IETF list.

And because I'm lazy and forgot this issue the admin of this archive
still doesn't know that his list archive requires a simple cleanup.
IIRC removing all MIME B64 parts starting with TV would do the trick.

-Frank

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From: Karen O'Donoghue <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:01:23 -0400

Just for the record, I am happy to add you to the whitelist and I value 
your
contributions. I just didn't think of it at the time. I do think a 
policy or guidance
might be helpful. It may already exist and I missed it or forgot about it.

Karen

On 10/18/11 5:49 PM, Nico Williams wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 4:32 PM, SM<[email-masked]>  wrote: