Subject: [Tools-team] Minutes for 15 Sep 2004 Telechat

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 19:21:49 +0200

Here are the minutes from today's meeting.

---------------------------------------------------------
Agenda:

1. Agenda bashing

2. Comments on minutes from last teleconference.

    * I've been considering the WG-chair ticket system concept,
      and reading Barbara's description of the system and changes,
      and it seems to me that the only suggestion I'd make is to
      put a challenge-response verification step in front of the
      RT system they are putting in place now.   Suggest we discuss
      this.

      	- Bill: It would be good to have some kind of access to 
	tickets created.  That would be an improvement .

	- Henrik: But before putting this in place, we need a
	policy decision to actually opening up the possibility
	to access the tickets.

	- Henrik: Thoughts on putting challenge response handling
	in front of the ticket system, so every new ticket would
	need validation?  This would stop both spam generated
	tickets, and tickets generated by people CC:'ing the 
	ticket email address.

	- Harald: Hmm, not so happy - that would mean double
	work, to confirm every ticket creation

	- Alex: it would mean you couldn't work off line in the
	same manner as without confirmation of every ticket

	- Henrik: The alternative of only confirming the validity
	of the email address the first time someone sends in a 
	ticket will get rid of the spam, but not the false tickets
	generated by CC:ing the ticket system.  To know whether it
	would be a win to do this, we need to get info about 
	relationship of cc: and spam mail causing false addresses.

    * Get info about relationship of cc: and spam mail
      causing false addresses

    (* Investigate validity of spam from addresses)

    * Solicit information from chairs list regarding
      wg-chairs tickets handling via web pages.

	... (discussion details lost because of connectivity loss)

	- Bill: It seems Zope may have the possibility to give 
	selective access to different areas, to different people.

    * Bill will send a little summary of his experiences so far to 
      the list

3. Action item review.

    * All:	give feedback on current revision of I-D submission tool
		requirements - before 12:00 EST tomorrow Thursday

	Some feedback received

    * Alex:	submits current draft by 15:00 EST tomorrow Thursday

	Done

    * Allison:	Get information from Harald about wg-chair ticket system

	Part done - info about address changes received, but not about
	wg-chair ticket system in particular.

    * Henrik :	does a one-page writeup of how the ticket system works for 
		a wg-chair currently.

	Writeup at http://tools.ietf.org/team/wiki/SecretariatServices

    * Henrik:	After the tools-discuss list announcement has gone out, 
		solicit input on how a ticket system interface for the WG
		chairs should look

	Not done, to be done this week

    * All:	Propose an interface for wg-chair interaction with ticket system
		- email address
		- web page
		- ticket handling

	Postponed to after information from the chairs is available

    * All:	give feedback on http://tools.ietf.org/ - design and content

	Some received from Alex - requested from the rest :-)

    * Henrik:	Send announcement of tools-discuss mailing list once the draft
		is available in the archives

        Done

    * Larry:	ask the w3 what software they are using to get peoples
		consent to publish mailing list submissions

	-

    * Henrik:	continue the inventory on the web site. Finished by next Tuesday.

        All categories filled in, but I'm not sure all tools have been
	captured.  Will continue to add to it as new information comes in,
	and will go to auto-generation of the tools pages based on XML info.

    * Larry:	to add a link from the wiki to the mailing list's copies
		of the meeting minutes.

	-

4. Next steps

	Nope

5. Any other business.

	Feedback from people on the -00 ID submission tool draft:	
	there is one item in the draft which is a clear change of
	routines; this is the proposal to move to only doing pre
	approval of -00 drafts.  Considering there are a number of
	protests to this, and no consensus for the change, Henrik
	doesn't believe we can require this change.  Alex is not
	quite convinced, though.

6. Action items, summary

    * Alex:	Deadline for comments on the -00 draft is Friday,
		aim at getting a new draft out beginning of next
		week.

    * Henrik:	Get info about relationship of cc: and spam mail
      		causing false addresses from the secretariat

    * Henrik:	Solicit information from chairs list regarding
      		wg-chairs tickets handling via web pages.

    * Bill:	Send a little summary of his experiences so far to 
      		the list

    * Henrik:	Solicit input on how a ticket system interface for the WG
		chairs should look, from the WG chairs list

    * All:	give feedback on http://tools.ietf.org/ - design and content

    * Larry:	ask the w3 what software they are using to get peoples
		consent to publish mailing list submissions

    * Henrik:	Automate the generation of tools pages based on xml data

    * Larry:	to add a link from the wiki to the mailing list's copies
		of the meeting minutes.

7. Next meeting:

     Teleconference Wednesday 22 Sep, 16:00 GMT (same time as today).

---------------------------------------------------------
Connection details:

    To join the call, dial +1-734-531-0125 and enter PIN 0151989.

    One can also join the call by dialing:
      sip:[email-masked] 
    on a SIP-enabled voice communications client. 

    If the SIP client cannot dial URLs, you can have the conference
    system call you if you have the sip URL for your phone.  Go to
      https://edial.internet2.edu/call/0151989
    and type in the URL to your phone, and follow the directions.

_______________________________________________
Tools-team mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tools-team

---

From: Alex Rousskov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 21:50:46 -0600 (MDT)

-- quoting from Subject: [Tools-team] Minutes for 15 Sep 2004 Telechat

On Wed, 15 Sep 2004, Henrik Levkowetz wrote:

> Henrik: The alternative of only confirming the validity of the email 
> address the first time someone sends in a ticket will get rid of the 
> spam, but not the false tickets generated by CC:ing the ticket 
> system.  To know whether it would be a win to do this, we need to 
> get info about relationship of cc: and spam mail causing false 
> addresses.

Is our assumption that the system should not prevent rogue 
submissions? That is, if I use some AD From address (which is 
certainly already marked as "approved"), the violation will be 
detected by manual means.

>   * Get info about relationship of cc: and spam mail

When requesting this info, please ask for time-based estimates. While 
there are probably a lot more spam tickets that than wrong CCs 
tickets, it probably takes much more time to detect wrong CC than a 
spam.

Question: If my request is classified as spam or wrong CC, will I be 
notified or does the request disappear without any trace?

On a related note, why not introduce something like a required 
keyword/tag on the first line of the e-mail text (probably instead of 
one-time address verification). This will get rid of virtually all 
spam and wrong CCs. For example:

 	From: IETFer
 	To: official Secretariat alias
 	Subject: informal subject here

 	IETF_action_item: some informal optional summary here

 	more informal text describing the action
 	more informal text describing the action
 	more informal text describing the action

Any e-mail without the "IETF_action_item:" tag in the first non-empty 
line will be bounced back, with instructions on how to get through. 
Spammers will not use the tag. CCs will have the tag "> quoted" or 
removed during natural e-mail editing process (that's why I would 
place the tag in the body of the e-mail rather than in the Subject).

It seems like this trivial formalism will solve more problems than 
most others while being easy to learn, off-line-able, and not heavy on 
IETFers or the Secretariat.

Comments?

Thank you,

Alex.

---

From: Alex Rousskov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 21:53:36 -0600 (MDT)

On Wed, 15 Sep 2004, Henrik Levkowetz wrote:

> there is one item in the draft which is a clear change of routines; 
> this is the proposal to move to only doing pre approval of -00 
> drafts.  Considering there are a number of protests to this, and no 
> consensus for the change, Henrik doesn't believe we can require this 
> change.  Alex is not quite convinced, though.

To be more precise, I would suggest to postpone the decision until we 
get more comments instead of treating lack of consensus as consensus 
to prohibit changes. Let's hear from more folks.

Please also note that the change does not seem to violate any current 
IETF rules, only some informal customs/interfaces.

Thank you,

Alex.

---

From: Larry Masinter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 22:19:10 -0700

I'm sorry I missed the call this morning. I had a conflict
that came up.

For the W3C software to 'get people's consent to
publish mailing lists submissions', I've asked about
the technical details, but

http://www.w3.org/2002/09/aa/ describes the system; they
call it the 'Archive approval system'. 

It looks like it was written by Gerard Oskoboiny
http://www.w3.org/People/Gerald/ who has written some
related software 
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/software/ for
mailing list / news archive software.

Larry
-- 
http://larry.masinter.net

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 13:22:43 +0200

Hi Alex,

> detected by manual means.

I think this assumption is correct.

> tickets, it probably takes much more time to detect wrong CC than a 

Ok.  Not as easily quantifiable, but I'll ask.

> notified or does the request disappear without any trace?

I'll include this, too (I assume no notification will go out in most cases)

> place the tag in the body of the e-mail rather than in the Subject).

Yes, clearly.

> IETFers or the Secretariat.

I like it! :-)

	Henrik

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 15:09:44 +0200

> I'm sorry I missed the call this morning. I had a conflict

Sure, these things happen.

> the technical details, but

Ok.  Would be especially interesting if he'd release the
source...

> mailing list / news archive software.

Good pointers :-)

	Henrik