Re: Proposal: an "important-news" IETF announcement list

[Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't specifically object to this proposal.   And I concur with the 
observation that automatically-generated mail lowers the signal-to-noise 
ratio of the IETF-announce list.   Actually I believe this is true of 
email in general - it's not just spam that's the problem, it's that 
email has become the favorite dumping ground for lots of 
automatically-generated low-value information.

But I do find myself wondering whether dividing up the IETF discussion 
into an increasing number of increasingly narrow silos, is really in the 
best interests of the IETF or the Internet.   Or if every time we see 
that the signal-to-noise ratio on a particular list is too low, the 
right answer is always to narrow the topic, without considering anything 
alternatives.   We've been doing that for decades now and I can't tell 
that it's improved things.   If anything, it seems like we've lost a 
sense of community and common purpose that the ietf@xxxxxxxx list used 
to provide (even acknowledging the problems with it).

Keith