Hi. Before I try to respond to Brian's specific comments (below), there seems to be confusion about what problem I think needs solving. While my initial posting in this thread was motivated by a particular problem that came to my attention, after the discussion and further looking around, it appears that there are three separate (although related) ones: (1) If someone is feeling abused or harassed in conjunction with an IETF mailing list, they should have readily-available information about who to discuss that with. That person, or choice of people, should have clear responsibility for responding to such queries and should be identified by name and contact information. Non-transparent role addresses with neither hints about who might receive them nor a clear indication that they should be used for such purposes are not good enough. For the (hopefully rare) cases in which action is required, those contact people should have either the authority needed to enforce our behavior rules or quick access to someone with the authority and should be accountable to someone if they do not respond in a timely and useful way. (2) The above is particularly important for newcomers and is important whether perceived abuse is involved or not. Telling (and showing) people that there are clear, easily discovered, and easily accessed support mechanisms --even if only to provide information when they get confused-- helps to turn interested parties into participants. That applies to decisions as to whether to join a mailing list in the first place, not just to what goes on after one signs up (and, for better or worse, the number of separate lists we have been creating discourages signing up out of curiosity about what might be going on in a particular one). By contrast, creating the impression that being able to function in the IETF requires obscure knowledge, or passing a hazing or induction ritual, is probably going to discourage anyone who lacks instructions to participate from an employer and/or is extremely determined and stubborn. (3) It is important that the IETF (and all of the associated organizations and groups) maintain the trust of the larger community -- implementers, people making product and procurement decisions, users, even politicians and regulators concerned about how various industry arrangements affect competitiveness -- that its processes and outputs are fair and represent consensus among all parties who might be relevant. Put differently, that we are really trying to make the Internet better rather than promoting particular sets of companies and their products. Our strongest tools in that regard include openness and transparency and being welcoming to new participants (in practice, not just in what we say). Making things obscure -- even if accidentally and in the name of efficiency -- tends in the other direction and, sooner or later, may hurt us and hurt us badly. I think the current state and content of many of our pages and databases are not serving us well in any of those regards. Now... --On Friday, June 3, 2022 11:25 +1200 Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 03-Jun-22 10:01, Pete Resnick wrote: >> On 2 Jun 2022, at 4:30, tom petch wrote: >> >>> How about >>> >>> <list-name>-owner >>> >>> making it clear in future to those who take on that >>> responsibility that that is part of their responsibility? >> >> Yes, but the email address and/or name of the human(s) on the >> other end of <list-name>-owner needs to be easily and >> publicly available. > > Which is *not* a feature of mailman; I suspect that hiding the > admin's identity is probably intentional. However, I think > that our table of non-WG lists should identify the admins and > responsible AD (either by name or as <area>-ads@xxxxxxxx). But, Brian, no one (as far as I know, has suggested anything that requires a modification to mailman. We maintain pages for each and every IETF mailing list (at least other than IETF-announce and the main discussion list), accessed via https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/ For the WG lists, and https://datatracker.ietf.org/list/nonwg For the non-WG ones. and people generally see those pages at least at subscription time. Before I go on, > Another twist is that if the list in question is subsidiary > to a WG, such as a design team list, then it seems logical > that the WG chairs should be on the hook too. In case it isn't clear from the above, I don't really care who is on the hook or how those decisions are made... only that there be someone "on the hook" for any mailing list we have and that they be clearly identified by name and with contact information. Now, let's look at those very important pages from which, among other things, one ought to be able to find out who is on said hook and, btw, what the list is about. * For a typical WG one, the Chairs and AD are listed, but without contact information (just a pointer/link to a datatracker profile page that does not have that information). I believe that is a change although I don't have any idea how long ago it was made. If the observer knows enough to click on the "email expansions" tab, the addresses are there, but consider how likely it is that a newcomer who has been abused or attacked will be able to find them. Maybe requiring the newcomer to have the knowledge or luck to find that tab is ok, but putting email addresses (or a little mailbox icon) next to the names on the "about" page would be much more obvious and easier. * For a typical non-WG page, the situation is far worse. I think it is typical (but am not sure), but look at what ought to be an uncontroversial example: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/114all No information there about the responsible AD (or other party), much less an address. The only contact information, without any information about what it is to be used for, is a line at the bottom of the page underneath the horizontal line that reads: 114all list run by 114all-owner at ietf.org No hints as to who or what is at the other end of that link, whether the mailbox at 114all-owner@xxxxxxxx is archived and publicly readable, and, for someone interested in reporting abuse (or even asking if some behavior is appropriate), no information as to whether the abuser is a recipient of that address. Even our announcements of new non-WG lists are part of the problem. As a handy example, an announcement appeared today titled "New Non-WG Mailing List: cfbl". It tells the reader where the archives are and how to subscribe. It tells us that it is "intended for discussions relating to the Complaint Feedback Loop Address Header", but one needs to be rather thoroughly immersed in that corner of the ART area (the announcement does say it belongs to that area) to have a clue about what that is about. Either you or I could probably could figure out where to look but a newcomer, especially one who did not know enough to treat "This list belongs IETF area" (sic) as a clue, I think it would be pretty hopeless. It does tell anyone who wants additional information to "please contact the list administrators". That, unfortunately, just makes things worse: No information in the announcement as to who those people might be or how to contact/ reach them, etc. Someone very experienced with the IETF might notice that someone named "jpb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" is copied on the announcement and is not the list address itself, but that is not a person's name, it is just a hint, it is easily missed, and expecting a newcomer to make that inference is, well, unrealistic. One might reasonably try to go to the list's "info" page (disguised in the announcement as "To subscribe:") for information about how to contact the list administrators, but that page is very similar to the 14all list. In particular, the terms "list administrator" or even "administrator" do not even appear on it. Once upon a time, we required anyone requesting that the IETF create or host a list provide a paragraph of description of what that list was about, who was expected to participate, and why. Apparently that is no longer the case. If we care about openness and transparency, probably not a step in the right direction. * Interestingly, it has gotten hard to find information about IETF-Announce and ietf@xxxxxxxx, why one might want to subscribe to either or both, and how to do that. They are listed on the "non-WG lists" page, but one would need to know there names and that one should look. If, e.g., one goes to the "ietf" page accessed from there, that page does not mention the SAA team. It does differ from most of the non-WG pages by saying, in the description at the top, "Any items posted are subject to the rules of BCP 78 and BCP 79", but, if that is needed there, it should probably appear with every WG and non-WG list and it should probably reference the code of conduct and anti-harassment policy too. I encourage people to try it for themselves, pretending that they knew little or nothing about the IETF before trying. For those who don't have time, there does not appear to be a hint about either of those lists at www.ietf.org or at the "Get started" page to which it provides a link. For those who are interesting in the experiment, go to www.ietf.org. Glance at the page and see how easily you notice the "Get started" link. Think about whether it is prominent enough that a newcomer interested in possibly participating in the IETF would notice it. Click on it. The target page does not appear to mention those mailing lists either. Instead, the "How to Start" advice says that a newcomer should "decide on one or two (not more!) Working Goups (WGs) whose topics are interesting or relevant, and join their mailing lists". Reasonable advice but it then points to https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/ to find out about WGs. While it tells how to navigate from that list once one picks a WG of interest, many of the WG names are obscure, chosen more to create clever acronyms than for explanatory quality, so, unless the newcomer already has a guide (official or otherwise), the pointer to that page can be rather intimidating. And, by not telling people that they might want to subscribe to IETF-announce, IETF discuss, and/or last-call, we are not doing much to promote the sort of broad participation and reviews we claim to be after. That page goes on to say, albeit in a different context, "The IETF is normally very welcoming to newcomers,...". Well, maybe not if they try to navigate our systems, have issues with list discussions and how they are treated, try to understand what non-WG mailing lists are about, etc. I think we can, and should, do better. With the exception of going back to requiring something more charter-like for non-WG lists (references and links to other documents would be fine) and maybe rethinking that "Get started" page, I think it would all be straightforward if we decide we care enough to get some templates reworked. If we don't, we should, IMO, stop complaining about our difficulties recruiting and retaining newcomers (at least those who are not ordered to participate in the IETF by their day job organizations or commitments). best, john
