--On Monday, June 6, 2022 09:20 +0100 tom petch <daedulus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >... >>>>> On 04-Jun-22 04:27, tom petch wrote: >>>>> ... >>>>>> >>>>>> A new non-WG list was announced yesterday including the >>>>>> text 'For additional information, contact the list >>>>>> administrators' with no indication who they might be or >>>>>> anywhere where they might be identified. >>>>>> >>>>>> Yes, administrators are elusive. >>>>> >>>>> The Welcome message after you subscribe is no more helpful >>>>> (and even lies: "Normally, Mailman will remind you of your >>>>> ietf.org mailing list passwords once every month"). >>>>> ... Tom, Murray has explained what happened in that particular case, one that both of us used as examples, and apologized. I hope we can move on from that example to the more general case because there are many other lists who pages provide no more information -- either about what the list is about, who to contact for more information, and who to contact with issues. The latter two may not be the same, but both should have names and email address that are available without complicated navigation. >... >> That gets us back to nearly where I started the thread. If >> one is as thoroughly familiar with the IETF as you are and >> willing to make some deductions, it would certainly be >> possible to look carefully at the list owner URL and infer >> that "owner" = "administrator". However, I have seen many >> cases in which that relationship does not hold and you >> probably have too. Moreover, if the question is about abuse, >> harassment, or something else sensitive, rather than a mere >> inquiry about the list one should be able to identify the >> name (and email address) of the owner/ administrator/ >> complaint-handler and that page does not make that >> information available. >... > I agree with your points. One slight addition, the reference > to ART is explicit in the first post to the e-mail archive but > as you say, it takes familiarity with the IETF to get that far > and as you say, a newcomer will likely not know what ART is. > I would wonder though about our target audience in this. Is > it the newcomer who gets put off because this is not like the > Internet they are used to e.g. Facebook? Or is it the person > who has been around for a while but has begun to find the tone > of a WG hostile, perhaps to their ideas, and intolerant? First, my standard for newcomers is perhaps a bit higher than that. While I hope we would be welcoming to everyone, it is likely that someone who is not used to participating in discussion of substantive, at least partially technical, issues online and whose experience of the Internet is limited to the likes of Facebook will not be able to usefully contribute to the IETF no matter how well designed our pages, tutorials, tools, and procedures are. Of course, as we move in the direction of trying to do work in, e.g., social, behavioral, or policy areas, that explanation will need further refinement, but let's leave that discussion for another time and another thread. Beyond that, I don't think the distinction you are making is actually very important operationally. We encourage newcomers to watch a few WGs and ask questions; they better be able to figure out who to ask without navigating a maze (I think we do ok at that, YMMD). We also encourage them to speak up when they have something to say and sometimes that gets a hostile reaction. If it does, they need to be able to easily determine what our policies are on the matter and how to pursue them, but there is only one way in which that makes them different from very experienced participants: Again using myself as an example, while I generally don't know, by name and address, who the administrator of the ietf-FOOBAR mailing list is, I do know (and you probably do to, but a newcomer might not), the IESG's address and where to find names and addresses for each AD, the ombudsteam's address and that of its individual members, Jay's address, etc., and, for that matter, the address of this particular list. I started down the path of worrying about these issues because I ran across a newcomer who had concluded that the IETF would be a good place to pursue a particular piece of work, found a point of entry with one or more particular RFCs rather than via our assorted "get started" pages, and proceeded to try to write an I-D (something we usually encourage in preference to trying to explain new or complex ideas on a mailing list without a document to point to). Then they started hitting an assortment of walls and other barriers (including some hostility and abuse). I did a bit of investigating and discovered that those barriers were real and not just their ignorance and, consequently, decided it was time to say something. And, yes, after a few decades of experience, I could figure out ways around the problems by knowing who to bug (or of whom to ask personal favors), but I shouldn't need to do that. They don't have those options unless someone accidentally runs across them in a state that approximates an online equivalent of standing on a street corner, looking very confused, and staring at an incomprehensive map (or phone screen) and step in as I did in that case. Such newcomers should not need to depend on dumb luck to get help. I believe that, if we solve the problems well for one of the groups you identify, it will solve it for the other as well. I also believe that, if we do not solve them well, we will not only push away many potential newcomers but will gradually cause more experiences people to walk away in frustration over the number of hoops they need to jump through, or mazes they need to thread, to get information or resolve a problem. best, john
