Rob, Going back to comments/ questions in a few prior notes in order to avoid appearing as if I ignored them and to post a relatively short response... --On Saturday, 14 October, 2023 15:50 -0700 Rob Sayre <sayrer@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Write a draft and get consensus. What is so mysterious about > that process? Mysterious? Almost nothing. But, if such such a draft gets any serious attention, it adds to the burdens on the IESG and the community to do work that does not affect protocols or obviously make the Internet better. It is also a candidate for IESG complaints that they are have too much to do and therefore that transparency-reducing shortcuts are needed. And, if it is generally ignored --especially by the IESG-- I am confident that some people will argue that means that there is no community consensus for whatever was proposed and therefore that the practice should be prohibited. We have had enough experience with both patterns over the years to justify the concern. What I do find mysterious is how, given a weekly posting that, with some interruptions, has been occurring for a decade or more (Ole's estimate; I'd guess much more), the default today should be "write a draft and demonstrate consensus or it goes away" (or "it should go away until there is a draft and demonstrated consensus") rather than "if it is worth stopping, write a draft to make it more clear that postings of particular types --either by bot or with particular content-- are unwelcome and get consensus for it". --On Saturday, 14 October, 2023 15:03 -0700 Rob Sayre <sayrer@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> And, as Brian has >> more or less pointed out, this thread has consumed far more >> postings and energy that deleting or filtering out messages >> from the bot ever could. > Well, you're wrong, in my opinion. It is certainly true that > you can tune up a message filter. > > But new people can't do that. How would they know? I said "deleted or filtering out", not "tuning up a message filter". Are you suggesting that new people to the IETF list are unable to find and use whatever "delete" mechanism works for them, even a per-message manual one? As several of us have said before, this is one short, clearly-labeled, message a week, always from the same sender and always with "Messages from the ietf list for the week ending" starting the subject line. Automated filters (bot versus bot ?) for those who want them and have the time and knowledge to set them up aside, that makes them really easy to delete or bypass without reading with most mail clients I've seen over the years (including IMAP-based reading mechanisms and just scanning through the posted archive). Now, if the postings were occurring daily, or several times a day, and the bot were changing the subject line each time in ways that made the messages harder to spot without opening and reading them, I think we would be having a different discussion. But most of it would not be about bots but about content and S/N ratios. At that very high volume, the IESG might even be motivated to spin off a separate list for it :-( >... > But it is actually worse than that, since some of the messages > here are performative dismissiveness. Just how entitled do you > have to be to write "I am muting this thread"? You could just > mute it... Having occasionally posted such messages, "entitled" has nothing to do with it (and your statement isn't far from a personal attack). Suppose there has been an active discussion on some topic to which I have posted several messages (I would like to say "contributed" but that might be a matter of opinion). If I decide I'd said all I want to say or just can't handle the tone or content of the thread any more, posting a note that says "I'm not going to read more of this thread so, if things develop that someone thinks needs my attention, they should tell me" is constructive. It does not encourage speculation about whether I've dropped out because I agree with one position or another, have been afflicted by a terrible illness, etc., and does encourage people to drag me back in if they think most postings were useful and I should comment on new developments. Now, maybe "I am muting this thread" would be less helpful (it would not be my preference), but that might be getting close to hairsplitting or, like "new people can't tune message filters", may be closer to a strawman argument. Finally because the question has been asked (unless it was intended to be about the other John), do I count the messages I'm sending and pay attention to their length, which lists or threads they are on, etc.? Yep. Is this weekly posting helpful in that regard? Not much, for reasons I have sort of mentioned in earlier notes. Do I consistently either read it or delete it without reading? Nope. And which one in a given week may depend on external factors such as how busy I am with other things in a given week. best, john
