Re: Please reject the patent-encumbered proposed standard for TLS authorization

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Dear Sir;

On Feb 11, 2009, at 6:06 PM, MBR wrote:

Dear Noel,

It's unfortunate, but I know of no way to tell the difference between an email address that's the main point of contact for an organization and an email address that distributes to a huge mailing list. I sent email to ietf@xxxxxxxx, naively assuming that the Internet Engineering Task Force was established enough to have an office somewhere with a secretary who read the emails and forwarded those of interest to the appropriate people.


Part of the rough democracy of the IETF is that there are basically no filters to reaching any person in a position of responsibility. The IETF Chair, the IAB Chair, the IESG, the general discussion list, Working Group Chairs, all can be easily contacted by anyone who feels that they have a need to. (Of course, there are means to filter abusive people once they demonstrate their abuse, but there is no filter to the newcomer.)

Had I known ietf@xxxxxxxx was an email list, I wouldn't have emailed the list. However, having inadvertently done so, I hope I won't be accused of repeat mailbombing for sending this explanation in response to your accusation.

If you'd like to suggest a way I can tell whether an email address represents a single individual or an email list, I'm all ears.

In some circles, this is called due diligence. If I was requested to send an email about issue blah to something@xxxxxxx, I would try and find at least something about foo.org.

This could be done through a search engine, or by going to the appropriate web site.

In our case, the first search item I found upon entering ietf@xxxxxxxx into a common engine was

https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

which I think is pretty clear.

For the direct approach, right on the home page
there is a link marked "Mailing Lists," which (after the "Note Well" click through), takes you to a page

http://www.ietf.org/maillist-new1.html

which has a general description of the mailing lists, and a link to a description of the ietf@xxxxxxxx list.

Did you try either course ? If you did, and feel that you were confused about appropriate processes, I for one would like to hear about it. Many of these web pages are quite old, and there is certainly room for improvement.

In my experience the IETF is very welcoming to new people and new points of view, but it can be hard to figure out what the pieces do in the beginning. If you want to continue, I would recommend that you start with the TAO, join the mailing lists of interest to you, and monitor the discussion for a while to get a feel of the local culture.

Regards
Marshall Eubanks





Mark Rosenthal

Noel Chiappa wrote:

Thank you for being part of a crowd of hundreds of people who have mailbombed the mailboxes of thousands of IETF 'members' (since we don't have any formal membership, just an email list). As a result, we all have such positive
feeling about the FSF.

	Noel


_______________________________________________

Ietf@xxxxxxxx
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

_______________________________________________

Ietf@xxxxxxxx
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

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