[rfc-i] Pre-IETF RFCs to Historic (not really proposing)

[Dave CROCKER]

On 9/18/2011 9:39 AM, Joe Touch wrote:
> Hi, all,
>
> I'm aware of a few places that maintain mail forwarding for others without their consent and active participation.
>
> On a good day, they're called "unsolicited email lists".
 >
> On a bad day, they're called "spam".


Joe,

Having spent most of my work time in the middle of the email anti-abuse 
community for most of the last decade, I'll note that your particular labels of 
this activity, here, is your particular classification.

Although the industry has quite a bit of variance, I've never seen any credible 
definitions that quite match yours.  The usual concern is for unsolicited /bulk/ 
mail, rather than the assignment of a 'role' address to facilitate direct work 
initiated by the addressee.

Ultimately, if an author does not want to receive email about the document 
they've authored, I believe they are free to omit their email address from the 
Authors Addresses section.  However, of course, this does rather tend to work 
against the IETF's goal of dialogue about documents, but nevermind.


> If the author is offered an ietf alias as a service, that's fine.
>
> If the author is placed on a (1-person) email list without their consent,

Basically, you have the most restrictive view of the social contract for 
participation in the IETF that I've seen in quite awhile.

For reference, my own view is that the social contract should be to make it a 
condition of document submission that one is willing to be contacted about the 
document and that includes through role-based addresses affiliated with the 
document, rather than requiring respondents to guess or track down the correct 
address.

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net