Subject: Re: #1093 Email addresses - conclusion

From: John Stanley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 12:05:49 -0700 (PDT)

Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>If Frank, Charles and Richard can live with a group consensus that the 
>USEFOR document is to go forward without any requirement to support these 
>email addresses, I can declare this issue closed

And why do these three specific people get to veto a group consensus?

>- and possibly reopen the issue when it's time to update USEAGE.

Your poll was neither USEFOR nor USEPRO specific, and thus it applies to 
USEAGE as well. If the group consensus today is "no requirement", then
it is ridiculous to come back in a month and debate the whole issue again.

>Seems reasonable?

Closing it, yes. Giving three people veto power, no. Reopening it in a few 
weeks, no.

Regarding your counts:

>Conclusion: 2 people support some form of mandate in USEPRO.

Under question one, I see just one person voting for a mandate, and that
same person also voted for a non-mandate. Where did you get 2? 

>Counting as above, 3 people support some form of mandate.

I count two, and both of those, again, also voted for a non-mandate.

Is this some kind of "new math" that I was lucky enough to have missed out 
on?

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 22:19:14 +0200

--On tirsdag, august 09, 2005 12:05:49 -0700 John Stanley 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> USEFOR document is to go forward without any requirement to support
>> these  email addresses, I can declare this issue closed
>

They don't. But if they state that they cannot live with this consensus, 
and intend to appeal the issue on some basis, it's better to have this in 
the open.

> it is ridiculous to come back in a month and debate the whole issue again.

You may be the only person who saw it as not specific to USEPRO.
The ticket as sent to the mailing list mentioned USEPRO specifically, and 
if it was possible to read the poll as applying more widely than the 
ticket, that is my drafting error.

The difference between USEPRO and USEAGE is that (presumably) anyone who 
wants to build interoperable NetNews implementations should follow USEPRO, 
while only those wishing to follow "best practices" (which are not required 
for basic interoperability, but makes life easier for Internet users) would 
follow USEAGE.
So the target audiences may be different.

>> Seems reasonable?
>
> Closing it, yes. Giving three people veto power, no. Reopening it in a
> few  weeks, no.
>
> Regarding your counts:
>

  1B) All identities that look like domain-names SHOULD support
	Frank Ellermann
  1C) Some identities MUST support
      ("at least one of the <path-identity>s inserted by
      themselves" is one example of "some")
	Charles Lindsey (preferred)
  1D) Some identities SHOULD support
	Richard Clayton (second)
	Charles Lindsey (second)

I used "mandate" as a shorthand for "MUST or SHOULD", and counted 1B, 1C 
and 1D as "some mandate". I did not count Richard Clayton among the 2.

> I count two, and both of those, again, also voted for a non-mandate.

  2A) All identities MUST support abuse@identity
	Charles Lindsey (one alternative of 2)
  2B) All identities SHOULD support
	Richard Clayton (preferred)
	Frank Ellermann (wants 2)
	Charles Lindsey (one alternative of 2)
  2D) Top level domain corresponding to identity MUST support
	Frank Ellermann (wants 2)
  2E) Top level domain corresponding to identity SHOULD support
	Richard Clayton (could live with)

> Is this some kind of "new math" that I was lucky enough to have missed
> out  on?

Either you did not read "mandate" to include "SHOULD", or you did not 
regard some of the people listed above as people. Or there is some other 
explanation for you counting only 2 people here.

                    Harald

---

From: John Stanley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 13:52:01 -0700 (PDT)

> and intend to appeal the issue on some basis, it's better to have this in 

If you cannot close the issue unless they agree, that's a veto. You said 
that you can close it unless they don't agree, implying you cannot close
it unless they do. If you can close it either way, say so and do so.

> You may be the only person who saw it as not specific to USEPRO.

I read the poll several times, looking for any magic limitations on what 
our consensus was to be applied to. The word USEFOR or USEPRO appeared 
exactly 0 times each. 

Your question was concerning a general policy of what we should require
as a working group in our products. If USAGE is one of those, then I
consider that the question has been asked for USAGE, too.

> So the target audiences may be different.

So, our policy regarding what is justifiable and proper to require from
news admins differs depending on who is reading a document? If an admin 
reads it we think one thing, and if a Joe User reads it we think another?
I don't think so. We've come to a rather clear consensus that "no 
requirement" is our group opinion, for all three addresses. We can't 
logically or honestly write one document assuming there is no requirement
and then put a requirement in the accompanying document. 

> and 1D as "some mandate". I did not count Richard Clayton among the 2.

"SHOULD" is not a mandate. 

It is now understandable why our USEPRO editor has not been forced to
respect RFC2119 by the Chair, because our Chair does not respect RFC2119 
himself.

> regard some of the people listed above as people.

I do not regard a recommendation, no matter how "strong" it may be, as a
mandate. If you consider it an option to not consider some of the people
listed as people, feel free, but please refrain from projecting your
condition on me.

> Or there is some other 

That would be an understanding of what RFC2119 says about "SHOULD", and 
the fact that only two people actually voted for a mandate.

---

From: Richard Clayton <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 14:10:24 +0100

In message <[email-masked]>,
Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]> writes

>and intend to appeal the issue on some basis, it's better to have this in 

I have no problem with having no compulsion ... my main concern in
suggesting an alternative way of expressing the requirements was to move
away from telling news server operators what to do -- and describe
instead the operation of the protocol elements so they could choose an
appropriate set of features to achieve what they needed

If we move from that to a position where they don't have to do anything,
then, since nothing is currently broken with no rules, it will not of
itself make anything worse

>>> - and possibly reopen the issue when it's time to update USEAGE.

There I would hope we could base the recommendations upon having an
explicit "Injection-Info:" header field, so that it became entirely
clear how to contact the entity who had control over future postings; by
far the most common "abuse" issue

- -- 
richard                                              Richard Clayton

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.         Benjamin Franklin