Members-discuss complaints
Hi all, The amount of people complaining on the members-discuss list that they never signed up for it makes me wonder how they ended up here. You'd expect that if an organisation became a RIPE NCC member and provided an email address to add to the members-discuss list that the person using that address would know about it. But I get the feeling that most of the people complaining have no idea what the RIPE NCC is, so why would someone at their company sign them up for the members-discuss list?!? From what I can see in the LIR portal there is no confirmation of the email address when adding someone to the list. Just log in to the LIR portal, add an address and "Members discussion subscription added successfully". Could it be that some malignant LIRs are adding random addresses to the list? You'd hope that all LIRs behave responsibly, but I guess that might be too optimistic. In any case, I'd like the RIPE NCC to check the email addresses of those who complain that they never wanted to be on this list. Check which LIR added them, when they were added, whether there seems to be some relationship between the LIR and the email address etc. Either those people should have a discussion inside their own organisation on signing up unwitting colleagues to mailing lists, or there are actually malignant LIRs that the RIPE NCC seriously needs to talk to. See what we can learn from this. I do hope that Hanlon's razor still applies :) In either case: may I suggest the NCC implements a confirm system where people are only added to the members-discuss list after confirming that they actually want to be on it? The current implementation of trusting that what is entered in the LIR portal interface is with consent of the user of the email address apparently is too surprising for some of the users (and yes, I do realise that the number of intentional users is much higher than the number of complainers, but lets try to minimise the latter category) Cheers! Sander
On 05/09/2017 20:15, Sander Steffann wrote:
Hi all,
The amount of people complaining on the members-discuss list that they never signed up for it makes me wonder how they ended up here. You'd expect that if an organisation became a RIPE NCC member and provided an email address to add to the members-discuss list that the person using that address would know about it. But I get the feeling that most of the people complaining have no idea what the RIPE NCC is, so why would someone at their company sign them up for the members-discuss list?!?
From what I can see in the LIR portal there is no confirmation of the email address when adding someone to the list. Just log in to the LIR portal, add an address and "Members discussion subscription added successfully". Could it be that some malignant LIRs are adding random addresses to the list? You'd hope that all LIRs behave responsibly, but I guess that might be too optimistic.
In any case, I'd like the RIPE NCC to check the email addresses of those who complain that they never wanted to be on this list. Check which LIR added them, when they were added, whether there seems to be some relationship between the LIR and the email address etc. Either those people should have a discussion inside their own organisation on signing up unwitting colleagues to mailing lists, or there are actually malignant LIRs that the RIPE NCC seriously needs to talk to. See what we can learn from this. I do hope that Hanlon's razor still applies :)
In either case: may I suggest the NCC implements a confirm system where people are only added to the members-discuss list after confirming that they actually want to be on it? The current implementation of trusting that what is entered in the LIR portal interface is with consent of the user of the email address apparently is too surprising for some of the users (and yes, I do realise that the number of intentional users is much higher than the number of complainers, but lets try to minimise the latter category)
Cheers! Sander
An alternative theory is that the LIR signed up to member-discuss using some team email address like "support@" or "noc@" which has numerous employees on the distribution list, many of which were never informed about RIPE NCC and its services. Regards, -Hank
On Tue, Sep 5, 2017, at 19:15, Sander Steffann wrote:
In any case, I'd like the RIPE NCC to check the email addresses of those who complain that they never wanted to be on this list. Check which LIR ..... In either case: may I suggest the NCC implements a confirm system where people are only added to the members-discuss list after confirming that they actually want to be on it? The current implementation of trusting
Hi all, A possible solution would be that addresses entered in the LIR portal would be considered as just "allowed to subscribe" to the mailing-lists, maybe with an invitation to subscribe being sent, but without actually subscribing them. the actual subscription would follow the classic subscription process, with the extra check of verifying that the subscribing address is declared in the LIR portal. Do you find this as a workable solution ? -- Radu-Adrian FEURDEAN
Hi, On Wed, Sep 06, 2017 at 09:40:50AM +0200, Radu-Adrian FEURDEAN wrote:
A possible solution would be that addresses entered in the LIR portal would be considered as just "allowed to subscribe" to the mailing-lists, maybe with an invitation to subscribe being sent, but without actually subscribing them. the actual subscription would follow the classic subscription process, with the extra check of verifying that the subscribing address is declared in the LIR portal.
You bring up a good point. I think what we're seeing is sort of a clash of cultures problem. "Back when this was designed", the assumption was "LIRs have an interest in what the RIPE NCC does", so "subscription to the central mailing list" came naturally and logically. Today, these people have no idea that this is a *membership driven* organization, and not just a pay-for-service thing with funny bylaws, so they just don't care and want to get their jobs done, with minimal fuzz and (obviously) no mails to topics they are not interested in - even if they *should* be, but we can't force them. What am I trying to say? I have no idea :-) - but it seems we really need to change the way folks end up on the mailing lists... like, explicit opt-in with confirmation, and when the opt-in mail generates an autoreply (ticket system), just deny subscription... Gert Doering -- NetMaster -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279
Hi,
What am I trying to say? I have no idea :-) - but it seems we really need to change the way folks end up on the mailing lists... like, explicit opt-in with confirmation, and when the opt-in mail generates an autoreply (ticket system), just deny subscription...
+1 Sander
What am I trying to say? I have no idea :-) - but it seems we really need to change the way folks end up on the mailing lists... like, explicit opt-in with confirmation, and when the opt-in mail generates an autoreply (ticket system), just deny subscription...
+1
Is it still mandatory for each member to have one address subscribed to members-discuss? If so, does it need to be? :) Cheers, Rob
Hi,
Is it still mandatory for each member to have one address subscribed to members-discuss? If so, does it need to be? :)
For testing purposes I just unsubscribed all addresses from members-discuss for my LIR, and that works. So it doesn't seem mandatory, at least after sign-up you can unsubscribe all addresses. Cheers, Sander
On Wed, Sep 06, 2017 at 09:53:12AM +0100, Rob Evans wrote:
What am I trying to say? I have no idea :-) - but it seems we really need to change the way folks end up on the mailing lists... like, explicit opt-in with confirmation, and when the opt-in mail generates an autoreply (ticket system), just deny subscription...
+1
Is it still mandatory for each member to have one address subscribed to members-discuss? If so, does it need to be? :)
Either I'm blind or this is not mandatory, at least by the Articles of Association. Article 5 is probably the most important here. Piotr -- gucio -> Piotr Strzyżewski E-mail: Piotr.Strzyzewski@polsl.pl
Is it still mandatory for each member to have one address subscribed to members-discuss? If so, does it need to be? :)
Either I'm blind or this is not mandatory, at least by the Articles of Association. Article 5 is probably the most important here.
Well, I wasn't suggesting it was part of the AoA. Anyway, my choice of ‘mandatory’ was perhaps not the best word, I was referring to what I believe is an automatic subscription, so perhaps more accurately I should have asked if it’s possible to become a member without having an address added to members-discuss that then needs to be removed? Gert is correct when he observes that many members aren’t interested in the fact that the organisation they are members of is driven by them, whether it’s an IXP or an RIR. Cheers, Rob
On 6 Sep 2017, at 11:20, Rob Evans <rhe@nosc.ja.net> wrote:
Is it still mandatory for each member to have one address subscribed to members-discuss? If so, does it need to be? :) Either I'm blind or this is not mandatory, at least by the Articles of Association. Article 5 is probably the most important here. Well, I wasn't suggesting it was part of the AoA. Anyway, my choice of ‘mandatory’ was perhaps not the best word, I was referring to what I believe is an automatic subscription, so perhaps more accurately I should have asked if it’s possible to become a member without having an address added to members-discuss that then needs to be removed? Gert is correct when he observes that many members aren’t interested in the fact that the organisation they are members of is driven by them, whether it’s an IXP or an RIR.
… or even a domain registry. +1 to Gert’s observation in general.. the culture in the industry has changed… the industry has pretty much commoditised. -Denesh
Hi Rob, all, It's not mandatory to subscribe to the members-discuss mailing list and there is no automatic subscription. Only the ncc-announce list is mandatory. Currently, there are 8,800 subscriptions to members-discuss, a little over half the membership. Of these, we estimate that approximately one-eighth of them are role accounts, such as support@, hostmaster@, noc@, etc. There could well be more that are not so easy to identify. This means a large number of people will receive mails and not understand why. We will look at the issues and work to come up with a solution that ensures the list remains a useful discussion forum for members. I've noted the comments and suggestions here and on the members-discuss list and we'll take them into account when addressing the issue. Best regards, Fergal Cunningham Membership Communications Officer RIPE NCC On 06/09/2017 10:53, Rob Evans wrote:
What am I trying to say? I have no idea :-) - but it seems we really need to change the way folks end up on the mailing lists... like, explicit opt-in with confirmation, and when the opt-in mail generates an autoreply (ticket system), just deny subscription...
+1
Is it still mandatory for each member to have one address subscribed to members-discuss? If so, does it need to be? :)
Cheers, Rob
Hi Fergal,
We will look at the issues and work to come up with a solution that ensures the list remains a useful discussion forum for members. I've noted the comments and suggestions here and on the members-discuss list and we'll take them into account when addressing the issue.
Thanks! Sander
participants (8)
-
Denesh Bhabuta -
Fergal Cunningham -
Gert Doering -
Hank Nussbacher -
Piotr Strzyzewski -
Radu-Adrian FEURDEAN -
Rob Evans -
Sander Steffann