Spitting the Mailing list.

[Greg Vaudreuil <gvaudre@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear list readers....

After many notes, both private and public I have decided to
split this mailing list.  A word about the reasoning.

There are two related issues being discussed, Message format
extensions and SMTP extensions.  There are different constituencies
for these two approaches, but they must be compatable.  Up to this
point I have avoided spliting the mailing list.  This stems from a
firm belief in the <delete> key form of list management, where one can
delete message not relevent to the current discussions.  With the very
large interest in many list participants in both aspects of the mail
extensions effort, this prevents the eternal mail flood caused by
cross posting to two lists with similar aims.

The argument for the overhead in maintaining two lists consists of 1)
reduction of the volume of mail to a list reader who is interested on
only one aspect of the discussion, and 2) it #may# keep folks focused
on the issues at hand.  It has been my feeling that those who want to
make progress on the 822 extensions bave been productively discussion
their issues even with the great discussion of SMTP issues.

The second argument has become the compelling argument for me.  There
is a continuing mixing of smtp and 822 issues in many of the
proposals, and by making a person split the mail between lists,
hopefully the proposals will also remail distinct.  The recent example
that has cause this feeling are the proposals for SMTP negotiation of
encoded character sets.  While this may work in a ideal world, it
hoplessly confuses the necessary division of work this group
explicity made my the decision to make all #necessary# changes in the
message format only, and the implicit decision to continue work on 8
bit transport for some messages.

Next Wednesday, the list will be split.  I propose the following.
(Watch out David Zimmerman!)  Two lists will be made with the existing
membership.  This is made on the assumption that the vast majority
will want to remain on both lists.  To remain on both lists, no action
will be required.  To be deleted from one, send the necessary mail.  

The main complication is mail exploders.  Those people on exploders
will receive mail sent to either list unless the local site has made
the decision not to split the local exploder.   Please, if you run a
local news-group off this mailing list, split the newsgroup to prevent
massive cross-posting problems.

The two mailing lists are: <ietf-smtp@dimacs.rutgers.edu> for SMTP
related issues and: <ietf-822@dimacs.rutgers.edu> for message format
related issues.  Please do not infer any bias by the continuation of
the origional ietf-smtp list as the SMTP list and the new list as the
822 list.  This simply helps to avoid confusion.

Comments are welcome.  Please send add requests and delete requests
to:

	ietf-smtp-request@dimacs.rutgers.edu or
	ietf-822-request@dimacs.rutgers.edu

Please do not send these requests to the mailing list or to me.  I do
not maintain the mailing list!

Greg Vaudreuil

Internet Extensions Working Group Chair.