Re: FW: Notes of meeting of the Multistakeholder Forum‏

From: Daniel Laeng <daniel_at_laeng.org>
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 11:50:01 +0400

Hi Ish,

 From your answers, I think I can conclude that you're happy with the
quality of emails from MIU members to officials of various types (and
you are allowed to be). The recipients of some of those mails have
expressed a different view, and currently I side with them.

The MIU is young and needs to build it's reputation. I'd like to see it
have a reputation for bringing carefully thought out arguments, and
technical expertise and a fair representation of the Mauritian public.
I would prefer it didn't have a reputation for enabling/encouraging
members to send low quality emails to various government and
non-government representatives.

> Spam would be sending irrelevant emails to a large number of users (as
> targets). The emails on the mailing list were neither irrelevant nor
> sent to a large number of users.
Spam is also often used in a broader definition of "unwanted email".
That's how I'm using it in this instance. Please mentally replace all
references of "spam" to "unwanted email".

I personally tend to react fairly negatively towards any organisation
that enables people to fill my inbox with unwanted emails. The MIU
generates a lot of emails, and we need to be careful that the ones
reaching non-members are appropriate.

> Those who are CC'ed in the multi-stakeholder forum are people who were
> nominated/chosen for .mu related discussions.
Yes, and they should expect to receive the occasional email from a
designated MIU member. They should not expect to be included in any
group discussion, or have people's random opinions shouted at them.

> The emails did not reach other ministries having nothing to do with
> the .mu related discussions.
I can't judge that, but I have noticed some emails with a number of
govmu recipients.

> The emails were relevant to the .mu ccTLD discussions.
Just because they were relevant to the discussions, doesn't mean that
they need to be shared outside of the list. Communications with anybody
off the list should be direct and have a purpose, including them as a CC
does not seem appropriate.

> I would thus, not call those as spam.
Either you are ignoring the bad behaviour on the MIU list, or you think
it's acceptable.

Here's an example: This email
<http://lists.elandnews.com/archive/mauritius/internet-users/2015/05/1449.html>
(part of a thread of similar emails), was sent to 28 recipients, including
- 8 govmu addresses
- 2 ncb addresses,
- icta, mauritiustelecom, lexpress

This is spam, even if you agree with the contents. Keep in mind that
nobody ever thinks their own emails are spam...

> Neither I would call those as sending emails to 'government'. Some
> government officials are part of the multi-stakeholder forum but they
> are not the Government.
Ok, I don't know what word to use to describe the people in question.
Let's split the world into two groups: MIU members, and everybody else.
Anybody who is not a MIU member, shouldn't be included on MIU emails.

> Some government & non-government officials expressed a displeasure at
> the emails. There is a code of ethics[1] for civil servants that
> dictates how to respond to public:
Yes, but wasting people's time with spammy emails is bad.

> Should public stop asking questions because it displeases some people?
No, but the MIU enabling low quality spammy emails isn't helpful.

> People should realize whom to CC when replying to emails. CC'ing other
> people when replying to the list only should be avoided.
People *should* realise whom to CC, but they don't. This is a common
problem in mailing lists, and there are solutions, but first we need to
accept that there is a problem.

> I agree that people should take care when they click [Reply All].
I also agree, but that doesn't solve anything.

Dan.

-- 
Daniel Laeng
Software Developer
+230 5775 1037
Received on Mon Jun 15 2015 - 07:50:19 PST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Mon Jun 15 2015 - 07:54:01 PST