[SAC] Naming of several mailing lists

[shawn barnes]

It's all doable.

The removal of a list is a non-issue.

Adding an alias is simple.

Renaming a list is more effort but, the process is simple:
  - create new list
  - export archives from old and import archives into new
  - export subscriber list from old and import into new
  - remove old list

only issues are:
  - some disruption in new mailing list address (but better to do this
now than later...everyone understands we are in transition).
  - i don't see a way to carry subsribers digest/no-digest settings.

shawn



Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> 
> Folks,
> 
> A discussion of mailing list names came up on the Board list, and I'm
> trying
> to migrate it here for action.   The original request was from Markus, with
> a reply from Tyler, followed by my opinion at the end.
> 
> I am putting this discussion here because I consider SAC responsible
> for mailing list administration.
> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Markus Neteler <neteler.osgeo at gmail.com>
>> Date: Saturday, January 6, 2007 11:13 am
>> Subject: Naming of several mailing lists
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> looking at
>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo
>>>
>>> I see a couple of inconsistencies and strange names
>>> for the new lists. Maybe already too late, but maybe
>>> better now than never:
>>>
>>> The following lists have an obscure "Mail_" prefix:
>>>  Mail_africa      [no description available]
>>>  Mail_announce     OSGeo Announcements
>>>  Mail_commits     [no description available]
>>>  Mail_discuss     OSGeo Foundation Discuss List
>>>  Mail_francophone     [no description available]
>>>  Mail_mse-users     [no description available]
>>>  Mail_webmap-discuss     [no description available]
>>>
>>> while there are the more reasonable:
>>>  Africa      Africa local chapter discussions
>>>  Brasil_commits     [no description available]
>>>  Brasil_cvs     [no description available]
>>>  Brasil_issues     [no description available]
>>>
>>> - What's the difference between "Mail_africa" and "Africa"?
>>> - "Mail_announce" could simply be "announce"
>>> - "Mail_discuss" could simply be "discuss"
>>> - "Mail_francophone" could simply be "francophone"
>>> and so forth.
>>>
>>> The veeery long names are also a bit unfortunate:
>>>  Visibilitycommittee_announce      [no description available]
>>>  Visibilitycommittee_dev     Visibility Committee Discussion List
>>>  Visibilitycommittee_discuss-de     Deutschsprachiges OSGeo Marketing
>>>  Webcommittee_announce     [no description available]
>>>  Webcommittee_commits     [no description available]
>>>  Webcommittee_dev     Discussion and development of OSGeo's web presence
>>>  Webcommittee_issues     [no description available]
>>>
>>> -> Webcom_ and Viscom_? But above "Mail_" prefixes are worse.
>>>
>>> Finally: Simplyfy this one:
>>>  Www_international-discuss     Discussion on how to improve
>>> international networking
>>> to "intl-discuss" as before?
>>>
>>> And:
>>> Www_news-item
>>> and
>>> News_commits
>>> should probably be made more similar?
>>>
>>> Sorry for bothering,
>>> Markus
> 
> Tyler Mitchell wrote:
>> I agree your assessment Markus. What is the best way to change and
>> improve this?  I'm sure Shawn could breeze through this somehow and
>> make a batch of changes.
>>
>> Just as a brief bit of background, the import process scripts for list
>> archives used CN's subdomain + mailing list name to make everything
>> unique.  Hence the "discuss" list that was managed by CN's "Mail"
>> project/subdomain.  Obviously ones like Mapguide_user ended up being a
>> bit more intuitive.
>>
>> What is the best way to change/improve this?  Is mailman scriptable so
>> we can make some bulk changes and re-send out subscription
>> information?  From talking with Shawn it sounds like you create a new
>> list, import the old lists archives, and then re-subscribe everyone.
>>
>> Are the only problems that:
>> 1) the address to send mail to changes (so people have to update
>> address books, etc)
>> 2) and the address it arrives from changes (so people need to update
>> their filter rules where applicable).
>>
>> Are there any other issues?
>> This renaming has come up in several forums, and there was one
>> suggestion that "OSGeo" be part of list names as well.
>>
>> What is the best way to address the overall problem?  Can someone put
>> together a list of what the new list names could be and then we can
>> debate it with list owners and/or SAC/WebCom? 
>> Happy to help improve this - is there consensus to change and should a
>> couple of us just put together a list for discussion and go from there?
> 
> So I would second Markus' concern and suggest that we make the following
> specific changes:
> 
> 1) Remove all _issues and _commits lists that aren't actually being used.
>    This would definately include the Mail_ and Webcommittee_ versions. 
> Project
>    owners for stuff like Brazil should be queried to verify they don't need
>    these lists though I think the only ones for which they are actually
> useful
>    are Mapguide, fdo and mapbender.
> 
> 2) Rename Webcommittee_dev list to "webcom at lists.osgeo.org".
> 
> 3) Delete webcommittee_announce - unused as far as I know.
> 
> 4) Delete all "news" related mailing lists.  The only news related thing
>    we need is the news_item at osgeo.org address which is an alias, not a
>    mailing list.
> 
> 5) Rename visibilitycommittee_dev to viscom at lists.osgeo.org and
>    visibilitycommittee_discuss-de to viscom-de at lists.osgeo.org.  I think
>    the other viscom lists are junk and should be removed - check with
>    Michael.
> 
> 6) Determine which of the Africa lists is "real" and get rid of the other.
>    Presumably the real list should end up named africa at lists.osgeo.org.
> 
> 7) Rename Mail_announce to announce, Mail_discuss to discuss, and
>    Mail_francophone to francophone.
> 
> Most of the lists are have relatively few members, and a bit of disruption
> is not a big issue.  But I would like to stress that the current
> Mail_announce and Mail_discuss lists have a lot of members, and that every
> reasonable effort should be made to avoid unnecessary disruption during
> a translation.  This might include adding an alias from the old name
> pointing
> to the new name, trying to preserve mailman settings (like digest/nomail)
> from anyone who has set them and so forth.
> 
> Folks on these two lists are our loosely affiliated community and we don't
> want to lose them by jerking them around unnecessarily.  I would appreciate
> Shawn verifying that the above 7 items are all reasonable doable, and i'd
> appreciate members of SAC and other interested parties indicating support
> or anti-support for the above plan (via +1, -1, etc).  If we have SAC
> support
> and Shawn indicates it is doable then I'd like it to proceed later in the
> week to get this settled.
> 
> The deletions should be easy to execute.  The renamings will likely require
> more work.
> 
> Best regards,