Proposal: Mailing List owner policy

[Philippe Cloutier]

Hi Ingo,

Le 2020-07-27 à 03:58, Ingo Klöcker a écrit :
> On Sonntag, 26. Juli 2020 18:31:08 CEST Philippe Cloutier wrote:
>> An even bigger question, I'm afraid. When nobody steps up, what would we
>> do? I wouldn't mind "moderating" this list today, for instance, since I
>> found the time to read it. But I for one would not *commit* myself to
>> moderate it or any other; I just don't have the required availability
>> and if I had, I wouldn't guarantee I would remain available.
> I'm sorry, but I have the feeling that you are making too much of a fuss about
> this. Maybe you are misunderstanding what "moderating" entails. Or maybe I
> misunderstood for years what moderation of a mailing list entails.
>
> I am owner of one mailing list and moderator of another. Moderation of the
> second mailing list is restricted to the moderation of posts that are held for
> moderation mostly because those post come from unsubscribed senders (99 % of
> this is SPAM). I'm not even subscribed to the second mailing list. I don't see
> moderation of legit posts (i.e. posts that are not held for moderation) as my
> task. This kind of moderation costs almost no time.


I have never been subscribed to more than 1 kde.org mailing list, so I 
am not knowledgeable about the situation of KDE's mailing lists. My 
advice was general, and for sure, if by "moderating" we mean "filtering 
spam", the situation is different, but I think a decentralized approach 
will help either way, adapting to any situation.

The policy does not refer to moderation, but to "active owners". If the 
problem is unclear, clarifying what an "active owner" is could help.

In any case, it's not moderating a single mail which is a problem. The 
problem comes with volume. If moderating all mailing lists would cost 
almost no time and if we considered moderating as simply filtering spam, 
the policy's proponent could simply volunteer for all mailing lists and 
convince pretty much any 1 or 2 extra contributors to do the same to 
achieve the same benefits.

If some moderators feel that a single reply constitutes "much of a 
fuss", I am afraid that sending all moderators regular mails requiring 
each of them to take action each time would be perceived as way too much 
of a fuss.

If the issue really comes down to a lack of moderators or contributors 
not being aware that the number of moderators is insufficient, then 
simply editing https://community.kde.org/Infrastructure/Mailing-Lists 
encouraging subscribers to volunteer (and hopefully telling them how to 
do so) would surely already make quite a difference.

> Regards,
> Ingo

-- 
Philippe Cloutier
http://www.philippecloutier.com