(low-frequency) mailing lists | suggestions & summary of prior thread

[Albert Astals Cid]

El dimarts, 23 de maig de 2023, a les 14:10:37 (CEST), Joseph P. De Veaugh-
Geiss va escriure:
> Follow-up discussion to the post "Inactive mailing lists".
> 
> tl;dr There are three topics discussed here:
> 
>    1. For mailing list admins: *Suggestions For Information To Add To
> Mailing List Descriptions*
>    2. For mailing list communities: *Moving Certain Groups To Discourse?*
>    3. For everyone: *Summary Of Prior Discussion About Inactive /
> Infrequently Used Lists*
> 
> As always, the discussion is open for your feedback and ideas!
> 
> _1. Information To Add To Mailing List Descriptions_
> 
> If you are a list admin, consider adding the following to the mailing
> list description. This way subscribers are well-informed about the
> communication channels used for your project/community:
> 
>    * Other communication channels for this project and their intended
> use (e.g., for announcements, user support, live chat, etc.)
>    * Relevant links for the project (e.g., website, wiki, etc.)
>    * Intended scope for the list (i.e., what it is for / not for)
>    * Policies regarding moderation, code of conduct, etc.
> 
> For examples, see:
> 
>    * Energy-efficiency:
> https://mail.kde.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/energy-efficiency
>    * Kde-soc: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-soc
>    * Visual-design: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/visual-design
> 
> _2. Moving Certain Groups To Discourse?_
> 
> Beyond typical forum functionality, Discourse integrates well with email
> and RSS. Something to consider for low-frequency mailing list groups:
> there may be projects and communities that benefit by officially moving
> communication to Discourse. Although I have no data to back up the
> claim, I suspect having users interact on a more active platform could
> generally increase engagement within KDE.
> 
> A nice feature of Discourse is: for mailing list subscribers who wish to
> continue receiving posts in their mail clients,

Is it really? I remember once that i visited, commented on a post and never 
ever got emails when people answered me on that post. I am not a crazy person 
that plans visiting discuss.kde.org every 5 minutes just in case someone has 
answered me, the site must send me an email and in my 1 time experience it 
failed to do so.

Cheers,
  Albert

> it is possible to follow
> discussions via RSS or by enable mailing list mode in Discourse. It
> takes some setting up; see below for more.
> 
> A few language and country-specific communities already have made a move
> to Discourse. See:
> 
>     https://discuss.kde.org/c/local-communities/
> 
> Some of these groups also have low traffic mailing lists. Unless current
> list subscribers also move to Discourse, there is the risk of fracturing
> the community as list subscribers are seperated from the people at the
> forum. In this case, archiving and closing the infrequently-used mailing
> list might be beneficial. Of course, that is for the list admin and
> relevant community to decide.
> 
> Info about using Discourse with email and RSS:
> 
>    * Users can enable "Mailing list mode", which allows one to receive
> and respond to posts via email (i.e., just like a mailing list). By
> default, users receive posts to /all/ categories -- limiting posts to
> specific categories requires manually "muting" the other categories. See
> the community wiki for more detail, including how to mute categories:
> 
>      https://community.kde.org/KDE.org/KDE_Forums#Mailing_List_Mode
> 
>    * Alternatively, one can follow specific categories, tags, etc. as an
> RSS feed. Again, see the community wiki for details:
> 
>      https://community.kde.org/KDE.org/KDE_Forums#Following_RSS_Feeds
> 
> _3. Summary: Prior Discussion About Inactive Mailing Lists_
> 
> Here are some bullet points from the discussion about inactive /
> infrequently used mailing lists. For the full thread, go to:
> 
>     https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-community/2023q2/007577.html
> 
>    * Some lists deliberately have archiving disabled, so an empty
> archive is not necessarily an indicator of no activity.
>    * Some lists are primarily used for following bug reports (e.g.,
> *-bugs) or commits.
>    * Subscribing to a low traffic email list is rarely something people
> notice, and the UI of mail clients rarely gets in the way. By contrast,
> the UI of e.g. Matrix very much gets in the way of staying in 200 low
> traffic channels.
>    * Low email traffic does not mean subscribers will not answer
> appropriate posts sent to it.
>    * Unless current subscribers also make the move to a new channel,
> moving discussion to a new platform risks separating the people who have
> answers (the current subscribed people) with the people who have the
> questions (the people redirected elsewhere).
>    * For lists that are unquestionably no longer in use, please file a
> sysadmin ticket and they will get removed.
>    * See this ticket for mailing lists that have been or will be removed
> as a result of the discussion: https://phabricator.kde.org/T16387
> 
> Cheers,
> Joseph