Inactive mailing lists

Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss joseph at kde.org
Thu Apr 27 22:42:47 BST 2023 

Cross-posting to the relevant mailing lists.

To discuss, please answer to kde-community at kde.org.

tl;dr There are several inactive or unused lists of the 181 mailing 
lists at KDE. What do we want to do with them?

This is a post about inactive or unused mailing lists. For a general 
discussion about (active) mailing lists at KDE, please start a new 
thread or wait until I address that, likely in the very near future.

_Inactive Mailing Lists_

For a better understanding of what works and what needs improvement in 
KDE's internal communications, I started by looking at the 181 mailing 
lists publicly listed at:

   https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/

Here I see 51 mailing lists which might be considered inactive, some of 
which were never used at all. There may be more to add to this upon 
further inspection, but these seem like a good place to start.

By inactive I mean there has been very low or no activity in the past 
2-3 years at least, and for most lists the last post was 4+ years ago. 
For several of these lists, there are long gaps in activity, often with 
no community responses to the most recent posts.

The 51 mailing lists are included at the end of this email.

Importantly, I know a list with infrequent activity is *not* the same as 
a list that has no activity. Some communities do not need regular 
communication for that community to be active. If you see your 
community's mailing list here and think it is a mistake, please let me 
know! My apologies in advance if this is the case.

Crucially, do not interpret an inactive mailing list to mean a project 
is inactive. It only means the mailing list is not a frequently used 
channel of communication. There are many other channels for community 
discussion (e.g., Matrix, Discuss, etc.).

_Some Questions To The KDE Community_

  * What do we want to do with inactive or unused mailing lists?

  * Is there a policy for retiring inactive lists? I didn't see anything 
at the Community Wiki. [1]

  * Does KDE have internal infrastructure to archive mailing lists for 
posterity? I see kwrite-devel [2] archived old posts at the "Mailing 
list ARChives" [3].

  * Do we want to nudge traffic from low activity mailing lists to 
somewhere with generally higher activity (specifically, I am thinking 
Discuss)? I can imagine being in a more active online space could 
increase general participation for otherwise low activity groups.

_Inactive Lists: To Close Or Not To Close_

I am sure there are reasons both for and against closing mailing lists. 
Here are just some reasons I can think of to close inactive ones:

  * The more communication channels there are, the more fractured KDE's 
communication is.

  * It may not be obvious to new (or even old) contributors that a list 
is no longer in use, resulting in wasted energy signing up for an 
inactive one.

  * Trying to engage with an inactive list may reduce motivation for 
futher contributions from members, especially when posts go unanswered.

  * Moving some communities to more lively platforms may increase their 
overall activity.

  * There could be a slight efficiency/ecological benefit for KDE's 
server infrastructure by removing or deactivating unused services.

Pleae keep in mind: I am not judging the value of any particular group 
by pointing out low activity, or arguing we need to close any specific 
list. If there is a reason -- any reason at all -- to keep a list open, 
then let's keep it open! I myself like mailing lists for various forms 
of communication (announcements, long-form discussion, information which 
I want to archive locally for future reference, etc.).

If I made any mistakes in my summary here, please let me know. It is a 
challenge to go through 181 lists and not make any errors, though I 
tried my best not to.

I look forward to reading your thoughts and suggestions!

Cheers,
Joseph

[1] https://community.kde.org/Infrastructure/Mailing-Lists
[2] https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kwrite-devel
[3] https://marc.info/

# Overview

Of the 181 mailing lists listed publicly, I found the following:

  * 12 are lists that have never been used and 1 was already closed
  * 27 are potentially-inactive general lists
  * 11 are potentially-inactive language or country-specific lists

# Unused / Closed Mailing Lists [13 Lists]

## Never Used [12 lists] ("No messages have been posted to this list 
yet, so the archives are currently empty.")

  * Calligra-author: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/calligra-author
  * Cantor-bugs: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/cantor-bugs
  * Gcompris-espanol: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/gcompris-espanol
  * Kde-dashboard: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-dashboard
  * kde-games-bugs: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-games-bugs
  * Kde-i18n-it: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-i18n-it
  * Kde-l10n-my: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-l10n-my
  * Kde-l10n-sw: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-l10n-sw
  * KDE-Look: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-look
  * Kde-partnership: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-partnership
  * Kdepim-builds: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kdepim-builds
  * neon-bugs: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/neon-bugs

## Officially Closed [1 list]

  * kde-nonlinux: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-nonlinux

# Inactive General Lists [27 lists]

## Currently Inactive With Almost No Previous Activity [5 lists]

  * kde-artists: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-artists
  * Heaptrack: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/heaptrack
  * CuteHMI: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/cutehmi
  * Khtml-cvs: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/khtml-cvs
  * Cki-attendees: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/cki-attendees

## Currently Inactive With Low Previous Activity [2 lists]

  * Snorenotify: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/snorenotify
  * KXStitch: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kxstitch

## Currently Inactive But Previously Active [16 lists]

  * Choquk-devel: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/choqok-devel
  * Kde-embedded: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-embedded
  * Kde-buildsystem: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-buildsystem
  * WikiToLearn: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitolearn
  * Marble-commits: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/marble-commits
  * Ksecretservice-devel: 
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/ksecretservice-devel
  * KDE-Telepathy: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-telepathy
  * Kde-speech: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-speech
  * Kexi: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kexi
  * Enterprise: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/enterprise
  * Marble: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/marble
  * kde-women: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-women
  * kde-usa: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usa
  * kopete-devel: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kopete-devel
  * Kde-scm-interest: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-scm-interest
  * Kexi-devel: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kexi-devel

## No Activity In 7+ Years [4 lists]

  * SymbolEditor: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/symboleditor
  * Gcompris-portugues: 
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/gcompris-portugues
  * kdelibs-bugs: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kdelibs-bugs
  * QmlWeb: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/qmlweb

# Inactive Language/Country-Specific Mailing Lists [11 lists]

## Currently Inactive With Almost No Previous Activity [2 lists]

  * Kde-i18n-eu: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-i18n-eu
  * Kde-edu-pt_br: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-edu-pt_br

## Currently Inactive But Previously Active [5 lists]

  * Kde-i18n-uk: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-i18n-uk
  * KDE-india: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-india
  * Kde-l10n-in: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-l10n-in
  * Kde-latam: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-latam
  * Kde-l10n-kn: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-l10n-kn

## No Activity In 7+ Years [3 lists]

  * Kde-el: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-el
  * kde-mexico: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-mexico
  * Kde-l10n-si: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-l10n-si

## Infrequently Active [1 list]

  * KDE-Italia: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-italia

-- 
Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss
KDE Internal Communications & KDE Eco Community Manager
OpenPGP: 8FC5 4178 DC44 AD55 08E7 DF57 453E 5746 59A6 C06F
Matrix: @joseph:kde.org

Generally available Monday-Thursday from 10-16h CET/CEST. Outside of 
these times it may take a little longer for me to respond.

KDE Eco: Building Energy-Efficient Free Software!
Website: https://eco.kde.org
Mastodon: @be4foss at floss.social

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