Open Stack

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Stefano Maffulli <stefano at openstack.org>
Date: Tue, May 29, 2012 at 11:13 AM
Subject: Re: administration of new mailinglists
To: Thierry Carrez <thierry at openstack.org>
Cc: Monty Taylor <mordred at inaugust.com>, Duncan McGreggor
<duncan at dreamhost.com>, Michael Tietz <tietz at b1-systems.de>, Christian
Berendt <berendt at b1-systems.de>, "James E. Blair"
<corvus at inaugust.com>


On 05/26/2012 11:38 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> That's a valid point (my point was about the topic of the list, not so
> much about its location). I'm not really attached to the LP setup, it's
> more a question of disruption for our existing users, but the benefit
> might be worth it.

I don't think there is an easy way to migrate over 2000 users from one
place to another but I also think that we should have one place for all
the lists, ideally.

Moving those subscribers will not be an easy task, so I would consider
that a project in itself. We should move this discussion to the public list.

> That said, I still think there is value in a "default" discussion list,
> separate from the development list. I guess we could have:
>
> openstack at l.o.o - default discussion about openstack - present-looking
> openstack-dev at l.o.o - development discussions - forward-looking
> openstack-operators at l.o.o - "operators" (??)

I like this setup, so we don't have to change names/addresses. We can
keep openstack@ on LP until we have the new l.o.o up and running.
Migrating will be complicate.

> We would rename "operators" to "users" and encourage current subscribers
> to join it.

I don't see the value in renaming the list. Why would you want to create
this pain for the current subscribers?

> Two questions: how do you merge the old archives with the operators
> archive ?

which old archives?

> And for "announce": who gets the right to post to it ? Or
> rather, who gets to moderate the posts to it ? PPB ? PTL/relmgr ? Any
> volunteer ?

You'll have to work very hard to convince me that an announce list is
worth the trouble :) 'Tradition' is not a good argument.

First of all, it's not clear to me *who* would need to send out
announcements. Can somebody start from there?

I'll start enumerating why I don't think such list is needed by
community managers:

- more lists, more policies, more complexity for newcomers, things that
they need to learn.
- more lists, more policies, more complexity to manage (moderators, spam
masters, etc)
- the announce list has not been used for over 8 months, nobody noticed
- multiplying contact points for people increases the need for
cross-posting, more messages
- an announce is fundamentally a one-way communication, no need to have
'discussions' around it, mailing list is the wrong tool *today* (it made
sense in the 90s)
- an announce sent to a mailman list is fundamentally shouting in the
wind: there might be people listening, you'll never know if they heard
something. A *segmented* (developers, operators, business folks)
newsletter is the best way to send out announcements.

/stef