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List:       kde-community
Subject:    Re: Proposal: Mailing List owner policy
From:       Ben Cooksley <bcooksley () kde ! org>
Date:       2020-07-23 8:38:10
Message-ID: CA+XidOENmjAGA74_rmucavgCwY0SCyXTv2PDb0m8X77ikPKamw () mail ! gmail ! com
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On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 4:55 PM Valorie Zimmerman
<valorie.zimmerman@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 3:31 PM Albert Astals Cid <aacid@kde.org> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Community,
>>
>> One important part of mailing lists being healthy is owners/moderators[1=
].
>>
>> They moderate the lists, they help users that want to subscribe/unsubscr=
ibe but don't know how to, they enact emergency moderation in the very very=
 seldom case that it is needed, etc.
>>
>> So to keep our mailing lists healthy we need to be sure to have healthy =
list owners.
>>
>> In plural, more than one, because from time to time, we go on vacation a=
nd the list duties still need taking care of.
>>
>> For that I'd like to enact this policy:
>>
>>     Mailing lists should have at least 2 active owners, ideally 3 [Obvio=
usly exceptions apply, like if we just started a mailing list to coordinate=
 translators for a language that has no translation in KDE yet, we'd probab=
ly have no way to get 2 list owners]
>>
>> One keyword in that sentence is "active".
>>
>> Mailing list ownership/moderation un-activity is hard to detect.
>>
>> One way to potentially detect it, is by those summaries that sysadmin se=
nds periodically for lists with lots of mails to moderate, but that doesn't=
 cover all the cases.
>>
>> For example, it's possible that a mailing list has 2 owners and only one=
 of them is inactive, since the other one is keeping the list in working co=
ndition we don't see it as a problem, but if that person goes on holiday, t=
hen it suddenly is.
>>
>> For that I'd like to enact this policy sub-point:
>>
>>     Mailing list owners will be contacted every year asking if they are =
still active and if they want to continue being list owner or if they'd pre=
fer we find a substitute.
>>
>> If they say "please find a substitute" or fail to answer in a given time=
 frame (I'd say a month is fair), they will be removed as owners and in cas=
e the "at least 2 active owners, ideally 3" policy is broken we'll find a n=
ew person.
>>
>> Does that sound something like we could agree on?
>
>
> I think this is a good idea.
>
>> Then the big question is "who will do this work?" Because it seems quite=
 a bit of work (albeit only once a year). I would suggest the Community Wor=
king Group does this, as it's a way to keep our community healthy, but i un=
derstand it's quite some work, so i volunteer to do it if the CWG doesn't f=
eel this is a task they want to take on.
>
>
> As a member of CWG, I think that this is a suitable task for us, and I'm =
willing to do it. However, surely there is a master list of all the lists a=
nd who the stated owners and mods are. If so, can't the sending be done som=
ewhat automatically? With the answers going to the CWG or whoever, to find =
replacement people.
>

You'd need a way of catching the exceptions - the people who don't reply th=
ough.
Not sure how easy that would be to automate, but it's probably possible.

In terms of getting a list of all lists, we can provide one of those
(it's attached). I'm not sure if Mailman provides anything out of the
box that lists who the owners of a list are though.

>> Things I'm missing?
>
>
> Healthy lists are somewhat active. While a major protective duty of owner=
s and mods is to keep spam out and keep conversations moving in a positive =
way, another is to keep the list active by bringing to it appropriate topic=
s of discussion. I don't want that forgotten. Too often issues are discusse=
d in IRC and never brought to the list where they ought to be.
>
>> Improvement suggestions?
>>
>> Cheers,
>>   Albert
>>
>> [1] yes, i know they are not the same, but since one is a subset of the =
other, let's pretend they are.
>
>
> I would like to hear from Sysadmin how many lists we have and how many ow=
ners and if there is a way to automatically send an email to all owners alo=
ng with the names of the lists they administer.
>
> Valorie

Cheers,
Ben

>
> --
> http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her
>
>

["list-of-mailing-lists" (application/octet-stream)]

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