Mailing list evaluation, August 2012

This is just a brain-dump for now.

• Current uses
• historical reasons
• technical reasons
• discussion (inbox messages can be tracked and replied to!)
• privacy reasons
• hugely important to the Wikimedia community
• privacy implications of these lists
  • leaked passwords
  • contain a ton of private info
  • archives stay around forever
  • but not searchable...
  • distributing messages to individual inboxes
    • ugh
• bugs in mailman
  • search!
  • from: at the beginning of a line
  • web archives are painful to modify
    • rebuilding the archive fucks up permalinks
  • pre-wrap
• considerations
  • why do mailing lists continue to be so important?
  • lack of better communication tools
• alternatives to mailman
• guidelines for posting??
  • TS etiquette? tswiki link to River's page
  • some Meta-Wiki pages?
  • more needed?
• administrative burden
  • "make me a list"
  • "make me a list admin/owner/whatever"
  • spam!
  • moderation!
  • people don't realize that their messages are public --> manipulate archives again, ugh
  • modify mbox!!!
  • adjusting mailing list settings/defaults

cc: Ryan Lane, Timeshifter, mutante; wikitech-l?