[tlug] Mailing List Archives: The Final Frontier

["Josh Glover" <jmglov@example.com>]

This is the beginning of the end of the discussion on what to do with
the mailing list archives.

*** Please do not reply to this mail, unless you firtst change the To
address to <tlug-admin@example.com>. ***


I. The Issue

Our list archives are currently password protected. This poses several problems:

1. People occasionally hitting the list with a request for the
username and password, as they are not particularly easy to find.
2. People may not use the archives just because it "smacks of effort"
to find out the password.
3. ht://Dig is not a very good search engine, but Google cannot crawl
the achives, so Googling for 'japanese input fedora site:tlug.jp'
ain't possible.
4. Our content is not really accessible to the larger community of
Linux and Unix users to which we belong.


II. Proposed Solutions

1. Do nothing
2. Open the archives, from the beginning of time to the end of it
(excluding tlug-admin and hikari)
3. Open the archives as of 01 January, 2007, but keep 2002-2006
password protected (again, excluding admin lists)

In the case of (2) and (3), email addresses will be munged. We will
most likely obscure everything after the '@' in the address.

In the case of (2), I will honour requests, on a thread-by-thread or
user-by-user basis, to remove content from the archives for the period
of 2002-2006 *only*.


III. Current Sentiment

1. In a non-binding vote conducted at the last technical meeting, we
found that just over half of the attendees supported (2), with
somewhere around 25% in favour of (3). (1) received no votes, to the
best of my recollection.
2. It is my opinion as Listmaster that (2) is the only acceptable
option. I feel that we have a duty to the community to make available
the valuable repository of knowledge on CJK and general Unix issues
containing in our archives.


IV. Timetable

1. Discussion on this issue, if any, will commence today, 2006/11/17,
and continue through the end of this month, 2006/11/30. All discussion
will occur on the tlug-admin list, as it is an administrative topic.
2. I will announce the voting options on 2006/12/01, at which time the
topic will be closed for discussion permanently.
3. Voting will begin on 2006/12/01, and last until 2006/12/15. Voting
will be carried out online, by replying to the vote thread, either to
the list, or--if you prefer a secret ballot--offlist to me, CCing Zev.
4. The results of the voting will be posted to tlug and tlug-admin on
2006/12/16, at which time Henri and I will start working on the actual
implementation of whatever option received the most votes.


Again, please direct all replies to this mail to tlug-admin.

Thanks,
Josh Glover
TLUG Listmaster