[NCSG-EC] Inactive mailing lists

[Tapani Tarvainen]

On Wed, Jan 04, 2023 at 06:56:55PM +0100, Johan Helsingius via NCSG-EC (ncsg-ec at lists.ncsg.is) wrote:

> we should also have a discussion about non-active lists.

So, let's.

As Caleb correctly pointed out, we should be careful before deleting
old messages. Indeed our charter requires us to keep some mailing list
archives, but some are of more temporary nature and might be removed.
Even for such, however, I would agree with Caleb that at least in most
cases it'd be better to deactivate them but keep their archives.

Deactivating mailing lists isn't a simple on-off switch, however.

Off the top of my head, there're several possible steps to take:

(1) Unsubscribe everyone from the list and reject new subscription
attempts. This prevents new messages from being sent to or from the
list, including membership reminders (if they are in use). If the
list has private archives, i.e., archives open only to list
members, they become in accessible to anyone but administrator(s).

(2) Change the list description texts, adding something like
"This is a historical, no longer active list, maintained only
for archival purposes. New subscriptions are not allowed."

(3) Hide the list, i.e., remove it from the listing shown at
https://lists.ncsg.is/mailman/listinfo
After that it remains accessible if you know the URL, but
can't be easily found if you don't. (This has already been
done for some lists.)

(4) List archives can be converted from public to private or
otherwise made inaccessible, should that be necessary for
some reason.

All of those steps are easily reversible if it becomes necessary to
reactivate the list.

It is also possible to make a static copy of the list archive
somewhere and remove the list from Mailman. This would be a bit more
difficult, and effectively irreversible (well of course the list could
be recreated but it'd be much harder).

Finally, a list can obviously also be removed completely along with
its archives. I would be very hesitant to even consider doing that.

However, lists that are not in use and don't have any archives, either
because they weren't archived in the first place or because they have
never been used at all, could be removed.

Otherwise, I'd suggest considering some or all of the steps (1)-(3)
above for apparently inactive lists. Whenever the list's old
administrator(s) or moderator(s) are still around, asking them first
might be a good idea.

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen