[NCSG-EC] Inactive mailing lists

[Caleb Olumuyiwa Ogundele]

Excellent line of thought Tapani.i totally agree with this technical
approach.

@ Julf and other team members, over to you.
What do you think?

On Thu, Jan 5, 2023, 4:58 AM Tapani Tarvainen via NCSG-EC <
ncsg-ec at lists.ncsg.is> wrote:

> 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 "This is a historical, no longer active list, maintained only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
> _______________________________________________
> NCSG-EC mailing list
> NCSG-EC at lists.ncsg.is
> https://lists.ncsg.is/mailman/listinfo/ncsg-ec
>
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