Am 27.04.23 um 23:42 schrieb Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss:
Cross-posting to the relevant mailing lists.
To discuss, please answer to kde-community@kde.org.
tl;dr There are several inactive or unused lists of the 181 mailing
lists at KDE. What do we want to do with them?
This is a post about inactive or unused mailing lists. For a general
discussion about (active) mailing lists at KDE, please start a new
thread or wait until I address that, likely in the very near future.
_Inactive Mailing Lists_
For a better understanding of what works and what needs improvement in
KDE's internal communications, I started by looking at the 181 mailing
lists publicly listed at:
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/
Here I see 51 mailing lists which might be considered inactive, some
of which were never used at all. There may be more to add to this upon
further inspection, but these seem like a good place to start.
By inactive I mean there has been very low or no activity in the past
2-3 years at least, and for most lists the last post was 4+ years ago.
For several of these lists, there are long gaps in activity, often
with no community responses to the most recent posts.
The 51 mailing lists are included at the end of this email.
Importantly, I know a list with infrequent activity is *not* the same
as a list that has no activity. Some communities do not need regular
communication for that community to be active. If you see your
community's mailing list here and think it is a mistake, please let me
know! My apologies in advance if this is the case.
Crucially, do not interpret an inactive mailing list to mean a project
is inactive. It only means the mailing list is not a frequently used
channel of communication. There are many other channels for community
discussion (e.g., Matrix, Discuss, etc.).
_Some Questions To The KDE Community_
* What do we want to do with inactive or unused mailing lists?
* Is there a policy for retiring inactive lists? I didn't see
anything at the Community Wiki. [1]
* Does KDE have internal infrastructure to archive mailing lists for
posterity? I see kwrite-devel [2] archived old posts at the "Mailing
list ARChives" [3].
* Do we want to nudge traffic from low activity mailing lists to
somewhere with generally higher activity (specifically, I am thinking
Discuss)? I can imagine being in a more active online space could
increase general participation for otherwise low activity groups.
_Inactive Lists: To Close Or Not To Close_
I am sure there are reasons both for and against closing mailing
lists. Here are just some reasons I can think of to close inactive ones:
* The more communication channels there are, the more fractured KDE's
communication is.
* It may not be obvious to new (or even old) contributors that a list
is no longer in use, resulting in wasted energy signing up for an
inactive one.
* Trying to engage with an inactive list may reduce motivation for
futher contributions from members, especially when posts go unanswered.
* Moving some communities to more lively platforms may increase their
overall activity.
* There could be a slight efficiency/ecological benefit for KDE's
server infrastructure by removing or deactivating unused services.
Pleae keep in mind: I am not judging the value of any particular group
by pointing out low activity, or arguing we need to close any specific
list. If there is a reason -- any reason at all -- to keep a list
open, then let's keep it open! I myself like mailing lists for various
forms of communication (announcements, long-form discussion,
information which I want to archive locally for future reference, etc.).
If I made any mistakes in my summary here, please let me know. It is a
challenge to go through 181 lists and not make any errors, though I
tried my best not to.
I look forward to reading your thoughts and suggestions!
Cheers,
Joseph
[1] https://community.kde.org/Infrastructure/Mailing-Lists
[2] https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kwrite-devel
[3] https://marc.info/
# Overview
Of the 181 mailing lists listed publicly, I found the following:
* 12 are lists that have never been used and 1 was already closed
* 27 are potentially-inactive general lists
* 11 are potentially-inactive language or country-specific lists
# Unused / Closed Mailing Lists [13 Lists]
## Never Used [12 lists] ("No messages have been posted to this list
yet, so the archives are currently empty.")
* Calligra-author: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/calligra-author
* Cantor-bugs: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/cantor-bugs
* Gcompris-espanol:
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/gcompris-espanol
* Kde-dashboard: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-dashboard
* kde-games-bugs: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-games-bugs
* Kde-i18n-it: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-i18n-it
* Kde-l10n-my: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-l10n-my
* Kde-l10n-sw: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-l10n-sw
* KDE-Look: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-look
* Kde-partnership: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-partnership
* Kdepim-builds: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kdepim-builds
* neon-bugs: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/neon-bugs
## Officially Closed [1 list]
* kde-nonlinux: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-nonlinux
# Inactive General Lists [27 lists]
## Currently Inactive With Almost No Previous Activity [5 lists]
* kde-artists: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-artists
* Heaptrack: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/heaptrack
* CuteHMI: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/cutehmi
* Khtml-cvs: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/khtml-cvs
* Cki-attendees: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/cki-attendees
## Currently Inactive With Low Previous Activity [2 lists]
* Snorenotify: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/snorenotify
* KXStitch: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kxstitch
## Currently Inactive But Previously Active [16 lists]
* Choquk-devel: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/choqok-devel
* Kde-embedded: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-embedded
* Kde-buildsystem: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-buildsystem
* WikiToLearn: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitolearn
* Marble-commits: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/marble-commits
* Ksecretservice-devel:
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/ksecretservice-devel
* KDE-Telepathy: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-telepathy
* Kde-speech: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-speech
* Kexi: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kexi
* Enterprise: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/enterprise
* Marble: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/marble
* kde-women: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-women
* kde-usa: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usa
* kopete-devel: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kopete-devel
* Kde-scm-interest:
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-scm-interest
* Kexi-devel: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kexi-devel
## No Activity In 7+ Years [4 lists]
* SymbolEditor: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/symboleditor
* Gcompris-portugues:
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/gcompris-portugues
* kdelibs-bugs: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kdelibs-bugs
* QmlWeb: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/qmlweb
# Inactive Language/Country-Specific Mailing Lists [11 lists]
## Currently Inactive With Almost No Previous Activity [2 lists]
* Kde-i18n-eu: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-i18n-eu
* Kde-edu-pt_br: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-edu-pt_br
## Currently Inactive But Previously Active [5 lists]
* Kde-i18n-uk: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-i18n-uk
* KDE-india: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-india
* Kde-l10n-in: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-l10n-in
* Kde-latam: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-latam
* Kde-l10n-kn: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-l10n-kn
## No Activity In 7+ Years [3 lists]
* Kde-el: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-el
* kde-mexico: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-mexico
* Kde-l10n-si: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-l10n-si
## Infrequently Active [1 list]
* KDE-Italia: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-italia
Hi,
there's various foo-b...@kde.org lists in your list. Those (sometimes)
have a specific aspect, which is that they are the default assignee on
bugs.kde.org for that project.
There's something funky about it though. For example
kdelibs-b...@kde.org is the default assignee for the frameworks-kirigami
product, so the archive should show lots of mails from that, but doesn't.
Whether this is a good use of mailing lists is of course up for debate.
Cheers
Nico
PS: Evaluating how "Default Assignee" and generally automatic
subscription to bugreports works could be a good idea. Currently the
established way to get CC'd on bugs for a specific thing is to tell Nate
"Please CC me for XY bugs" and then Nate does some obscure config to
make it happen
