Re: new mailing list

[Kyle Wheeler <kyle-qmail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Monday, December 10 at 11:44 AM, quoth Jeremy Kister:
> Mildly related to qmail going into the public domain, I'm wondering if
> there's any interest in setting up a SorceForge mailing list for
> netqmail, making the existing qmail list legacy, and having some clever
> code auto-respond to legacy posts (directing posters to the new list).  We 
> could also point folk installing via LWQ to the netqmail mailing list.

Somehow, yet more autoresponders seems like a really bad idea. I get a 
bevy of email in response to all my posts to the list, all from 
autoresponders (amazon.com, pellegrini.it, mailanyone.net, 
bracknellroofing.com and kids.kamhung.com, not to mention 
mail.internet.co.nz, idiamart.com, uspto.gov and the Blackberry 
non-delivery notices, among others). They're trivial to filter out, 
and I do (honestly, I'm really just assuming that they're still 
sending stuff; I never check), but for someone posting to the list for 
the first time? Yet another autoresponder would be lost in the flurry 
of existing autoresponders.

Anyway, is there something particularly wrong with the existing qmail 
list that wasn't wrong with it two months ago? We're still talking 
about the same software, we're still the same people, and we've still 
got the same subscription list. I don't see the advantage to muddying 
the waters with some kind of arbitrary name change propped up by a 
hack auto-responder.

The qmail list *is* unmaintained... and yet has remained both quite 
usable and surprisingly popular. As annoying as the qsecretary and 
other autoresponders are, for a list that's been unmaintained for 
almost a decade, that's pretty impressive, no?

If I was setting up a new project, I'd say: absolutely! Let's set up a  
mailing list on sourceforge! But I don't see that the minor advantages 
of setting up a new list really include much more than an arbitrary 
freedom from the qsecretary, and a quick expunging of the existing 
autoresponders (given enough time, they'd be back even on a new list).

Let's not forget, though, that there are disadvantages. For example, 
the sourceforge mailing list archives are *horrendous*. The current 
solutions in place for the qmail mailing list are much better, and 
provide newbies with one-stop shopping for qmail research. Moving the 
"official" list arbitrarily to another location would result in split 
resources.

I think the underlying impulse here us admirable, but I disagree that 
the disadvantages of moving the list (confusion, split resources, 
extra effort/inconvenience for everyone on the current list, bad 
archives, etc.) make up for the advantages (no qsecretary, potential 
for kick/banning addresses from the list).

~Kyle
--
Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.
                                              -- St. Francis of Assisi

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