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Migrate our mailing lists to our Discourse instance

Description

About 1.5 years ago, GNOME started up its own Discourse instance, mostly as a new home for GTK development talk over the several mailing lists, but also to discuss the GNOME platform in general. Since then, other categories have been added, and some other mailing lists have migrated to it (Tracker and GNOME Contacts to name a few examples).

This means that GNOME now has to deal with 3 completely different platforms to provide a discussion forum: the mailing lists (for the components that still somewhat use it), Discourse and irc.gnome.org (which also has a Matrix bridge). Given that a lot of mailing lists have been seeing a decline in communication for several years now, I think that it is time to make the switch for our project-specific mailing lists, as well as our general discussion mailing lists.

Edit: note that users are not migrated to Discourse, nor the mailing list history. The history of the list itself will keep being available at mail.gnome.org though

Goals

  • Less fragmentation of support forums/communication channels from/to our users
  • Better moderation tools
  • Enabling better tools in terms of UI/UX, such as markdown formatting
  • All of this while keeping compatibility with mail clients, for those who prefer that as workflow

Scope

I would suggest to use a stepped approach, so we can do this in manageable batches: both for sysadmins (since this will need their help to archive the mailing lists), GNOME Discourse moderators (if we need to add appropriate tags or categories), as well as getting an ACK from the relevant maintainers/users.

As a suggestion, we could start with the projects in core/core-deps. We could then move on to the repositories in World, or with the different localization teams.

Finally, it might still make sense to keep some mailing lists: for example, if the maintainer doesn't agree, or for special mailing lists like ftp-announce.

People on charge & contact

Niels De Graef (nielsdg) <nielsdegraef@gmail.com>

Instructions to achieve the goals

For single mailing list

The order is basically: ensure that everyone is aware of the move (and no strong objections). After that, ensure Discourse (etc) is ready. Lastly, closing of the mailing list.

Preparation

  1. If possible, write a private email to the owner of the mailing list. E.g. the maintainers of the application as listed in the .doap file (git repository). An example email to use is listed below.
  2. If there is no clear owner or the owner indicates to ask the list, send an email to the subscribers of the mailing list. In case the mailing list is not used, ensure the email to the mailing list mentions that the list will move unless there's a strong reason not to proceed. An example email to use is listed below. For some mailing lists, we'll have to find the people that can give us a go.

Discourse related steps

  1. In case a new tag or category needs to be created, request this by opening a topic in the Site Feedback category on Discourse
  2. In case of an active mailing list, send an announcement that the Discourse tag has been created and that the mailing list will be archived.
  3. Check for references to the mailing list in git README, README.md, and [project].doap file. Either file an issue or create a merge request to have these updated. For the .doap file, please replace the mailing-list element with either a developer-forum or support-forum element.
  4. Check for references in scripts and have these updated
  5. Check for references in Wiki pages and have these updated

Closing of mailing list steps

  1. Create an issue in our Infrastructure repo for the project that is related to that list.
  • In the issue, please have the sysadmins update the mailing list instructions: "this mailing list has been moved to https://discourse.gnome.org/"

For batch migrations

A batch migration is being discussed in the comments in this issue.

Label for tracking the initiative

9. Initiative: Migrate our mailing lists to our Discourse instance

Text for the initiative to the mailing list owner

(Proposal text)

Hello NAME_OF_PERSON,

I'm writing to you as I think you're the owner of the mailing list MAILING_LIST_NAME.

We've set up https://discourse.gnome.org a year and a half ago, as part of an attempt at making the GTK mailing list more friendly to newcomers. This experiment seems to have proven itself well enough, and has since expanded to other territories as well. As such, we believe it is time to make the same switch for most of our mailing lists. The discussion around the move is held at #18 (closed) .

This means that the MAILING_LIST_NAME mailing list will be archived in favour of continued discussion at GNOME's Discourse instance. No need to worry that this will mess with your workflow: it is still possible to get notifications by email by subscribing to the appropriate tags and/or posts. You can also still reply by e-mail if you prefer. Just like before, it's also possible to receive a general weekly digest.

The proposed closure of this mailing list will be on: Nov 29th, 2020 (or earlier if acceptable by you)

As a subscriber of this mailing list please create an account on https://discourse.gnome.org/. It's unfortunately not possible to automatically migrate the existing subscribers to Discourse. In case you wonder what will happen to the current mailing list after the closure date: the archives will remain public though you won't be able to subscribe or send emails to the current list.

For MAILING_LIST_NAME the new discussions would take place in the NAME_OF_CATEGORY category on Discourse using the (to be created) 'NAME_OF_DISCOURSE_TAG' tag.

For further information on Discourse, please see the following topics:

Do you agree with moving the list over to Discourse?

On behalf of the Discourse migration volunteers.

Cheers, YOUR_NAME

Text for the initiative issue in mailing lists

(Proposal text)

Dear subscribers,

Please cc me on replies at EMAIL_ADDRESS.

We've set up https://discourse.gnome.org a year and a half ago, as part of an attempt at making the GTK mailing list more friendly to newcomers. This experiment seems to have proven itself well enough, and has since expanded to other territories as well. As such, we believe it is time to make the same switch for most of our mailing lists.

This means that this mailing list will be archived in favour of continued discussion at GNOME's Discourse instance. No need to worry that this will mess with your workflow: it is still possible to get notifications by email by subscribing to the appropriate tags and/or posts. You can also still reply by e-mail if you prefer. Just like before, it's also possible to receive a general weekly digest.

The proposed closure of this mailing list will be on: Nov 29th, 2020

As a subscriber of this mailing list please create an account on https://discourse.gnome.org/. It's unfortunately not possible to automatically migrate the existing subscribers to Discourse. In case you wonder what will happen to the current mailing list after the closure date: the archives will remain public though you won't be able to subscribe or send emails to the current list.

For MAILING_LIST_NAME the new discussions would take place in the NAME_OF_CATEGORY category on Discourse using the 'NAME_OF_DISCOURSE_TAG' tag.

For further information on Discourse, please see the following topics:

Finally, feel welcome to say hi by introducing yourself over at https://discourse.gnome.org/t/say-hello-thread/ !

On behalf of the Discourse migration volunteers.

Cheers, YOUR_NAME

List of current mailing lists

I copied the list of existing mailing lists and kind of tried to categorize them. Not safe from possible errors.

Project specific

Possible new location: Desktop for user focussed mailing lists

Platform-like lists

Things like libraries, etc. Anything that isn't graphical. Possible new location: Platform

Language binding related

Possible new location: Platform/Language bindings category with a tag per language?

i18n, Language/Country-specific

Possible new location: International category with a category per international community. Alternatively, close the list in favour of the Translation team section on Gitlab

General / discussion

Community/Outreach

Possible new location: Community category. Plus a (to be created) Events category?

Other

How can I help

Ideally, those that maintain one of these mailing lists can request the archival themselves.

Feedback received

Edited by Jonathan Matthew
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