Should I just shut mailman off? (lojban.org infra question)

Robin Lee Powell

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Sep 13, 2021, 9:44:54 PM9/13/21

to llg-...@lojban.org, llg-m...@lojban.org, loj...@lojban.org, pres...@lojban.org, v...@lojban.org, secr...@lojban.org, trea...@lojban.org, la gleki, loj...@googlegroups.com

I'm working very hard right now to stop being a bus-factor=1 Lojban
sysadmin (in case that makes no sense:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor#Definition ). I have been
*very* actively working on updating and containerizing all the
lojban.org infrastructure, with the end goal of making a series of
videos that would let anyone with a master password manage any of
the Lojban infrastructure I run, even in the event of my house
exploding.

A thing that is taking a surprising amount of effort is mailman,
which is the mailing list management software I run for y'all. This
is used for the following lists:

Kabal
Lojban-fr
llg-board
Llg-members
Lojban-de
Lojban-es
Lojban-fr

Note that this does *not* include the two major public lists,
https://groups.google.com/g/bpfk-list and https://groups.google.com/g/lojban

The only ones that have had any significant traffic in a long time
are llg-board and llg-members.

None have received any traffic of consequence since 2019, and it
looks like the board and members stuff is now happening on
mattermost.

It would be *significantly* easier for me to just turn the whole
thing off, leaving read-only archives.

Having said that, I *do* have new mailman infrastructure working, so
I could leave it running.

What do people think the right move is here?

Robin Lee Powell

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Sep 14, 2021, 12:19:34 AM9/14/21

to llg-...@lojban.org, llg-m...@lojban.org, loj...@lojban.org, pres...@lojban.org, v...@lojban.org, secr...@lojban.org, trea...@lojban.org, la gleki, loj...@googlegroups.com

[This didn't get sent to llg-...@lojban.org and
llg-m...@lojban.org last time, so re-sending, sorry.]

Gleki Arxokuna

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Sep 14, 2021, 3:17:49 AM9/14/21

to Robin Lee Powell, llg-...@lojban.org, llg-m...@lojban.org, loj...@lojban.org, pres...@lojban.org, v...@lojban.org, secr...@lojban.org, trea...@lojban.org, loj...@googlegroups.com

Those mailing lists will still have archives retained at mail.lojban.org or something, right?

Robin Powell

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Sep 14, 2021, 10:01:22 AM9/14/21

to Gleki Arxokuna, llg-...@lojban.org, llg-m...@lojban.org, loj...@lojban.org, pres...@lojban.org, v...@lojban.org, secr...@lojban.org, trea...@lojban.org, loj...@googlegroups.com

Yes, of course.

Mike S.

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Sep 14, 2021, 11:01:19 AM9/14/21

to loj...@googlegroups.com

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 9:44 PM Robin Lee Powell <robinle...@gmail.com> wrote:

A thing that is taking a surprising amount of effort is mailman,

[...]

None have received any traffic of consequence since 2019,

[...]

It would be *significantly* easier for me to just turn the whole
thing off, leaving read-only archives.

My two cents FWIW is to leave the main Google email list running, but to turn off Mailman and make the archives available for posterity as you mention. No sense in continuing this extra complex unused thing exactly when you are trying to organize and document how to maintain the infrastructure.

(By the way, I wanted to say thank you for closing the Vlasisku whitespace issue.)