Consolidating the MDN public mailing lists (part 2: implementation)

[Janet Swisher]

I've heard only affirmations and suggestions for this proposal, so I
think we should proceed with it.

The next issue is how to implement it. I'll list some options below. I'm
looking for your ranked preferences, as well as options, pros, or cons
that I've missed.

Before diving into that, I should point out that the existing things we
have been calling "mailing lists" are actually Mozilla forums
<https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/forums/>, which means they can be
accessed in 3 ways: (1) a Mailman-based mailing list; (2) a web-based
Google group (which can also be subscribed via email); or (3) a
newsgroup via NNTP. Posts are gatewayed between the three access points,
although posting via web or NNTP can be problematic if you're not also
subscribed to the mailman list. The Google group provides the archive of
discussions. Because of NNTP restrictions, they also cannot be renamed;
you have to create a new forum if you want a new name. This is why
dev-mdc (also known as mozilla.dev.mdc) was not renamed a long time ago.

There are several implementation options that I see for a consolidated
discussion thingie:

A. Shut down dev-mdc and dev-mdn and use m...@lists.mozilla.org for all
discussions.

Pros: Simplest option, least disruption to existing personal workflows.

Cons: Retains the "Mozilla forum" structure, which can be fragile,
as well as confusing to new users.

B. Create a new list with Mailman (only).

Pros: Gets rid of fragile and confusing implementation structure.

Cons: Mailman-based message archives are difficult to search.
(Mozilla is still using Mailman v2, which uses pipermail for archiving.)

C. Create a new Google group (only).

Pros: Gets rid of fragile and confusing implementation structure.
Supports both web and email access. Top-notch archive search implementation.

Cons: Based entirely on third-party infrastructure; not possible to
have a mozilla domain in the address.

D. Create an MDN category on Mozilla's Discourse forum
<https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/>.

Pros: Web-based platform specifically designed for online
discussions, with new email-interaction features funded by MOSS
<https://meta.discourse.org/t/moss-roadmap-mailing-lists/36432>. More
accessible to casual contributors than mailing lists. Moz Participation
Systems team is willing to invest in supporting a transition from
mailing lists to Discourse
<https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/use-discourse-as-a-replacement-for-mailing-lists/12757/9>.


Cons: Biggest disruption of existing workflows. May not have 100%
replacement of mailing list features used by this community right away.




BTW, Sebastian asked about locale-specific lists, and mdn-services. I
agree that these are no longer used or maintained. I will reach out to
the admins of those lists, if they are reachable, about closing them; if
they're not reachable, I'll work with Mozilla IT to see if they can be
shut down. (It may not be possible to remove the Google groups, so those
may continue to fill up with spam.)

--

Janet Swisher <mailto:jREMOVE...@mozilla.com>
Mozilla Developer Network <https://developer.mozilla.org>
Community Strategist

[Janet Swisher]

Thanks, Xue Fuqiao. I did not realize that Google Groups are blocked in
China. That's a very strong reason against using them.


On 1/11/17 21:33, Xue Fuqiao wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 8:12 AM, Janet Swisher <jswi...@mozilla.com> wrote:
>> If you have an opinion that you haven't expressed, please speak up. If you
>> don't say something now, you have no basis for complaining later :-)
> I don't have very strong opinions on the implementation of the new
> "mailing list", but here's my personal preference:
>
> 1. D; 2. B; 3. A; 4. C
>
> Discourse is my first choice because it is Simple(TM). It's Web-based
> and has a clean UI, besides, it has email-interaction features. IMHO
> the @name feature is better than plain 'Cc:'. Sharing images is also
> simpler, since the current mailing list software (option A) strips off
> attachments.
>
> I lean towards option B than A and C, because I have trouble accessing
> Google Groups (it's blocked in China). I don't know if the current
> implementation (A) provides a Pipermail interface. If so, I'm OK with
> both B and A.
>
> BTW, I don't know which option is better at spam protection.

[Janet Swisher]

We're up to 8 opinions, including mine (D, A, B, not C). I just realized
that I didn't cc the dev-mdn or mdn lists on my earlier follow-up. If
anyone on those lists is not reading dev-mdc, and has an opinion, please
speak up.

To tally the opinions, I treated them as each having 10 points to vote
with. A full preference vote would be distributed 4, 3, 2, 1. In cases
where an opinion was "anything but X", or didn't mention all the
options, I got creative :-)

For transparency, my tally is here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dh9Z4xVUqxRAzA98LYQWslFOjPueRtYFiAH6fcEdcfo/edit#gid=0
(I can send an export of this to anyone who can't see it and wants one.)

The top counts are nearly equally split (within the margin of my
creativity) between A and D. Option A was nobody's top choice, but D was
strongly opposed by one person.

Given that, I'm inclined to go with option A, as the least radical
change. It has the disadvantage that the archives are still in a Google
group, and therefore inaccessible in China, but that is at least no
worse than the situation today. If we did D, we would have to do the
work of shutting down the other lists anyway, so we could do D later if
there were a shift in opinion.

Other votes? Other reactions?

I'm interested in looking for an opportunity to experiment with
Discourse, even if we don't shift these discussions there. However, just
creating an MDN category in Discourse is not enough; people need to have
a reason to discuss things there, or the experiment will fail. If you
have an idea for an opportunity, please let me know.

[Eric Shepherd]

I just realized I’m probably the “anything but D”, which isn’t quite accurate, so here’s my more formal vote:

1. A.
2. B.
3. D.
4. C.

> On Jan 24, 2017, at 2:40 PM, Janet Swisher <jswi...@mozilla.com> wrote:
>
> We're up to 8 opinions, including mine (D, A, B, not C). I just realized that I didn't cc the dev-mdn or mdn lists on my earlier follow-up. If anyone on those lists is not reading dev-mdc, and has an opinion, please speak up.

Eric Shepherd
Senior Technical Writer
Mozilla Developer Network <https://developer.mozilla.org/>
Blog: http://www.bitstampede.com/
<http://www.bitstampede.com/>Twitter: http://twitter.com/sheppy <http://twitter.com/sheppy>

[Janet Swisher]

Thanks for everyone's input into this conversation, and sorry for my
slow responses.

The most recent responses have shifted the vote more towards Discourse
(option D), with one-"discussion forum" (option A) as the second choice,
with options B and C trailing far behind.

I will look into what is technically required for moving from our
current mailing lists to Discourse. Henrik Mitsch from the Participation
Systems team has offered to help with this transition. Realistically, we
probably won't take much action before Q2, because we don't have any Key
Results for Q1 related to mailing lists; however, we can make sure a KR
about Discourse is defined for Q2.


On 1/24/17 15:53, David Ross wrote:
> D, A, B, #neverC
>
> Discourse I've found great to get a daily overview. Took a little bit of getting used to. Forum format encourages discussion. However can at times feel like issues become siloed and shoved to appropriate section. It still could be greatly improved but best in house tool I've yet been exposed to. I'd imagine notifications would soon become exhaustive for staff? Testing would identify things such as this.
>
> Switching to the one list works for me too. Seems the most obvious quick fix. Creating a new one seems unnecessary but I'm a relatively light contributor so not appreciative of finer grained workflow.
>
> I'm so not a fan of Google groups. This to me would be a bad strategy for many reasons. Imho Discourse does the job betterer.

>
> On 24 January 2017 19:40:06 GMT+00:00, Janet Swisher <jswi...@mozilla.com> wrote:
>> We're up to 8 opinions, including mine (D, A, B, not C). I just
>> realized
>> that I didn't cc the dev-mdn or mdn lists on my earlier follow-up. If
>> anyone on those lists is not reading dev-mdc, and has an opinion,
>> please
>> speak up.
>>

>> _______________________________________________
>> mdn mailing list
>> m...@lists.mozilla.org
>> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/mdn