Mailman will shut down soon: this list will move

[Dirk Steinmetz (rsjtdrjgfuzkfg)]

Hi *,

Mozilla decided to shut down the Mailman instance most Thunderbird
mailing lists are hosted on by the end of this month.

This means that we need to find an alternative *fast*. The council is
currently discussing this, but I wanted to give the public an option to
weigh in.

Regarding public lists, there are three primary proposals:
1. Move away from Mozilla to Topicbox
2. Join Mozilla in moving to Google Groups
3. Self-host (not sure how feasible in the time frame)

Currently, there is some fundamental opposition to Google Groups, as
well as some fundamental opposition to self-hosting. The preferred
option thus seems to be Topicbox so far.

It is not yet clear how the migration will work; if you need to
re-subscribe we will post something before mailman is shut down.

Kind regards,
Dirk
_______________________________________________
tb-planning mailing list
tb-pl...@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning

[Michael Peddemors]

I get the opposition to Google Groups.. not interested in joining one..
And I suspect it will reduce engagement.

Starting a confirmed double in mailing list should NOT take that much
effort for self hosted.

Welcome to reach out to me offlist for some ideas..

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[Magnus Melin]

The other, remaining mozilla.org mailing lists are being converted over this weekend, after which mailman will be decommissioned.

Tentative plan:

Public facing lists; move to topicbox to go together with our other lists:

• tb-planning
• tb-enterprise
• tb-support-crew
• thunderbird-testers
• support-thunderbird

Semi-private lists; move to private google groups (since addresses should kept, and other reasons):

• tb-election
• thunderbird-drivers

Shut down:

• dev-apps-thunderbird
  
• maildev

 -Magnus

[Magnus Melin]

The other, remaining mozilla.org mailing lists are being converted over this weekend, after which mailman will be decommissioned.

Tentative plan:

Public facing lists; move to topicbox to go together with our other lists:

• tb-planning
• tb-enterprise
• tb-support-crew
• thunderbird-testers
• support-thunderbird

Semi-private lists; move to private google groups (since addresses should kept, and other reasons):

• tb-election
• thunderbird-drivers

Shut down:

• dev-apps-thunderbird
  
• maildev

 -Magnus

On 2021-03-23 19:21, Dirk Steinmetz (rsjtdrjgfuzkfg) wrote:

[Andreas Wagner]

An alternative could be discourse. It can be set up to behave like a traditional mailing-list entirely for people who don't like to use the webinterface. No need to use the website at all (after initial setup).

Discourse even supports private groups and thus private mailing-lists.

Andreas

[Wayne Mery]

My feedback I think aligns with Magnus' response.  Perhaps the following will help explain, at least from my perspective

On 3/23/21 1:21 PM, Dirk Steinmetz (rsjtdrjgfuzkfg) wrote:

Hi *,

Mozilla decided to shut down the Mailman instance most Thunderbird mailing lists are hosted on by the end of this month.

This means that we need to find an alternative *fast*. The council is currently discussing this, but I wanted to give the public an option to weigh in.

Regarding public lists, there are three primary proposals:
1. Move away from Mozilla to Topicbox

For multiple reasons, IMO this is where our open/public facing lists should going.  Two of those multiple reasons is we should be working toward streamlining back room operations and moderation, and standardizing what we offer to users.  Going with something else either says we don't care about those issues, or that we should be working to kill topicbox.  In short, I'm not really sure why there is even a question.  (Sorry if that sounds opinionated.)

If it is not possible because of time constraints to go directly to topicbox, then use Google Groups as a temporary bridge - but #3 is an non-starter IMO.

2. Join Mozilla in moving to Google Groups

Not preferred (but should be fine for other lists which are used for internal / non-public purposes).  And fwiw, as far as I know none of the moderators have suggested this as a preferred choice.

3. Self-host (not sure how feasible in the time frame)

As one of the moderators for most lists, this is a non-starter. Mailman and things like it are dinosaurs.  (Even though I have a fondness for it, it's dead simple and familiar to me - it has its problems.)

Discourse has also been mentioned in a follow up post.  Thunderbird does have a presence there primarily as a support venue, at  https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/thunderbird/ etc.  However, in some ways it doesn't measure up to topicbox, and for us it never gained critical mass in traffic.  But more importantly, wherever possible our user facing properties should be Thunderbird branded without (or with less) hint of Mozilla.  (Nothing against Mozilla - but we need to distinguish ourselves.)

Hope that helps.

[The Wanderer]

On 2021-03-23 at 18:28, Andreas Wagner wrote:

> An alternative could be discourse. It can be set up to behave like a
> traditional mailing-list entirely for people who don't like to use
> the webinterface. No need to use the website at all (after initial
> setup). Discourse even supports private groups and thus private
> mailing-lists.

I would object to this.

One of the other Mozilla-related mailing lists to which I subscribe,
dev-addons, shut down to move to Discourse relatively recently. Despite
a continuing and active interest in the subject, and an expectation of
needing to engage on the subject of addon development at some point in
the future, I did not follow it.

The fact that one can interact with a Web-based forum (as I understand
Discourse primarily to be) via E-mail does not obviate its
disadvantages. Most prominently, the forms of quoting which are
appropriate in E-mail are frequently inappropriate in Web-based forums,
and the forms of quoting which are appropriate in Web-based forums are
generally inappropriate in E-mail.

Any system which is built with the expectation that at least some people
will interact with it via a Web interface is basically guaranteed to
result in quoting patterns which will not work well with E-mail. Since
it's hard enough to get people to use reasonable quoting patterns in
E-mail to begin with (as witness the fact that even here, on a
Thunderbird-related mailing list, people frequently top-post), I have no
desire to engage with any such system, and I would object to any attempt
to migrate an E-mail-centric system to one.

Additionally, if any more of a Web-based "setup" step were to be
required than is required for subscribing to a mailman-based list - and,
in particular, if that setup step were to require JavaScript (as modern
systems, such as I understand Discourse to be, all too frequently do) -
then I would not be amenable to performing that step.


When something like this was discussed (I think here) a while ago,
Topicbox seemed to be the most promising option suggested, and (I think)
I did not identify anything about it which would seem like a blocker for
me. I was glad to read that it seemed to be the most likely preferred
option in this hurry-to-migrate scenario as well.

--
The Wanderer

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw

[Ben Bucksch]

Am 23.03.21 um 18:21 schrieb Dirk Steinmetz (rsjtdrjgfuzkfg):

> The preferred option thus seems to be Topicbox so far.

+1

We already use that for at least 2 Thunderbird lists.

Please be sure to also re-create the tb-enterprise list. If you could
migrate the subscriber list, at least that all of them will get an
automatic invitiation and just need to reply "yes", that would help
keeping the community together.

Ben

[Ben Bucksch]

Am 23.03.21 um 21:23 schrieb Magnus Melin:

Public facing lists; move to topicbox to go together with our other lists:

• tb-planning
• tb-enterprise
• tb-support-crew
• thunderbird-testers
• support-thunderbird

+1

Good idea.

Semi-private lists; move to private google groups (since addresses should kept, and other reasons):

• tb-election
• thunderbird-drivers

Objection here. tb-election is not a private list, nor a semi-private list, but for all active community members. Moving that to Google Groups would mean voter exclusion. You would exclude exactly those community members that want privacy and decentralization.

I do not want to ever log in to Google, because I don't want Google to connect my IP address with my real world name or email address. I know for a fact that they save and track the IP address, even if I don't have a Google account.

• maildev

We need maildev to communicate with other developers. We want to be an open project, not one where only employees decide.

[Andrei Hajdukewycz]

Last time I tried to make Discourse behave as a mailing list it was a total failure. There was no way to
only receive mails from a particular sub-category eg Thunderbird->Add-ons.

In any case, I don't think we want a dependency on a Mozilla service(/admin staff), nor do we want to
bury Thunderbird existing discussion groups in the already long list of Discourse ones, which hurts
discoverability for new users.

[Andrei Hajdukewycz]

On 3/23/2021 10:21 AM, Dirk Steinmetz (rsjtdrjgfuzkfg) wrote:
> Hi *,
>
> Mozilla decided to shut down the Mailman instance most Thunderbird
> mailing lists are hosted on by the end of this month.
>
> This means that we need to find an alternative *fast*. The council is
> currently discussing this, but I wanted to give the public an option
> to weigh in.
>
> Regarding public lists, there are three primary proposals:
> 1. Move away from Mozilla to Topicbox
> 2. Join Mozilla in moving to Google Groups
> 3. Self-host (not sure how feasible in the time frame)
>
> Currently, there is some fundamental opposition to Google Groups, as
> well as some fundamental opposition to self-hosting. The preferred
> option thus seems to be Topicbox so far.
>
> It is not yet clear how the migration will work; if you need to
> re-subscribe we will post something before mailman is shut down.

I just want to add some information here, as this post is missing some
things:

1) Moving to Topicbox would be relatively seamless, subscriber lists
will be added there. Subscribers will of course receive a message about this
migration, allowing them the opportunity to opt-out/unsubscribe at that
point if they wish. No manual re-subscription will be necessary.
Lists will be <x>@discuss.thunderbird.net

2) Self-hosting makes little sense, as it will cost us time/money and
Topicbox currently does not, plus we are already successfully using it
for several groups.

[Wayne Mery]

On 3/23/21 4:23 PM, Magnus Melin wrote:

Semi-private lists; move to private google groups (since addresses should kept, and other reasons):

• tb-election
• thunderbird-drivers

+1 to drivers

Not sure I agree with GG.

I'm not sure what "addresses should be kept, and other reasons".

Given that tb-election isn't needed immediately, why not take time toward making it work within topicbox?

If I understand your first point about ""addresses should be kept", yes the current elections list is persistent in the sense that it doesn't change much from year to year, but we have the list so we could populate topicbox, or at worse just email everyone to inform them to make their own subscription.  So unless I am missing something, "keeping addresses" does not seem to me a compelling reason.

Please elaborate on other reasons with respect to elections list.

[Andrei Hajdukewycz]

On 3/23/2021 5:23 PM, Wayne Mery wrote:

On 3/23/21 4:23 PM, Magnus Melin wrote:

Semi-private lists; move to private google groups (since addresses should kept, and other reasons):

• tb-election
• thunderbird-drivers

Please elaborate on other reasons with respect to elections list.

I had suggested this initially but I don't have particularly strong feelings about it. The elections, as far
as I understand, are administered by Mozilla as a third party. So it made sense for me to keep the
elections list on a Mozilla-preferred platform with @mozilla.org as the domain.

If the Council wants it on Topicbox and Mozilla doesn't care, then that's also fine I think.

[Wayne Mery]

On 3/23/21 9:30 PM, Andrei Hajdukewycz wrote:

On 3/23/2021 5:23 PM, Wayne Mery wrote:

On 3/23/21 4:23 PM, Magnus Melin wrote:

Semi-private lists; move to private google groups (since addresses should kept, and other reasons):

• tb-election
• thunderbird-drivers

Please elaborate on other reasons with respect to elections list.

I had suggested this initially but I don't have particularly strong feelings about it. The elections, as far
as I understand, are administered by Mozilla as a third party. So it made sense for me to keep the
elections list on a Mozilla-preferred platform with @mozilla.org as the domain.

This is incorrect. The elections process, including the preparations for voting, is organized and administered by Thunderbird.  We self-govern.

For the sake of transparency, we (emphasis on we) select a third party respected in the open source community to be involved to assure a fair process and do the vote counting.  But that person does not organize or "run" the elections period. There is no requirement for this to be a Mozilla affiliated person. In fact, the last person to do so was not a Mozilla employee. 

[Andrei Hajdukewycz]

OK, well in that case I don't see any reason not to put it on Topicbox as well.

[Juergen Fenn]

Am 24.03.21 um 01:13 Uhr schrieb Andrei Hajdukewycz:

>
> 1) Moving to Topicbox would be relatively seamless, subscriber lists
> will be added there. Subscribers will of course receive a message about
> this
> migration, allowing them the opportunity to opt-out/unsubscribe at that
> point if they wish. No manual re-subscription will be necessary.
> Lists will be <x>@discuss.thunderbird.net

Which would be a breach of data protection law which always requires an
opt-in, not an opt-out.

No user has ever consented to transferring its personal data to Topicbox.

Regards,
Jürgen.

[alta88]

On 24/03/2021 01.53, Juergen Fenn wrote:
>
>
> Am 24.03.21 um 01:13 Uhr schrieb Andrei Hajdukewycz:
>> 1) Moving to Topicbox would be relatively seamless, subscriber lists
>> will be added there. Subscribers will of course receive a message about
>> this
>> migration, allowing them the opportunity to opt-out/unsubscribe at that
>> point if they wish. No manual re-subscription will be necessary.
>> Lists will be <x>@discuss.thunderbird.net
>
> Which would be a breach of data protection law which always requires an
> opt-in, not an opt-out.
>
> No user has ever consented to transferring its personal data to Topicbox.

Correct, transferring the subscriber list to another entity without
permission would be an unacceptable violation. The sole recourse is to
announce the termination of this list and to publish instructions on
subscribing to the new list.

The previously mentioned objection to google (groups or docs) is
seconded. Some will choose to not participate at all if there is
reliance on it.

[neandr]

Maybe some don't want to have TB lists under control of Microsoft!? No Google, no Microsoft, ...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-23/microsoft-said-to-be-in-talks-to-buy-discord-for-more-than-10b

[Patrick Cloke]

On 3/23/21 7:38 PM, Ben Bucksch wrote:

Am 23.03.21 um 21:23 schrieb Magnus Melin:

Semi-private lists; move to private google groups (since addresses should kept, and other reasons):

• tb-election
• thunderbird-drivers

Objection here. tb-election is not a private list, nor a semi-private list, but for all active community members. Moving that to Google Groups would mean voter exclusion. You would exclude exactly those community members that want privacy and decentralization.

I think that what was meant by a "private list" is that it is invite-only. I forget whether the archives are public or not though. I think that your complain is valid, just wanted to point out that I don't think that's what was meant by "private".

• maildev

We need maildev to communicate with other developers. We want to be an open project, not one where only employees decide.

I'm not sure where you got from closing maildev to only letting employees making decisions. The rationale for removing maildev was that it is a list that isn't really used any the traffic from it can be on tb-planning.

--Patrick

[Chris Ilias]

Magnus Melin wrote on 2021-03-23 4:23 PM:
> The other, remaining mozilla.org mailing lists are being converted over
> this weekend, after which mailman will be decommissioned.
>
> Tentative plan:
>
> Public facing lists; move to topicbox to go together with our other lists:
>

<snip>
> * support-thunderbird

Support-thunderbird subscribers can be pointed to the forum at
support.mozilla.org. Most are not really mailing list users, so I don't
see a need to create a replacement, especially a new web-forum.

The breakdown over the past year looks like this:
3796 Total messages posted
3303 via NNTP
101 via Google
392 via mailman (91 different people)

[Walter L Schwartz]

Discord owns Topicbox?

[Patrick Cloke]

Topicbox is owned by Fastmail.

I assume neandr was replying to one of the other suggestions in the thread about using Discourse, which is separate from Discord. So not sure of the relevance.

--Patrick

[Patrick Cloke]

I seem to have gotten this working OK on a different Discourse instance by choosing the notification icon and choosing "Watching" for the sub-category. It seems to work OK, but I haven't verified I got every email.

Maybe this isn't quite the same setup though as what Mozilla is using. :)

Anyway, I agree that I don't think Discourse is the proper solution, just hoping to solve your problem!

--Patrick

[ISHIKAWA,chiaki]

Hi,

I have a question re tb-planning.

On 2021/03/25 0:52, Patrick Cloke wrote:
>
>
> On 3/23/21 7:38 PM, Ben Bucksch wrote:
>> Am 23.03.21 um 21:23 schrieb Magnus Melin:
>>
>>>

[ omission ]
>>
>>> * maildev

>>>
>> We need maildev to communicate with other developers. We want to be
>> an open project, not one where only employees decide.
>>
> I'm not sure where you got from closing maildev to only letting
> employees making decisions. The rationale for removing maildev was
> that it is a list that isn't really used any the traffic from it can
> be on tb-planning.
>
> --Patrick
>

So this means we can post technical question (rather than high-level
policy discussions ) to tb-planning.

There will be only one mailing list left for tech discussion of TB after
the transition if I am not mistaken, and so tb-planning will be the only
recourse.

TIA

Chiaki

[Magnus Melin]

On 2021-03-25 08:19, ISHIKAWA,chiaki wrote:
> So this means we can post technical question (rather than high-level
> policy discussions ) to tb-planning.
>
> There will be only one mailing list left for tech discussion of TB
> after the transition if I am not mistaken, and so tb-planning will be
> the only recourse.

maildev was never a forum for technical *questions*. It was supposed to
be a more moderated tb-planning... but that didn't quite work out.

Where to send a question would depend on what the discussion is about. 
If there's a targeted mailing list on our topicbox, post it there. If
it's a bug/action item, send it to bugzilla in an appropriate component
- I'd expect this is the right answer most of the times. tb-planning
would be the catch-all for things that fall between; use an appropriate
subject so uninterested parties can ignore it.

 -Magnus

[Wayne Mery]

On 3/25/21 4:49 AM, Magnus Melin wrote:

On 2021-03-25 08:19, ISHIKAWA,chiaki wrote:

So this means we can post technical question (rather than high-level policy discussions ) to tb-planning.

There will be only one mailing list left for tech discussion of TB after the transition if I am not mistaken, and so tb-planning will be the only recourse.

maildev was never a forum for technical *questions*. It was supposed to be a more moderated tb-planning... but that didn't quite work out.

Where to send a question would depend on what the discussion is about.  If there's a targeted mailing list on our topicbox, post it there. If it's a bug/action item, send it to bugzilla in an appropriate component - I'd expect this is the right answer most of the times. tb-planning would be the catch-all for things that fall between; use an appropriate subject so uninterested parties can ignore it.

 -Magnus

Right, the original purpose [1] was narrowly scoped to issues that involved "engineering council".  The EC never gained steam, so the list (d)evolved into a programming QA, which is sort of what mdat (mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird) newsgroup and it's gatewayed email list dev-apps-thunderbird is about. 

If BOTH maildev and dev-apps-thunderbird go away, there needs to be a corresponding replacement in topicbox that is not tb-planning.

[1] maildev's new subscriber message states the purpose as originally proposed "... this list is intended as the primary discussion forum for the Thunderbird Engineering Council. Although the content of these discussions is public, posting to this list is in most cases restricted to active Thunderbird and Mozilla developers."

[ISHIKAWA,chiaki]

dev-builds mailing list will be gone, too.
1. So, there won't be a mailing list to learn, say, Tree Closing Window
announcement (?)
2. Or for that matter, discussion of |mach| command issues.

1 will be  problematic.

2 can be handled with specific subject/title to a mailing list if
necessary [not sure what that mailing list would be, though.] , I suppose.

Looking at the past postings, dev-builds is one of the few mailing lists
where the newbie potential future TB developer would pose questions
(aside from the dev-apps-thunderbird list). A mailing list would be
needed. Or, I think the participation from general programming community
to TB development/maintenance will plunge until such a mailing list
would be created.

I doubt if such a party would want to post a mundane question related to
build to tb-planning substitute. I am speaking this from my experience
8-10 years ago.

Is there a comprehensive list of which mailing lists will be moved under
what name, and which ones will be deleted for good?
I mean including all the mozilla lists such as firefox's.

This is a very important information for outside contributors.

Chiaki

[The Wanderer]

On 2021-03-25 at 04:49, Magnus Melin wrote:

> On 2021-03-25 08:19, ISHIKAWA,chiaki wrote:
>
>> So this means we can post technical question (rather than
>> high-level policy discussions ) to tb-planning.
>>
>> There will be only one mailing list left for tech discussion of TB
>> after the transition if I am not mistaken, and so tb-planning will
>> be the only recourse.
>
> maildev was never a forum for technical *questions*. It was supposed
> to be a more moderated tb-planning... but that didn't quite work
> out.
>
> Where to send a question would depend on what the discussion is
> about. If there's a targeted mailing list on our topicbox, post it
> there. If it's a bug/action item, send it to bugzilla in an
> appropriate component - I'd expect this is the right answer most of
> the times. tb-planning would be the catch-all for things that fall
> between; use an appropriate subject so uninterested parties can
> ignore it.

So in other words, Thunderbird development / etc. discussion would
continue to be badly fragmented (albeit not so much as before, and
nowhere near as badly as the equivalent for Mozilla seems to be), and
there would continue to be no place to go to simply observe more-or-less
all development discussion that takes place.

This discussion-space fragmentation, and in particular the lack of a
place to just passively observe and learn, has been and remains the
biggest obstacle to my coming to be able to contribute to development
myself - both of Thunderbird and, most likely, of Firefox.

The way I go about easing in towards contributing to an open-source
project in more than just a single-issue single-patch "scratch my own
itch" type of way is to subscribe to the relevant mailing list(s) and/or
other discussion forums, and then lurk and watch - observing the
discussions that take place, learning the culture and the discussion and
development practices by that observation, and looking for places where
I think I could usefully contribute a suggestion or comment. If that
latter pans out, then I eventually contribute a patch for something, and
that can repeat and grow until I'm making regular contributions on some
level.

This subscribe-and-lurk approach is also how I go about watching a
project to follow its development and see what's being done, and where
it might be going, so that I'm not surprised by changes when they get
released (or even just committed). It has been effective for me in this
regard with multiple projects over the years, ranging from window
managers to the Linux kernel, although its effectiveness in terms of
becoming a contributor to development has been admittedly less.

With the Mozilla projects, there does not seem to be - and may even
never have been - any place to subscribe and watch in this way. As best
I can tell, in order to observe even a meaningful fraction of actual
development discussion in this way, I would have to subscribe to *the
entirety of Bugzilla*, or at least the Thunderbird-related components
thereof - every single bug, including the ones that haven't been filed
yet. That's ludicrously impractical, and is prohibitive in practice.
(Even that would only cover the aspects of discussion which are
sufficiently technical to be appropriate to discuss in bug reports; on
the Mozilla side especially, other aspects of discussion seem to be so
badly split that I genuinely have no idea where to look to see them.)

I have been lurking on Mozilla-related mailing lists which *should* be
development-discussion-related for years, I think literally over a
decade in some cases, and I feel no closer to having seen enough
development discussion to be able to chime in with possible
contributions than when I started.

Is there anything I'm missing that would make doing something like this
more practical? If not, how exactly are uninvolved third parties
supposed to become acquainted with the Mozilla development practices
prior to engaging, in order to be able to engage usefully and
comfortably, or even just in order to be able to understand the state of
development as it progresses? For that matter, how do actual
Mozilla-projects-related developers engage with discussion like this,
other than subscribing to specific Bugzilla components and/or waiting to
be pinged for input on specific bugs?

[neandr]

Sorry ..

On 24.03.21 17:45, Patrick Cloke wrote:

Topicbox is owned by Fastmail.

I assume neandr was replying to one of the other suggestions in the thread about using Discourse, which is separate from Discord. So not sure of the relevance.

--Patrick

.. my mistake. I confused Discourse and Discord.

Re Topicbox: Following a discussion with multiple threads within a discussion topic is not very well presented. The thread branches/parts are not clearly separated.
But maybe overall the easiest/fastest alternative to mailman

[Magnus Melin]

Trying to summarize the feedback, the plan updated would be:

---

Public facing lists; move to topicbox to go together with our other lists:

• tb-planning
• tb-enterprise
• tb-support-crew
• thunderbird-testers

Semi-private lists; move to private google groups

• thunderbird-drivers

Shut down:

• tb-election (re-recreate it somewhere when the time comes)
  
• dev-apps-thunderbird
  
• support-thunderbird
• maildev

---

 -Magnus

_______________________________________________
tb-planning mailing list
tb-pl...@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning

[Magnus Melin]

Summarizing the feedback, the plan updated would be:

[Magnus Melin]

Oh, and FYI apparently NNTP newsgroups are shutting down altogether (Mozilla wide).

 -Magnus

[Walter L Schwartz]

I was wondering about that.

Is there an announcement about it?

[ISHIKAWA,chiaki]

I am pretty much in agreement with the sentiment The Wanderer wrote.

I have submitted patches to GNU tools, linux kernel drivers and other
few open source projects.

Mozilla FF and TB have been most difficult to get acquainted for a newbie.

The lack of general discussion mailing list seems to hurt.
Maybe it is a size issue. There are so many topics to discuss.
But I think some topics should be discussed in central places instead of
narrowly focused
forum since they affect most of the developer community.

I can't subscribe to all TB bugzilla entries as the Wander mentioned. I
have not thought of that before.

Maybe it is a generational thing. I don't use chat often. Many
developers seem to prefer to use realtime chat. I even see excerpt from
chat dialog in bugzilla comments. Those chat dialog often records
important information not written anywhere. So I know I may be something
from that communication ngle.

It seems mailing lists are not that considered so important in mozilla
culture in comparison to chat?

It is ironic that TB is a mail client (sure it has chat feature, but I
don't use it regularly).
To me chat is obtrusive and, living on the western edge of the Pacific
Ocean may not be quite convenient to chat with majority of developers.

I know there is no silver bulit to solve communication issues, but
I repeat the statement I wrote near the beginning.

"Mozilla FF and TB have been most difficult to get acquainted for a newbie."

Again, I can't pinpoint the reason, but that *IS* the case in contrast to
other open source projects to which I submitted patches since the late
1980s.

One reason is the relative lack of mailing list discussions.
tb-planning has been an exception in that there has been an active
discussion.

In another post, I mentioned unless clearly marked tech mailing list is
created for TB, probably the participation of newbie to TB development
will plunge. It may not be much today. But it will plunge further.  That
is what I fear. Think about it.

Chiaki
Chiaki

_______________________________________________

[ISHIKAWA,chiaki]

I was wrong.
dev-builds was already gone at the end of November or December 2020.
I realize that there is not even archive remaining at
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-builds.

Hmm, archive is often useful, but I wonder what the policy of keeping
the archive of deleted mailing lists.
I have a local copy and in the past I sometimes search through to get a
hint related to the feature I looked for.

Or maybe searching by google may be the best friend. Unbelievably I
could find some things better by Google search than diving into
bugzilla. That was quite a surprise when it happened the first time.

Mailing lists are few life lines that an external occasional patch
contributor can depend.
I bet many contributors were a little put off by the sudden announcement
of the demise of mailing lists.

When I say "demise", I am talking about those mailing lists that are
going to be dropped
and no replacement at topicbox seems to be proposed.

Anyway, I will wait for this opt-in mails from topicbox soon.

Chiaki

> info/tb-planning

[ISHIKAWA,chiaki]

I don't think I saw an announcement about it in the newsgroup.
On the average, the newsgroup had about 6 postings a day. I counted more
than 650 posts since Jan 1, 2021.

I think we should announce the termination,  and probably also encourage
people to subscribe to

    http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php

or something like that.

Unless the announcement is made, we would have something like the
following headings in trade press in the order. Not nice IMHO.

1st heading
Thunderbird has dumped its users: Shutdown of support newsgroups and
mailing lists.

2nd heading
Premature death of Thunderbird announced. : forums.mozillzine is alive
and kicking.

We should preempt the false headings. It's a PR thing.

Chiaki

[Chris Ilias]

ISHIKAWA,chiaki wrote on 2021-03-26 3:58 AM:

> I don't think I saw an announcement about it in the newsgroup.
> On the average, the newsgroup had about 6 postings a day. I counted
> more than 650 posts since Jan 1, 2021.
>
> I think we should announce the termination,  and probably also
> encourage people to subscribe to
>
>     http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php
>
> or something like that.
>
> Unless the announcement is made, we would have something like the
> following headings in trade press in the order. Not nice IMHO.
>
>
> 1st heading
> Thunderbird has dumped its users: Shutdown of support newsgroups and
> mailing lists.
>
> 2nd heading
> Premature death of Thunderbird announced. : forums.mozillzine is alive
> and kicking.
>
> We should preempt the false headings. It's a PR thing.

Hi Chiaki,
I'm the list-owner of support-t...@lists.mozilla.org, and
moderator of the mozilla.support.thunderbird newsgroup. I'll be posting
an announcement in mozilla.support.thunderbird approximately a week
before shutdown (once I know what to say).

I wouldn't worry about PR. We stopped pointing users to the newsgroup
way back in 2009. Users were then pointed to getsatisfaction, and in
2014, users were then pointed to support.mozilla.org. It'll be even less
press than when IRC was shut down. :)

[Wayne Mery]

My previous post to the plan Magnus proposed was incomplete.  The following completes my recommendations...

On 3/23/21 4:23 PM, Magnus Melin wrote:

The other, remaining mozilla.org mailing lists are being converted over this weekend, after which mailman will be decommissioned.

Tentative plan:

Public facing lists; move to topicbox to go together with our other lists:

• tb-planning
• tb-enterprise
• tb-support-crew
• thunderbird-testers

I recommend eliminating thunderbird-testers. As the founder, administrator, and primary user of this group, I'm pretty sure at least half of the 570 subscriptions are spammers.   Instead I recommend put up new groups for beta and daily channel users (who are themselves testers).  And also create an Announcements topic.  The combination of these three new groups can, to some degree, serve as replacement for -testers. 

• support-thunderbird

traffic => SUMO

Semi-private lists; move to private google groups (since addresses should kept, and other reasons):

• tb-election
• thunderbird-drivers

Shut down:

• dev-apps-thunderbird
  
• maildev

Magnus subsquently posted

Where to send a question would depend on what the discussion is about.  If there's a targeted mailing list on our topicbox, post it there. If it's a bug/action item, send it to bugzilla in an appropriate component - I'd expect this is the right answer most of the times. tb-planning would be the catch-all for things that fall between; use an appropriate subject so uninterested parties can ignore it.

Yes, there is some truth to Magnus' idea that some of the postings to dev might be better place in bug reports, etc, but I disagree with "most times".  Also, I've investigated and found there is a significant lack of overlap in the subscriber bases of the dev groups and tb-planning - people on dev groups who are not on tb-planning, and people on planning who are not on dev. 

So IMO the amount of traffic and make up of the subscriber base indicates this traffic and subscriber base shouldn't move to planning, they should stand on their own. Which means creating a new dev group in topicbox to continue supporting the important questions and activity of these developers, and save each respective "group" from the cross chatter.

 -Magnus

On 2021-03-23 19:21, Dirk Steinmetz (rsjtdrjgfuzkfg) wrote:

Hi *,

Mozilla decided to shut down the Mailman instance most Thunderbird mailing lists are hosted on by the end of this month.

This means that we need to find an alternative *fast*. The council is currently discussing this, but I wanted to give the public an option to weigh in.

Regarding public lists, there are three primary proposals:
1. Move away from Mozilla to Topicbox
2. Join Mozilla in moving to Google Groups
3. Self-host (not sure how feasible in the time frame)

Currently, there is some fundamental opposition to Google Groups, as well as some fundamental opposition to self-hosting. The preferred option thus seems to be Topicbox so far.

It is not yet clear how the migration will work; if you need to re-subscribe we will post something before mailman is shut down.

Kind regards,
Dirk

_______________________________________________
tb-planning mailing list
tb-pl...@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning

[ISHIKAWA,chiaki]

I suspect then the people hanging out there are old timers like me.
Then we need to periodically ping the old venue to move the users there
to the newer venue of support from time to time. (Just announce the
transition once and forget about it won't cut it. Not many users would
look at these groups continuously. They look at it from time to time as
the necessity arises, myself included.)

I understand that support.mozilla.org is the support venue when a new TB
user accepts to dive into the support instruction shown on the first screen.

Mozilla or TB as an offshoot from it lacks this overview of information
sources.
For example, I am a bit perplexed at the relation of mozillazine.org to
the rest of TB-related information outlets. (Has there been developer
discussions there?)

linux kernel where I contributed device driver patches many years ago
has such an overview of
activities in the form of linux weekly news (LWN). https://lwn.net (it
is a paid weekly but old issues are freely available.) Anyone could get
pretty good summarized view of what goes on in the kernel world (and
desktop world, etc.). For example, what the future of driver framework
is going.

Even GNU Project in its infancy had periodical news. : one can pretty
much learn what new tools were being developed, what were the status of
various tools, and what were the general goals of various subprojects
and the whole project.

Does firefox and TB have such periodical summary of the project,
especially technological topics in some details?
(No I am not restricting the discussion to future goals. But let's say
topics impacting the whole project such as re-formating of trees or
changing the layout, etc. I think these were mentioned in
dev-apps-thunderbird, but now it is disappearing.  How can TB reach
would-be-developers to tell them about these topics? Where would one
tell them to look for such topics. Look for seemingly important subject
headers in the new tb-planning?)

I know TB is hard pressed for man power resources. But, mozilla and TB
would be wise to spend PR manpower to issue a weekly collection of a
paragraph from module owners what is happening.
But then where should they post it? Lack of general information source
is a problem.
In that case, EVERY relevant information outlet should receive it.

I am afraid there is an impedance mismatch between what external
occasional patch contributors' needs and how and for what what the
information outlet (mailing lists) are created.
I feel that disappearance of generic developer mailing,
dev-apps-thunderbird is an indication of it.

Chiaki

[Matt Harris]

As most of the mailing list issues we see reported in Bugzilla and support relate to groups.io and their web focused in mail links list emails, they also appear to be a market leader in the mailing list space having taken over the yahoo groups mailing lists.  I would actually actively suggest we use the service.  Eat the dog food our general users eat and identify annoyances and bugs early by folks in a position to do something about them. 

Groups.io focus appears to be mailing lists as a mailman replacement whereas Topicbox appears to be a web forum with mailing list capabilities.

Matt

On 24-Mar-21 3:51 AM, Dirk Steinmetz (rsjtdrjgfuzkfg) wrote:

Hi *,

Mozilla decided to shut down the Mailman instance most Thunderbird mailing lists are hosted on by the end of this month.

This means that we need to find an alternative *fast*. The council is currently discussing this, but I wanted to give the public an option to weigh in.

Regarding public lists, there are three primary proposals:
1. Move away from Mozilla to Topicbox
2. Join Mozilla in moving to Google Groups
3. Self-host (not sure how feasible in the time frame)

Currently, there is some fundamental opposition to Google Groups, as well as some fundamental opposition to self-hosting. The preferred option thus seems to be Topicbox so far.

It is not yet clear how the migration will work; if you need to re-subscribe we will post something before mailman is shut down.

Kind regards,
Dirk

[Andrei Hajdukewycz]

On 3/26/2021 4:08 PM, ISHIKAWA,chiaki wrote:
> For example, I am a bit perplexed at the relation of mozillazine.org
> to the rest of TB-related information outlets. (Has there been
> developer discussions there?)

Mozillazine is a third party run site, it's never had any official
connection to Thunderbird or even any part of Mozilla as far as I know.

[David Boles]

So tell me. Does anyone have a real plan here or will the debate about'
what do we do???" go on until the plug is pulled and the only thing that
really happens will be the death of the message system??

--

David

[Juergen Fenn]

Am 25.03.21 um 22:13 Uhr schrieb Magnus Melin:

> Oh, and FYI apparently NNTP newsgroups are shutting down altogether
> (Mozilla wide).

Usenet newsgroups cannot be shut down because usenet is a decentralised
network, which means that it is up to every newsmaster to decide whether
to keep a newsgroup on his server or not. So these groups can live on
elsewhere. We've already seen this with Microsoft newsgroups when they
shut down their newsserver long ago.

Thanks for your service so far. I will unsubscribe from the list after
this post because I do not want my address to be tranferred to Topicbox.

Regards,
Jürgen.

[Ben Bucksch]

Am 25.03.21 um 09:49 schrieb Magnus Melin:

maildev was never a forum for technical *questions*.

maildev was supposed to be the place where TB core developers gather to make project-wide development decisions.

tb-planning is a fairly noisy place. It discusses all kinds of topics. Developers need a far more focused place, which is focused only on development questions. The fact that maildev is low traffic is not a problem, but a feature. Good developers are busy. They need very high signal to noise ratio, and focus on subjects that matter to them. That's why tb-planning is completely unsuited.

Bugs are unsuitable, as others have already pointed out, because it's impossible to subscribe to all of Bugzilla. It may be possible for you as the module owner and full time staff, but not for others. The problem with "Let's use Bugzilla for that" is effectively excluding the community, because they simply don't know that a certain bug exists at all. It's basically hiding in the forest, even if the forest is theoretically open for all. Bugzilla is good for discussing bugs, and so-so for reviewing patches, but completely unsuitable for discussion. Also because it lacks threading. I cannot read it with Thunderbird. Etc.pp.

We need a venue were we can discuss high-level, far-reaching developer questions, that reach beyond the scope of a particilar developer or feature or bug, but concern larger parts of the code base, have large impact, or affect all developers. maildev has been used like that, it was low traffic, high signal (for core devs), and that's good.

Ben

[Dave Miller]

On Fri, Mar 26, 2021, at 1:09 AM, ISHIKAWA,chiaki wrote:

I was wrong.

dev-builds was already gone at the end of November or December 2020.

I realize that there is not even archive remaining at 

https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-builds.

That's because the archives for it are at https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.builds (they disabled archiving on all of the NNTP-mirrored mailing lists on the grounds Google was already doing it)

Dave Miller [:justdave]

Thunderbird Release Engineer/Web Infra Engineer

[Dave Miller]

On Thu, Mar 25, 2021, at 6:36 PM, Juergen Fenn wrote:

Am 25.03.21 um 22:13 Uhr schrieb Magnus Melin:

> Oh, and FYI apparently NNTP newsgroups are shutting down altogether

> (Mozilla wide).

Usenet newsgroups cannot be shut down because usenet is a decentralised

network, which means that it is up to every newsmaster to decide whether

to keep a newsgroup on his server or not. So these groups can live on

elsewhere.  We've already seen this with Microsoft newsgroups when they

shut down their newsserver long ago.

Except the mozilla.* groups were special and Giganews and Google had an agreement not to allow them to propogate to any other news servers.  If you saw them elsewhere someone was scraping them because the NNTP peering links weren't sharing them.

They plan to put the groups in read-only/archived mode so nobody can post to them anymore, but they probably won't go away.

[ISHIKAWA,chiaki]

On 2021/03/27 8:55, Andrei Hajdukewycz wrote:

On 3/26/2021 4:08 PM, ISHIKAWA,chiaki wrote:

For example, I am a bit perplexed at the relation of mozillazine.org to the rest of TB-related information outlets. (Has there been developer discussions there?)

Mozillazine is a third party run site, it's never had any official connection to Thunderbird or even any part of Mozilla as far as I know.

Thank you for the clarification.

Chiaki

[ISHIKAWA,chiaki]

On 2021/03/28 9:29, Dave Miller wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 26, 2021, at 1:09 AM, ISHIKAWA,chiaki wrote:
>> I was wrong.
>> dev-builds was already gone at the end of November or December 2020.
>> I realize that there is not even archive remaining at
>> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-builds

>> <https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-builds>.

>
> That's because the archives for it are at
> https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.builds
> <https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.builds> (they disabled
> archiving on all of the NNTP-mirrored mailing lists on the grounds
> Google was already doing it)
>
> Dave Miller [:justdave]
> Thunderbird Release Engineer/Web Infra Engineer
>
>

I am a bit confused.
There was an announcement last year (Nov 17) of the maling list list
deletion (dev-builds).
Conveniently, it is available at
https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.builds/c/BMU4TIC0cIk

Is it still alive? I saw two posts this year in the archive mentioned above.

Chiaki

[Dave Miller]

On Sun, Mar 28, 2021, at 10:10 PM, ISHIKAWA,chiaki wrote:

On 2021/03/28 9:29, Dave Miller wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 26, 2021, at 1:09 AM, ISHIKAWA,chiaki wrote:

>> I was wrong.

>> dev-builds was already gone at the end of November or December 2020.

>> I realize that there is not even archive remaining at

>> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-builds 

>> <https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-builds>.

>

> That's because the archives for it are at 

> https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.builds 

> <https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.builds> (they disabled 

> archiving on all of the NNTP-mirrored mailing lists on the grounds 

> Google was already doing it)

>

> Dave Miller [:justdave]

> Thunderbird Release Engineer/Web Infra Engineer

>

>

I am a bit confused.

There was an announcement last year (Nov 17) of the maling list list 

deletion (dev-builds).

Conveniently, it is available at

https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.builds/c/BMU4TIC0cIk

Is it still alive? I saw two posts this year in the archive mentioned above.

I'm guessing Google's automation is broken again (or was broken at the point those messages were posted). It was known to happen every so often. Probably among the reasons Mozilla's ditching this arrangement. :-) Trying to get them to fix it when it was broken (if anyone noticed it was broken) often took months of prodding. I don't work at Mozilla anymore, but I used to, and I originally set up the Mozilla-side of that automation.  There's a list generated at https://lists.mozilla.org/newsgroups.txt which Google and GigaNews are supposed to be polling nightly and updating their configuration to match. The absence of a list in that file means Google should be closing it to posting and marking it archived, and GigaNews should be removing the group, and mozilla.dev.builds is indeed not listed in there.

[Wayne Mery]

On 3/26/21 7:47 PM, David Boles wrote:

So tell me. Does anyone have a real plan here or will the debate about' what do we do???" go on until the plug is pulled and the only thing that really happens will be the death of the message system??

Good news, yes, there is a plan.  So I think this discussion can come to a close.

Perhaps not widely known, Ryan and Wayne are administrators for our Mozilla-hosted discourse venues hosted, most of our Mozilla-hosted mailing lists (except newsgroups and their gatewayed mailing lists backed by google groups which are managed by Mozilla), and also for Topicbox which the Thunderbird team manages. We knew the end would be coming for legacy Mozilla newsgroups and mailing lists, and had a plan for gradual migration to Topicbox, but the timing of Mozilla’s announcement came as a complete surprise.

Your concerns, suggested alternatives, and even offers of hosting have been welcome. Fortunately Topicbox covers many of the issues raised (including no google groups) and no show stoppers have emerged. 

Topicbox’s slogan is “Group email for teams”. It works like a mailing list, and indeed by default subscribers receive emails of all posts. It also has a decent web UI. We have successful UX, e2ee, and Add-on Development groups already on Topicbox, so this is an opportunity to provide a unified service to all Thunderbird discussions. The list below describes the changes needed to complete the consolidation. 

ML=mailing list, NG=newsgroup

New groups on Topicbox:

• Thunderbird Planning, replacing tb-planning ML
• Thunderbird Enterprise, replacing tb-enterprise ML
• Thunderbird Support Crew, replacing tb-support-crew ML
• Thunderbird Developers, replacing mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird NG, mozilla.dev.apps.calendar NG, dev-apps-thunderbird ML, maildev ML
• Add-ons Developers, not new, but we decommission https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/thunderbird/addons/
• Thunderbird Announcements - postings from community managers - more frequent than our blog, less traffic than Planning, serving those who are not on Twitter and Facebook, or our newsletter (form at "Join Newsletter")
• Thunderbird Beta, replacing https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/thunderbird/beta/
• Thunderbird Daily - a new place for users of nightly builds
• (likely, to be set up later) Thunderbird Elections, replacing tb-election ML

Moving to new location in Mozilla hosting:

• tb-drivers ML (not open to the public)

Redirecting users to Thunderbird support at SUMO:

• support-thunderbird ML
• mozilla.support.thunderbird NG
• mozilla.support.calendar NG
• https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/thunderbird/ 

No replacement:

• thunderbird-testers (members will be directed to Thunderbird Beta, Daily and Announcements)

Thunderbird Planning at Topicbox is open now for subscriptions, however it is not yet open for postings - please continue posting here until new instructions are posted. https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/_tojoin provides a subscription button for each group. Each venue being retired will be receiving instructions, because no one will be automatically enrolled. 

This sudden change may be upsetting, and it may feel like Mozilla are "dumping us".  But just as they have supported us on Mozilla services for many years, in this current situation they have been fully supportive. They are actively advising and helping us move to replacements of our choice, which includes the offer to continue on Mozilla resources. Lastly, thank you for your input and support, and we are sorry this process has been confusing prior to this posting. Ultimately the consolidation of six discussion platforms into one discussion platform at Topicbox will be a good move for the majority of the Thunderbird community.

Enjoy the discussions,

Ryan and Wayne

P.S.. Regarding GDPR, all Topicbox organizations are covered by the Fastmail Data Protection Addendum (DPA).  Learn more about Topicbox at https://www.topicbox.help/

[The Wanderer]

On 2021-03-29 at 06:43, Wayne Mery wrote:

> Your concerns, suggested alternatives, and even offers of hosting
> have been welcome. Fortunately Topicbox covers many of the issues
> raised (including no google groups) and no show stoppers have
> emerged.
>
> Topicbox’s slogan is “Group email for teams”. It works like a mailing
> list, and indeed by default subscribers receive emails of all posts.
> It also has a decent web UI.

I'm a little leery of any forum which tries to provide both an E-mail
interface and a Web interface, because it's almost inevitably going to
provide subpar service on one or the other, due to the differing
fundamental assumptions and expectations of each.

Still, I'll reserve judgment on this till I've seen it in action; if
nothing else, the descriptions so far would seem to imply that Topicbox
is in fact oriented to cater to E-mail first and has the Web interface
as the afterthought, which would fit with my preferred biases. I also
have some amount of trust for Fastmail (as you may be able to see), with
which I understand Topicbox to be affiliated.

> We have successful UX, e2ee, and Add-on Development groups already on
> Topicbox, so this is an opportunity to provide a unified service to
> all Thunderbird discussions. The list below describes the changes
> needed to complete the consolidation.
>
> ML=mailing list, NG=newsgroup
>
> New groups on Topicbox:
>

> * Thunderbird Planning, replacing tb-planning ML
> * Thunderbird Enterprise, replacing tb-enterprise ML
> * Thunderbird Support Crew, replacing tb-support-crew ML
> * Thunderbird Developers, replacing mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird NG,

> mozilla.dev.apps.calendar NG, dev-apps-thunderbird ML, maildev ML

Will the List-Id: headers for these mailing lists be changing? I'm
guessing probably yes, but I'd like to have some notice of what to
expect in that regard. I use that header to filter list mail into
specific folders for later reading, and it'd be a pain to start
receiving mail from a new list that doesn't get filtered and then have
to not only update the filter but go back and move everything that
arrived in the meantime.

> Thunderbird Planning at Topicbox is open now for subscriptions,
> however it is not yet open for postings - please continue posting
> here until new instructions are posted.
> https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/_tojoin provides a
> subscription button for each group. Each venue being retired will be
> receiving instructions, because no one will be automatically
> enrolled.

That linked signup-interface page requires JavaScript, which is an
unnecessary retrograde step compared to mailman. I can live with it if
mandated, but I find it a distinct negative, and want to express my
dissatisfaction with it. I hope to (eventually) find a Topicbox feedback
location where I can express that sentiment to them more directly.

What should we expect timing-wise with regard to when we'll want to
start signing up at the new location? Should we wait until the new
instructions you reference are posted, or should we just sign up there
now and stay around here until further notice? Should we expect to
receive any mail at all (aside from maybe initial-subscription
notifications) from the new location until after the arrival of those
new instructions?

[Wayne Mery]

You should expect

List-Id: "Thunderbird Planning" <planning.discuss.thunderbird.net>

Thunderbird Planning at Topicbox is open now for subscriptions,
however it is not yet open for postings - please continue posting
here until new instructions are posted.
https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/_tojoin provides a
subscription button for each group. Each venue being retired will be
receiving instructions, because no one will be automatically
enrolled.

That linked signup-interface page requires JavaScript, which is an
unnecessary retrograde step compared to mailman. I can live with it if
mandated, but I find it a distinct negative, and want to express my
dissatisfaction with it. I hope to (eventually) find a Topicbox feedback
location where I can express that sentiment to them more directly.

That would be appropriate. Topicbox feature and bug reports should be directed to Topicbox, not to Thunderbird groups. Thanks.

What should we expect timing-wise with regard to when we'll want to
start signing up at the new location? 

As stated, it is open now for subscriptions.  That applies to all groups listed at Topicbox.

Should we wait until the new instructions you reference are posted, or should we just sign up there
now and stay around here until further notice? 

As stated, please wait until information has been posted here saying the new venue is open for posting.

[The Wanderer]

On 2021-03-29 at 07:33, Wayne Mery wrote:

> On 3/29/21 7:05 AM, The Wanderer wrote:

>> Will the List-Id: headers for these mailing lists be changing? I'm
>> guessing probably yes, but I'd like to have some notice of what to
>> expect in that regard. I use that header to filter list mail into
>> specific folders for later reading, and it'd be a pain to start
>> receiving mail from a new list that doesn't get filtered and then
>> have to not only update the filter but go back and move everything
>> that arrived in the meantime.
>
> You should expect
>
> List-Id: "Thunderbird Planning" <planning.discuss.thunderbird.net>

Thanks.

>> What should we expect timing-wise with regard to when we'll want
>> to start signing up at the new location?
>
> As stated, it is open now for subscriptions. That applies to all
> groups listed at Topicbox.

Just because it is open to accept subscriptions does not necessarily
mean that we should subscribe now.

>> Should we wait until the new instructions you reference are posted,
>> or should we just sign up there now and stay around here until
>> further notice?
>
> As stated, please wait until information has been posted here saying
> the new venue is open for posting.

I understood that statement to be in regard to posting to the new list,
not to subscribing to the new list. My question was regarding when we
should start subscribing.

If we should refrain from subscribing until it's announced that the new
list is ready for posting, that would be reasonable. If we should
instead subscribe ASAP so as to be ready once that announcement comes,
that would also be reasonable. I am asking for clarification as to which
you are expecting.

[Wayne Mery]

On 3/29/21 7:42 AM, The Wanderer wrote:

If we should refrain from subscribing until it's announced that the new
list is ready for posting, that would be reasonable. If we should
instead subscribe ASAP so as to be ready once that announcement comes,
that would also be reasonable. I am asking for clarification as to which
you are expecting.

If you wait to subscribe, then you will miss postings when postings begin.  This is why we have opened subscriptions now.  You can subscribe now, or wait - it is your choice.

[Wayne Mery]

This mailing list will be retired at the end of the week.  It is replaced by Thunderbird Planning using Topicbox where Thunderbird is consolidating all communications. Please join the new group today, so that when postings begin you will not miss any information. (Planning is not yet open for postings - a follow up email will be posted with the announcement.) https://discuss.thunderbird.net/groups/_tojoin lists the descriptions of groups groups you can join, including several new groups, such as Beta, Daily and Announcements.  

Each group works like a mailing list, so this should be an easy transition.  In fact, Topicbox’s slogan is “Group email for teams”. After joining a group you receive emails of all posts to the group, and you can also reply by email. To control the delivery of messages to your inbox open the sidebar (lines surrounded by circle) and use Edit delivery options under Delivery Options. 

You must join a group to be able to post by email. When posting please be guided by the group's description. You can also view all group postings without joining, and without being logged in, at https://discuss.thunderbird.net/latest. Web posting is possible when you are logged in to Topicbox using a password (created in Profile & Security under Your Account), or the login code emailed to you.

We look forward to this consolidation of six discussion platforms into one discussion platform. Constructive feedback is welcome. For more information check out the Topicbox Getting Started Guide.  

Enjoy the discussions,

Ryan and Wayne

P.S.. All Topicbox organizations are covered by the Fastmail Data Protection Addendum (DPA).  Learn more about Topicbox at https://www.topicbox.help/