9:43 p.m.
For over 12 years Wake Forest University has hosted the gretl-devel
and gretl-users lists, using GNU Mailman. I'm now told that they're
going to discontinue Mailman support; we have about 6 weeks to run
before they pull the plug. Their proposed alternative is Google
Groups (GG), and they've set up groups to shadow gretl-devel,
gretl-users and gretl-announce. (I've been emphatic that we need to
preserve the existing archives, and I'm pretty confident that'll
happen OK.)
So we could migrate to GG with (I hope) little difficulty. But maybe
we want to consider alternatives. I have very little experience with
GG so I don't have a sense of how good a replacement they would
provide. One alternative would be to use the Sourceforge mailing
list apparatus, but I wouldn't favour that; I like many things about
SF but IMO their mailing list interface really sucks. And then we've
talked about moving to a "forum" approach in the past; I guess that
should be considered too. Personally I think a forum of some sort
might be a good replacement for the current gretl-users, but I have
a strong preference for a "mailing list" format for devel purposes.
Thoughts?
Allin
8:38 a.m.
Am 15.11.18 um 22:43 schrieb Allin Cottrell:
For over 12 years Wake Forest University has hosted the gretl-devel
and gretl-users lists, using GNU Mailman. I'm now told that they're
going to discontinue Mailman support; we have about 6 weeks to run
before they pull the plug.
Does that include Mailman version 3? AFAIK the gretl lists run on
Mailman 2, and version 3 was released in 2015.
Their proposed alternative is Google Groups (GG), and they've set
up
groups to shadow gretl-devel, gretl-users and gretl-announce.
I'd be pretty strongly against moving to Google. As we all know, we pay
those "free" offerings with our data. Yes it's convenient, but it would
be great if those with university ties and affiliations could leverage
those resources for this open-source project. We would shut out people
who choose not to have a Google account.
So we could migrate to GG with (I hope) little difficulty. But maybe
we want to consider alternatives.
In the past Jack offered to have mailing lists hosted at his Uni. BTW,
I've read that Mailman 3 also offers a forum-like interface (in addition
to, not replacing the standard mail interface, AFAIK). I have no
personal experience, however, at least not consciously.
I have very little experience with GG so I don't have a sense of
how
good a replacement they would provide. One alternative would be to use
the Sourceforge mailing list apparatus, but I wouldn't favour that; I
like many things about SF but IMO their mailing list interface really
sucks. And then we've talked about moving to a "forum" approach in the
past; I guess that should be considered too. Personally I think a
forum of some sort might be a good replacement for the current
gretl-users, but I have a strong preference for a "mailing list"
format for devel purposes.
I agree that splitting up the platforms for users and devel could make
sense. Perhaps the easiest route for the users list would indeed be to
replace it with a SF forum (plus a very visible link to the old list
archives). I could probably manage such a users' forum on SF in a
similar way as the trackers: That means, organizing the number and range
of subforums and do a minimal amount of moderation (which we all should
do, however).
Given that I predict that such a forum would see more traffic than the
current users list I cannot commit to contributing to all
questions/threads there. (This should be obvious, but better be explicit
about it.)
cheers,
sven
1:31 p.m.
On Fri, 16 Nov 2018, Sven Schreiber wrote:
Am 15.11.18 um 22:43 schrieb Allin Cottrell:
> For over 12 years Wake Forest University has hosted the gretl-devel and
> gretl-users lists, using GNU Mailman. I'm now told that they're going to
> discontinue Mailman support; we have about 6 weeks to run before they pull
> the plug.
Does that include Mailman version 3? AFAIK the gretl lists run on Mailman 2,
and version 3 was released in 2015.
Yes, they're discontinuing all Mailman support.
> Their proposed alternative is Google Groups (GG), and they've
set up groups
> to shadow gretl-devel, gretl-users and gretl-announce.
I'd be pretty strongly against moving to Google. As we all know, we pay those
"free" offerings with our data. Yes it's convenient, but it would be great
if
those with university ties and affiliations could leverage those resources
for this open-source project. We would shut out people who choose not to have
a Google account.
My understanding is that you don't need to have a Google account to
subscribe to a google group, though I think that's required to use
their web interface.
> So we could migrate to GG with (I hope) little difficulty. But
maybe we
> want to consider alternatives.
In the past Jack offered to have mailing lists hosted at his Uni. BTW, I've
read that Mailman 3 also offers a forum-like interface (in addition to, not
replacing the standard mail interface, AFAIK). I have no personal experience,
however, at least not consciously.
If we'd be able to continue with the same format, hosted at Ancona,
that would be a nice option.
> I have very little experience with GG so I don't have a sense
of how good a
> replacement they would provide. One alternative would be to use the
> Sourceforge mailing list apparatus, but I wouldn't favour that; I like many
> things about SF but IMO their mailing list interface really sucks. And then
> we've talked about moving to a "forum" approach in the past; I guess
that
> should be considered too. Personally I think a forum of some sort might be
> a good replacement for the current gretl-users, but I have a strong
> preference for a "mailing list" format for devel purposes.
I agree that splitting up the platforms for users and devel could make sense.
Perhaps the easiest route for the users list would indeed be to replace it
with a SF forum (plus a very visible link to the old list archives). I could
probably manage such a users' forum on SF in a similar way as the trackers:
That means, organizing the number and range of subforums and do a minimal
amount of moderation (which we all should do, however).
Thanks, Sven. I can't remember: do we require an SF login to post to
the trackers? I think there may be a danger of spam otherwise.
Allin
3:43 p.m.
On Fri, 16 Nov 2018, Allin Cottrell wrote:
> In the past Jack offered to have mailing lists hosted at his Uni.
BTW, I've
> read that Mailman 3 also offers a forum-like interface (in addition to, not
> replacing the standard mail interface, AFAIK). I have no personal
> experience, however, at least not consciously.
If we'd be able to continue with the same format, hosted at Ancona, that
would be a nice option.
I believe this is doable, but I have to ask our IT guy first. Will do
first thing next Monday.
-------------------------------------------------------
Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti
Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali (DiSES)
Università Politecnica delle Marche
(formerly known as Università di Ancona)
r.lucchetti(a)univpm.it
http://www2.econ.univpm.it/servizi/hpp/lucchetti
-------------------------------------------------------
2227
days inactive
2228
days old
3 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
-
Allin Cottrell -
Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti -
Sven Schreiber