Re: IMPORTANT: Migrating away from mailing list

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Did you consider Mailman3, postorous, and HyperKitty? They are the new
mailing list manager and a modern web interface built on top. I don't know
if you're already using mailman, but HyperKitty works well with it.

This old article from 2015 gives a good introduction, but there have been
lots of improvements since then. https://lwn.net/Articles/638090/

There's a live demo of the web interface here:
https://lists.stg.fedoraproject.org/archives/


Seems to work well from what I've experienced.

https://list.org
https://wiki.list.org/HyperKitty


best,


On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 11:16 AM, Ren=C3=A9 Dudfield <[email protected]> wro=
te:

> Hello,
>
> on the issue of spam(and back scattering)... I think I 'solved' it for th=
e
> pygame.org website(so far). Using a combination of rate limiting, rbl
> spam lists, better email validation, web application firewall, moderation
> tools, and spam classification. All that stuff is open source, and if
> you're interested I can answer any questions about it or the techniques.
>
>
> best regards,
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 3:52 AM, Ryan C. Gordon <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> tl;dr: We're going to try to move the mailing list and web forums to a
>> new piece of software. Please go to https://discourse.libsdl.org/ and
>> claim your account. You can still use it as a mailing list or a web foru=
m.
>> This list will (probably) be going away soon.
>>
>>
>> So this is an experiment with Discourse (https://discourse.org/), to see
>> if we can solve our mailing list and forum woes:
>>
>> Problems we currently have:
>> - The forum software is wildly out of date, and couldn't be upgraded
>> without losing the email bridge. Upgrading the software breaks a
>> fundamental feature we rely on, not upgrading it is a massive security
>> risk. We tried--and failed--to move the web server to PHP7; the forums
>> needed massive work to just run at all. Serious problems, like not being
>> able to register an account or post a reply, were failing silently, so w=
e
>> could never be sure if we ever really had fixed it up completely. For no=
w
>> we have dropped the web server back to PHP5, but being trapped on old
>> versions of basic software to support old versions of custom software is
>> doubly bad.
>> - The spammers on the forums were brutal; they couldn't actually post
>> because we had to approve the accounts, but they'd just flood our SMTP
>> server with backscatter trying to make thousands of accounts, all day lo=
ng.
>> - We have to manually approve forum accounts in the first place.  :/
>> - The mailing list was unreliable, and would lose mail, lose the
>> archives, etc. This was largely a problem with the list provider and not
>> mailing lists in general, but migrating somewhere more reliable was
>> non-trivial, so changing direction entirely was a reasonable option if w=
e
>> had to do that.
>> - The glue that bridges between the mailing list and the forums was not
>> great in general.
>>
>>
>> As I see it, these are the primary benefits of Discourse for us:
>> - It runs on our server.
>> - Is well-maintained and constantly improving open source, concerned wit=
h
>> what modern Internet communication looks like (silly things like Emoji a=
nd
>> Gravatar, really important things like Unicode and REST APIs and
>> downloadable archives of your posts, etc).
>> - Is one central place where all communications happen.
>> - If you like the mailing list, you can use it exclusively through email=
.
>> - If you like the web forums, you can use it exclusively through a web
>> browser.
>> - If you want to use it through the web interface and occasionally shoot
>> off a quick reply by email, you can do that too.
>> - The web interface looks modern and responsive, with all that AJAX-y
>> goodness. It runs well and looks good on mobile devices, too.
>> - It has all our email archives imported! After a lot of manual cleanup
>> and one-off perl scripts, all the existing mailing list content, all the
>> way back to _1998_ has been turned into Discourse topics with threading
>> intact. More than 20,000 topics, more than 100,000 posts!
>> - It has all the old forum posts imported too, thanks to a lot of manual
>> cleanup and one-off perl (and PHP!) scripts.
>> - It has all the users (more than 2000!) imported. We took efforts to tr=
y
>> to merge people that posted from different email addresses over the year=
s
>> into one account, using the latest email address we saw, and deal with
>> people that used both the forums and mailing list interchangeably over t=
he
>> years.
>> - An actual search function that works.
>> - Lots of bells and whistles and control over everything...not just as a=
n
>> administrator, but as a user, so you get the experience just how you lik=
e
>> it.
>>
>>
>> So we're going to give it a little time and see if we can turn off the
>> existing list and forums. So that we don't end up with two separate
>> communities, we're going to make this decision pretty quickly. As such, =
if
>> you have problems (including a generic "I hate this"), please speak up
>> loudly as soon as possible.
>>
>> To get started: Go to https://discourse.libsdl.org/
>>
>> If you sign up for an account and it thinks your email is already in use=
,
>> we probably generated a user for you when the list archives were importe=
d.
>> Just tell it your forgot your password and it'll email you a reset link =
so
>> you can take control of the account. In this case, we assigned you a
>> best-guess username, but you can change it yourself once you log in.
>>
>> If you exclusively used the web forums, we have an account for you but
>> not your email: hit me up and I can hand the account over to you, or you
>> can just make a new one, if you like.
>>
>> If you want to use Discourse as a mailing list and never see the website
>> again, you can; there is an option to turn on "Mailing List Mode" in you=
r
>> user prefs. New topics can be started by writing to
>> [email protected], or you reply to the address on whatever email
>> you want to reply to, and it ends up in the right place.
>>
>> If you have trouble, we can fix things (including getting you a username
>> from a legacy account, assigning ownership of old posts to a new account=
,
>> etc). Just let me know!
>>
>> --ryan.
>> _______________________________________________
>> SDL mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org
>>
>
>

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<div dir=3D"ltr"><div><div><div><div>Did you consider Mailman3, postorous, =
and HyperKitty? They are the new mailing list manager and a modern web inte=
rface built on top. I don&#39;t know if you&#39;re already using mailman, b=
ut HyperKitty works well with it.<br></div><br>This old article from 2015 g=
ives a good introduction, but there have been lots of improvements since th=
en. <a href=3D"https://lwn.net/Articles/638090/">https://lwn.net/Articles/6=
38090/</a><br><br>There&#39;s a live demo of the web interface here:<br><a =
href=3D"https://lists.stg.fedoraproject.org/archives/">https://lists.stg.fe=
doraproject.org/archives/</a><br><br></div><br></div><div>Seems to work wel=
l from what I&#39;ve experienced.<br></div><br><div><a href=3D"https://list=
.org">https://list.org</a><br></div><a href=3D"https://wiki.list.org/HyperK=
itty">https://wiki.list.org/HyperKitty</a><br><br><br>best,<br></div><div><=
br></div></div><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><br><div class=3D"gmail_quote">On=
 Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 11:16 AM, Ren=C3=A9 Dudfield <span dir=3D"ltr">&lt;<a=
 href=3D"mailto:[email protected]" target=3D"_blank">[email protected]</a>&gt=
;</span> wrote:<br><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 =
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr"><div><di=
v><div>Hello,<br><br></div>on the issue of spam(and back scattering)... I t=
hink I &#39;solved&#39; it for the <a href=3D"http://pygame.org" target=3D"=
_blank">pygame.org</a> website(so far). Using a combination of rate limitin=
g, rbl spam lists, better email validation, web application firewall, moder=
ation tools, and spam classification. All that stuff is open source, and if=
 you&#39;re interested I can answer any questions about it or the technique=
s.<br></div></div><br><br><div>best regards,<br></div><div><br></div></div>=
<div class=3D"HOEnZb"><div class=3D"h5"><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><br><div=
 class=3D"gmail_quote">On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 3:52 AM, Ryan C. Gordon <spa=
n dir=3D"ltr">&lt;<a href=3D"mailto:[email protected]" target=3D"_blank">=
[email protected]</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quo=
te" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"=
><br>
tl;dr: We&#39;re going to try to move the mailing list and web forums to a =
new piece of software. Please go to <a href=3D"https://discourse.libsdl.org=
/" rel=3D"noreferrer" target=3D"_blank">https://discourse.libsdl.org/</a> a=
nd claim your account. You can still use it as a mailing list or a web foru=
m. This list will (probably) be going away soon.<br>
<br>
<br>
So this is an experiment with Discourse (<a href=3D"https://discourse.org/"=
 rel=3D"noreferrer" target=3D"_blank">https://discourse.org/</a>), to see i=
f we can solve our mailing list and forum woes:<br>
<br>
Problems we currently have:<br>
- The forum software is wildly out of date, and couldn&#39;t be upgraded wi=
thout losing the email bridge. Upgrading the software breaks a fundamental =
feature we rely on, not upgrading it is a massive security risk. We tried--=
and failed--to move the web server to PHP7; the forums needed massive work =
to just run at all. Serious problems, like not being able to register an ac=
count or post a reply, were failing silently, so we could never be sure if =
we ever really had fixed it up completely. For now we have dropped the web =
server back to PHP5, but being trapped on old versions of basic software to=
 support old versions of custom software is doubly bad.<br>
- The spammers on the forums were brutal; they couldn&#39;t actually post b=
ecause we had to approve the accounts, but they&#39;d just flood our SMTP s=
erver with backscatter trying to make thousands of accounts, all day long.<=
br>
- We have to manually approve forum accounts in the first place.=C2=A0 :/<b=
r>
- The mailing list was unreliable, and would lose mail, lose the archives, =
etc. This was largely a problem with the list provider and not mailing list=
s in general, but migrating somewhere more reliable was non-trivial, so cha=
nging direction entirely was a reasonable option if we had to do that.<br>
- The glue that bridges between the mailing list and the forums was not gre=
at in general.<br>
<br>
<br>
As I see it, these are the primary benefits of Discourse for us:<br>
- It runs on our server.<br>
- Is well-maintained and constantly improving open source, concerned with w=
hat modern Internet communication looks like (silly things like Emoji and G=
ravatar, really important things like Unicode and REST APIs and downloadabl=
e archives of your posts, etc).<br>
- Is one central place where all communications happen.<br>
- If you like the mailing list, you can use it exclusively through email.<b=
r>
- If you like the web forums, you can use it exclusively through a web brow=
ser.<br>
- If you want to use it through the web interface and occasionally shoot of=
f a quick reply by email, you can do that too.<br>
- The web interface looks modern and responsive, with all that AJAX-y goodn=
ess. It runs well and looks good on mobile devices, too.<br>
- It has all our email archives imported! After a lot of manual cleanup and=
 one-off perl scripts, all the existing mailing list content, all the way b=
ack to _1998_ has been turned into Discourse topics with threading intact. =
More than 20,000 topics, more than 100,000 posts!<br>
- It has all the old forum posts imported too, thanks to a lot of manual cl=
eanup and one-off perl (and PHP!) scripts.<br>
- It has all the users (more than 2000!) imported. We took efforts to try t=
o merge people that posted from different email addresses over the years in=
to one account, using the latest email address we saw, and deal with people=
 that used both the forums and mailing list interchangeably over the years.=
<br>
- An actual search function that works.<br>
- Lots of bells and whistles and control over everything...not just as an a=
dministrator, but as a user, so you get the experience just how you like it=
.<br>
<br>
<br>
So we&#39;re going to give it a little time and see if we can turn off the =
existing list and forums. So that we don&#39;t end up with two separate com=
munities, we&#39;re going to make this decision pretty quickly. As such, if=
 you have problems (including a generic &quot;I hate this&quot;), please sp=
eak up loudly as soon as possible.<br>
<br>
To get started: Go to <a href=3D"https://discourse.libsdl.org/" rel=3D"nore=
ferrer" target=3D"_blank">https://discourse.libsdl.org/</a><br>
<br>
If you sign up for an account and it thinks your email is already in use, w=
e probably generated a user for you when the list archives were imported. J=
ust tell it your forgot your password and it&#39;ll email you a reset link =
so you can take control of the account. In this case, we assigned you a bes=
t-guess username, but you can change it yourself once you log in.<br>
<br>
If you exclusively used the web forums, we have an account for you but not =
your email: hit me up and I can hand the account over to you, or you can ju=
st make a new one, if you like.<br>
<br>
If you want to use Discourse as a mailing list and never see the website ag=
ain, you can; there is an option to turn on &quot;Mailing List Mode&quot; i=
n your user prefs. New topics can be started by writing to <a href=3D"mailt=
o:[email protected]" target=3D"_blank">[email protected]</a>,=
 or you reply to the address on whatever email you want to reply to, and it=
 ends up in the right place.<br>
<br>
If you have trouble, we can fix things (including getting you a username fr=
om a legacy account, assigning ownership of old posts to a new account, etc=
). Just let me know!<br>
<br>
--ryan.<br>
______________________________<wbr>_________________<br>
SDL mailing list<br>
<a href=3D"mailto:[email protected]" target=3D"_blank">[email protected].=
org</a><br>
<a href=3D"http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org" rel=3D"nore=
ferrer" target=3D"_blank">http://lists.libsdl.org/listin<wbr>fo.cgi/sdl-lib=
sdl.org</a><br>
</blockquote></div><br></div>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br></div>

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_______________________________________________
SDL mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org

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