[pgadmin-hackers] Migrating this list to PGLister on Friday, June 16th, 1300 UTC

Greetings!

The PostgreSQL Infrastructure team will be migrating the project's
mailing lists from the existing system (an ancient and unmaintained
piece of software called "majordomo2") to a newly developed mailing list
system (known as "PGLister"), which better addresses the needs of the
PostgreSQL community and is updated to work with recent improvements in
email technology and spam filtering. These changes will impact certain
aspects of the system but we are hopeful that these changes will have a
minimal impact on users, although everyone will notice the differences.

We are planning to migrate this list on Friday, June 16th 2017, at
around 1300 UTC.

The changes which we expect to be most significant to users can be found
on the wiki here: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PGLister_Announce the
current version of which is also included below.

Note that the pgsql-hackers email list is used in examples below, but
this change applies to all project mailing lists.

No adjustment of Subject: lines any longer
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* The "Subject:" header will no longer be changed to include the name
  of the list (for example, "[HACKERS]").  This change is to avoid
  breaking DKIM [1] (a standard for preventing nefarious changes in
  email between the sender and the receiver by calculating a hash of
  certain headers and the body).  Not breaking DKIM signed messages will
  make it less likely that emails sent through our mailing lists will be
  classified as spam.

* If you filter your email based on those "Subject:" header insertions,
  you will need to adjust your filtering rules. We recommend looking at
  the industry standard "List-ID:" header instead.

New email addresses for the lists
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* Existing email addresses will continue to work for a while

* For example, this means that pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org will change
  to be pgsql-hackers@'''lists'''.postgresql.org.

* Having a flat namespace that both lists and user accounts, as well as
  other addresses, live in has been a maintenance issue for the
  PostgreSQL Infrastructure team. It also prevents us from implementing
  DKIM [1] on messages from postgresql.org.  Moving the lists to
  "lists.postgresql.org" reduces this burden, allows us to implement
  DKIM [1], and allows additional flexibility for handling other lists
  in the future.

* The existing list email addresses will work for some time, but
  eventually must be retired for us to realize the maintenance burden
  reduction.

Other email header changes
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* The old majordomo2 system used both non-standard and industry standard
  headers to provide information about which list a given message came
  from.

* PGLister will use standard, industry-recognized headers to identify
  mailing list messages.  The non-standard header "X-Mailing-List" will
  no longer be included.  Any users whose filters are based on this
  non-standard header will need to adjust their filters.

* The value of the headers will also be changing, to match the change
  of list names.  The header "List-ID" will be changed from, eg,
  "List-ID: <pgsql-hackers.postgresql.org>" to
  "List-ID: <pgsql-hackers.lists.postgresql.org>".  Users who have
  filters defined to use this header will need to adjust their filters
  to account for this change.

* Certain email providers should be able to take advantage of these
  headers automatically to provide things such as an "Unsubscribe"
  button, but we cannot guarantee this as it depends on their systems.

Email footer removal
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* The footer text inserted by the old majordomo2 system will no longer
  be included in each email (the footer is the text which starts with:
  "Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)").
  Removing the footer is necessary to avoid breaking DKIM [1] signed
  messages as they pass through our system.

Cross-posts not de-duped
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* Emails cross-posted to multiple lists will no longer be de-duped, so
  if posted to two lists the message will be delivered twice. Both
  copies will have the same message-id (and can be locally de-duplicated
  on that), but different envelope sender and recipient addresses.

Managing subscriptions and unsubscribing
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* PGLister includes a web interface which is greatly improved from
  the old majordomo2 system.  Users can log into the PGLister system
  using their regular community account [2].

* The URL for users to manage their subscriptions in PGLister [3] is:
  https://lists.postgresql.org/manage

* At this page, users can subscribe, unsubscribe, and adjust
  parameters associated with their mailing list subscriptions.

* There is also an option at the above URL to have a test email
  sent from the mailing list system as if it were being sent from the
  list, to assist users with testing their filter settings.

* List members who do not have a community account [2] may
  create an account and then, through the PGLister web interface,
  associate their email address(es) with their account.

Digest capability offered by majordomo2 no longer supported
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* This was discussed with a few of the users who use digest and
  determined to be acceptable.

* Using digest emails also caused problems when a user replies to
  the digest email.

* There are no plans to implement digest capabilities in PGLister
  in the future.

Thank you!

Stephen (on behalf of the pginfra team)

[1]: DKIM - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DomainKeys_Identified_Mail
[2]: Community Account - https://www.postgresql.org/account
[3]: Manage subscriptions - https://lists.postgresql.org/manage