Re: Policy for expiring lists WAS: Idea for a secondary list server

On 03/02/2015 12:02 PM, Stephen Frost wrote:> * Joshua D. Drake
(jd@commandprompt.com) wrote:
>>> If .US can support *specifically meetup*, then
>>> I think we could get a lot farther along the path of having regular
>>> PUGs because meetup is what people actually use and the meetup based
>>> PUGs, generally speaking, do quite well.
>>
>> My point was, I doubt I could convince the board to expense the
>> money when we have GAPPS including Groups and G+ and Events etc...
>> all for free via our 501c3 account with Google.
>
> Can the PUGs make use of that?  I use meetup as an example, but if
> Google provides something comparable, that all the PUGs could use..

I have found Google Groups and Google Events to be unusable for
PostgreSQL project purposes.  The feature set is deficient, and the UI
is truly horrible.  Plus, you know, ToS.

Maybe my Google-Fu is insufficient.  However, that begs a broader point:
why are we intent on pushing stuff for the community off onto an
external proprietary resource we don't control, and where it's not clear
whether it's really associated with the project or not?  If I proposed
that we should stop maintaining git.postgresql.org and use Github
instead, I know the answer I'd get.

I don't have a solution here; I'm using Meetup because we don't have a
way to supply that functionality on postgresql.org, let alone the
network effect.  But it's an open question, and I'm more than a little
concerned about the possibility of folks with the sole admin account for
something vanishing.

Maybe the answer is a Google Apps around and a Meetup Account controlled
by a designated community team.  I'm not sure.

On 03/02/2015 12:42 PM, Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote:
> On 03/02/2015 07:37 PM, Josh Berkus wrote:
>> On 02/28/2015 08:52 AM, Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote:
>>> On 02/27/2015 01:36 AM, Josh Berkus wrote:
>>>> On 02/24/2015 01:32 PM, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
>>>>> Josh Berkus wrote:
>>
>>> all nice and clear - but who is going to check whether lists fall under
>>> that termination rule or not on a regular base? Are you volunteering?
>>
>> I don't have the permissions.  And this is a task better automated, no?
> 
> well your proposal specifically included the requirement that an admin
> or the list owner sends a "termination notice" - not sure we want to
> fully automate that?

Sure, why not?  The only purpose of the termination notice is so that
existing subscribers won't be surprised when the list is gone.  It's not
a warning to let them revive it.

>> Prior to having those things and getting big, our mailing list was
>> *essential* for the success of SFPUG; we used nothing else for the first
>> 6 years we existed.  There's also the fact that most of our local folks
>> are very active on the main lists (-hackers, general, etc.) which is the
>> reason why we don't see a lot of discussion and peer-to-peer help on
>> SFPUG anymore.
> 
> interesting - so why is it that only 1/8th(or 15%) of the lists we
> created so far seem to be able to sustain even a minimum of traffic?

Because starting a PUG is hard.  I'm arguing that we shouldn't make it
harder by denying easily-available resources.   But maybe the resources
we should offer aren't mailing lists ...

> If we want help our PUgs in growing we certainly need to provide
> something, but from all the numbers I see it does not seem that
> mailinglists is what helps them. 

Thank you for those numbers.

> This feels a bit like picking on people
> spelling out the fact that times have changed and what made us
> successful as a community 20y ago might not be the thing we "really"
> need today.

Well, for SFPUG, we moved from email to Meetup + Website/RSS + Twitter.I would still be using the mailing list if we
didn'thave all three of
 
those things.

From the discussion it sounds like I should start a new thread, here or
on advocacy, about what resources would really help get PUGs started.
I'd like to have both folks from WWW and Advocacy on it, though; would a
crossover thread work, or are most of y'all on advocacy?

-- 
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://pgexperts.com