Re: putting list in "sleep mode"

[Bob Proulx]

Thien-Thi Nguyen wrote:
> I admin bug-guile-sdl for GNU Guile-SDL, which hasn't had a
> release in a while, so i'd like to put the list into some kind
> of "sleep mode" until the next release.

This can be done.  But I wonder if it shouldn't be left available for
users to write to the list during the slumber.  I have often wanted to
discuss something with a long sleeping project.

Also I see that bug-guile-sdl does not make use of the listhelper team
services.  https://savannah.gnu.org/maintenance/ListHelperAntiSpam/

> I see in the mailman
> 2.1.21 documentation (in the source tarball) an empty section:
> 
>  6. Deleting the Mailing List
> 
> and figure that's related to GNU policy of not deleting mailing
> lists (a policy i support).

Since that is in the source tar it is purely something of the Mailman
project and doesn't reflect for or against any policy of which I am
aware of from lists.gnu.org which is simply running an instance of it.

However there is a strong policy of not deleting information.  This is
as stated at https://lists.gnu.org/ in the mailing list archive policy.

> So, what's the recommended way to put the list in "sleep mode"
> for the time being?

I don't think there is a policy on putting lists to sleep.  I don't
recall the topic as having come up before.

The only similar thing I can recall is when shellutils, fileutils, and
textutils merged into the new coreutils project.  After a decade or so
the old mailing lists were set up with an custom configuration.  I
have forgotten the details of it.

> Absent a global "disable everything" config
> item, i suppose a sleep mode could be effected by:
> 
>  - not advertizing the list (‘advertised’ false)

Sure.

>  - limiting new subs: (‘subscribe_policy’ "Require approval",
>    then "manually" denying approval -- is there a cleaner way?)

I don't see why subscription should be restricted.  If the list
doesn't have any messages then they will receive none.  If it does
then they will receive them due to be subscribed.

>  - some kind of automatic message for posts, along the lines:
>    "This mailing list is in sleep mode; your post was discarded.
>     Stay tuned for an announcement of the next release,
>     at which time the list will return to normal operation."

Generally it is bad to set up an autoreponder because it creates
backscatter spam.  Spammers send email with a forged from address of
an innocent 3rd party and send spam.  Then the innocent 3rd party gets
the backscatter.  If they report the backscatter spam (as is their
discretion to do so since it is spam to them) then the GNU list server
gets listed in a blacklist.  This used to happen more often until we
more agressively suppressed autoresponding.

There is no reason you couldn't write to people who hae written from
on own though.  I often write directly to people who have sent in
messages.  For various reasons such as due to large message sizes or
whatever.

Personally if it were me then I would use the listhelper team to keep
an eye on the list.  They will delete all spam as it appears.  If a
valid message will appear they will approve it through.  If someone
writes to the -owner address then one of us will get it and will
respond to it.

Bob

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