Hello,
TLDR: Mailman3 is now available for general use, all mailing lists will be
migrated in the next couple of weeks, providing everyone with a much better
mailing list experience. You will notice some changes, let us know if you
run into issues.
Long version:
We're happy to announce that Mailman3 is available for general use and some
have already been migrated. You can find the current mailing lists that
have been migrated at [1] and their archives in "hyperkitty"[2].
Mailman3 is a full rewrite of our previous mailing list software
(Mailman2), and the migration is long overdue. Some key new features that
we want to highlight:
* One user account (no more monthly password reminder emails or list
passwords)
* Ability to search through archives
* Posting through a web interface
* A web interface that doesn't look like its from the early 2000s
* Better security of accounts and messages
The first mailing list migrated was LGBT@ and you can see its mailing list
page in [3]. We are going to slowly migrate the rest of mailing lists (all
+700 of them), you can track the work in [4]. All new mailing lists from
now on will be only on Mailman3.
This means:
* We will send an email to admins of any mailing list right before
starting the upgrade process, and once it's finished.
* The link to subscribe to lists will change, please update your wiki
pages, documentation, etc. We will provide redirects though.
* Links to old archives for public mailing lists won't break. It will
stay at it is now and will become redirects shortly. But URLs of archived
emails of private mailing lists will break. This is necessary for improving
security of mailing lists. Keep it in mind that in the new system you can
easily search in the archives.
Given that in Mailman3, you can simply have one central account for all of
your mailing lists. We highly encourage you to make one [1], that way, you
can easily control what mailing lists you are subscribed to, easily join
new mailing lists and much more. This also makes administrating and
moderating mailing lists much easier.
If you have any questions or you encounter any issues, let us know! You can
create a Phabricator ticket ("Wikimedia-Mailing-lists" project) or ping us
on IRC in #wikimedia-tech.
We hope that Mailman3 brings much needed love to our mailing lists without
breaking your workflows (like reading mails by piping telnet into less or
something like that).
The umbrella ticket for the work: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T52864
[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/
[2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/
[3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/lgbt.lists.wikimedia.org/
[4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T280322
Best,
Kunal (Legoktm) and Amir (Ladsgroup)
Dear Wikimedia mailing list admins,
As you may have heard, we will be upgrading the mailing list software to
Mailman 3, which is a full rewrite, fixing lots of long standing issues,
especially around security. A short list of improvements:
* One user account (no more monthly password reminder emails or list
passwords)
* Ability to search through archives
* Posting through a web interface
* A web interface that doesn't look like its from the early 2000s
For the most part, if you just send and receive mail from the list,
nothing dramatic will change.
A test installation is available at <https://lists-next.wikimedia.org/>
if you'd like to take a look now (all data will eventually be deleted).
We can import your list into the test system so you can look around the
new interfaces, make sure settings were migrated correctly and archives
display correctly.
We're still finalizing the exact dates, but we may start migrating
mailing lists starting next week. They'll be migrated in batches,
starting with lists with no archives, and then going by size of archive
and # of subscribers. Expect very big/old lists (wikimedia-l,
wikitech-l, etc.) to go last. We plan to send a notification to the list
admins when we start migrating the list and once it's finished.
We will need help from list admins to make this go smoothly.
* If your list is obsolete or should be archived, please add
"[OBSOLETE]" or "[ARCHIVED]" to the list description and we'll take care
of the rest.
* Please update your list description to indicate who the list admins
are (either usernames, email addresses, etc.)
* If you'd like to volunteer your list to go early, let us know.
* On the other hand, if you think your list needs special handling and
should go later, let us know as well.
* It is our intention to have all mailing lists be publicly listed,
please let us know if you have a reason that the existence of your list
should be kept private.
* If you've lost track of all the lists you're responsible for, we can
look it up for you :)
* The canonical URL of your mailing list will change. If you link to
your mailing list in help pages, templates, etc. You should update it
after migration. For example
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l> will change to
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/>
(we expect to provide redirects).
* For public archives, we will ensure that archive links will not break.
For private lists, we do not intend to support old archive URLs - if
this is a big issue for you, please let us know.
There's probably stuff we missed to mention, if you have questions,
concerns, comments, please let us know on this list or #wikimedia-tech
on IRC.
For tracking the work see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T280322
Thanks,
Amir (Ladsgroup) and Kunal (Legoktm)