Hi all,
I support Chris' arguments and I would add some points.
As administrator of the chapters mailing list I think that the best is
to recover some "historical memory", which is never regrettable.
Considering that we are going to celebrate several year of birthday of
Wikipedia or of Wikimedia projects, I think that the "historical memory"
is more than an asset.
I personally can support the creation of a mailing list like this for
several reasons:
1) the chapters mailing list is closed for a specific reason
2) users groups cannot be accepted for a specif reason, even if there is
a strong pressure
3) The chapters mailing list is hard to maintain because, as closed
mailing list, the update and the verification requires time and
workload, and this workload is manageable only if there is a limited
number of subscriptions
The chapters mailing list exists *only* to assure a neutral (and this
word makes sense) and a "demilitarized zone" to discuss and to announce
the selection of the WMF's board members assigned to the chapters.
I would not open here a long discussion about the process or about the
assignments to the chapters of these two seats (not all WMF board
members are selected by the community), the chapters are considered as a
stakeholder and the chapters asked to have a place like this. So please
discuss in other places this item.
So the point 1) is justified.
The users groups cannot be accepted until the users groups cannot
participate in this selection because the main aim of the mailing list
is exactly that. So the point 2) is justified.
I personally can assure that to keep this place "neutral" there is a
long verification of the eligibility of the members and it requires a
lot of time.
The chapters mailing list has very low traffic because is used also to
make some announcements (for instance the Wikimedia Conference) because
not all chapters members follow Wikimedia-l.
Except these two utilization, there are nothing else.
At this point I would correct my sentence and I would say that: "I
personally can support the creation of a mailing list" but I would add
"not a twin of the chapters mailing list".
A closed and limited mailing list will be a simple replication of the
chapters mailing list except the big workload to manage more
subscriptions. It makes sense and can complete the chapters mailing list
only if it is "open" and "transparent". Anyone who would open an user
group can follow it, any chapters who would use the chapters mailing
list for a use different to the main one, would be addressed to the open
mailing list.
And as personal hint I suggest to keep it open because the management of
a close mailing list with a high number of eligible subscribers may
require a lot of time and verification.
Kind regards
On 19.10.2015 21:12, Chris Keating wrote:
Looking at the current (private) chapters' list,
for at least a year 90%+
of the traffic has been announcements that were cross-posted to
Wikimedia-l. The other 10% is invitations and requests addressed to
"chapters people" that might be boring to most people on wikimedia-l but
could have been publically archived with no problem.
The last "private" thing to happen on that list was discussion of the 2014
Affiliate Selected Board Seats process - actually not so much the process
itself but how to deal with an intemperate email from someone from the
English Wikipedia Signpost who was threatening to write an article about
the process being an undemocratic sham. Apart from that we are stretching
back into 2013 and the death throes of the WCA before anyone said anything
interesting on the list.
On the subject of email lists, internal-l which is meant to be "chapters
plus WMF staff" has had virtually no traffic for literally years. There was
at one point a limit on the number of representatives of chapters that
could be on internal-l (and IIRC on the chapters list) but that never
really served any purpose (it certainly didn't improve the signal to noise
ratio...)
What does all of this mean? I think it's pretty clear that broad-based
private-access lists aren't serving any purpose. My preferred option would
be to either ditch the Chapters mailing list or make it announce-only,
scrap Internal-l entirely, and have an "affiliates" list that is open.
Chris
--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch