[BCC to all mailing list administrators]

Dear list admins,

Please read the following info carefully.

Currently we are in the process of setting up a new mailing list server for all Wikimedia mailing lists. The migration of all lists to the new server is scheduled for Saturday January 6th, around 10:00 UTC. This will unfortunately cause some downtime for at least the mailing lists and possibly the rest of the mail system around that time, and will bring some (user) noticeable changes, which is why I am writing to you.

We have decided to split off the mailing lists from the rest of the mail system, and put them on a separate hostname/domain, lists.wikimedia.org. This means that the Mailman web interface will be accessible through http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/... and that all mailing lists will use e.g. wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org instead of @wikimedia.org.

Old addresses will continue to work however; all mail sent to the current @wikimedia.org addresses will be forwarded to the new address. Newly created mailing lists will *not* get @wikimedia.org aliases though. The old web interface at http://mail.wikimedia.org will redirect to the new server. The old static page at http://mail.wikimedia.org/index.html will disappear; instead http://lists.wikimedia.org/ will redirect to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/overview on meta, where it can be maintained by the community instead of just us system administrators.

This also means that the current practice of naming mailing lists with a "-l" suffix, e.g. foundation-l@wikimedia.org, is no longer strictly necessary. We will however not rename the existing mailinglists (other than the domain change), as this is likely to bring confusion. Newly created mailing lists are free to use a name with or without that suffix.

One problem with the hostname/domain change is that many user's mail filters might break. The Reply-To, List-Id, etc. mail headers will be changed to reflect the new domain, which might cause them to not be recognized by user mail filters, breaking their mail sorting or other inconveniences. Therefore, if you deem it necessary for your mailing list, I hope you will notify your members of this upcoming change, which will take effect on Saturday. Even though the old addresses will continue to work, I hope you will encourage everyone to start using the new @lists.wikimedia.org addresses for better stability and faster delivery.

The new setup will of course bring a few improvements. First of all, we hope it will be more stable than the current system is, as it appears that Mailman is currently the major cause for downtime of our weak, overloaded mail server. Furthermore, it will be possible to create mailing lists without system administrator intervention, by using a Mailman web interface and a mailing list creator's password. (It is yet to be determined who will get this password.) Also, no mail aliases will need to be set up for new mailing lists, the mailing list will automatically and immediately work under the @lists.wikimedia.org domain once created in the web interface. And, the new setup will utilize some spam filtering, although this will likely need some fine tuning. More details on that will follow.

If you have any questions or comments, please send them to me directly.

Thanks,