Hello all!
This is my first time on any Wikimedia mailing list, so please forgive me if I'm actually posting on the wrong list or something.
I'm a programmer, and recently I've been using a nice little service, which is run by a few independent programmers. The trouble is that it's a kind of service which potential users would like to know that it will be maintained well for a few years in the future, and these independent programmers can't guarantee something like that. Then I thought, this project has a spirit similar to Wikimedia's projects, so maybe Wikimedia would want to adopt it or sponsor it? I think it will require little maintenance effort.
Do note that this project is not a wiki exactly.
I have not yet said what this project it, cause I'm not even sure I'm on the right mailing list. Is this a good place to discuss this matter?
(Also, please 'cc' me in any replies, because I don't get mail delivered from this list.)
Best Wishes, Ram Rachum.
Hello Ram,
This is the right list, to the extent that one exists.
It is hard to answer a question this abstract. In general, Wikimedia hosts Projects that help people collaborate on free knowledge, and software, scripts and other tools related to those Projects (say, on our toolservers). We are not a generic project host. In what sense does this service have 'a spirit similar to Wikimedia's projects'?
Cheers, SJ
On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 8:20 PM, cool-RR [email protected] wrote:
Hello all!
This is my first time on any Wikimedia mailing list, so please forgive me if I'm actually posting on the wrong list or something.
I'm a programmer, and recently I've been using a nice little service, which is run by a few independent programmers. The trouble is that it's a kind of service which potential users would like to know that it will be maintained well for a few years in the future, and these independent programmers can't guarantee something like that. Then I thought, this project has a spirit similar to Wikimedia's projects, so maybe Wikimedia would want to adopt it or sponsor it? I think it will require little maintenance effort.
Do note that this project is not a wiki exactly.
I have not yet said what this project it, cause I'm not even sure I'm on the right mailing list. Is this a good place to discuss this matter?
(Also, please 'cc' me in any replies, because I don't get mail delivered from this list.)
Best Wishes, Ram Rachum. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hello Samuel,
I'm glad I got the right list.
According to your definition, the project fits Wikimedia's goal. I will now introduce it.
The project is called Librelist. The official website introduces it quite well, so I'll just quote it:
#######################################
Librelist is a free as in freedom mailing list site for open source projects. It is a place for FOSS communities to discuss all the things they want without ads, censorship, signup requirements, bundled apps, or requirements that you use any particular email client or service.
Anyone Can Make A List
You can make a mailing list by simply sending an email to [email protected], and if it doesn’t exist, it will make it for you and subscribe you. That’s all there is to it, and no restrictions on making the lists.
Anyone Can Subscribe To A List
You also subscribe to a list by simply sending your first message to [email protected]. That’s it. It ditches your original message and sends you a confirmation you reply to. No signup or web forms involved.
Spam And Bounce Blocking
Spam is heavily blocked on all lists to keep things clean. We will also periodically ban anonymous email services if they become a vector for abuse.
Bounced emails are caught and anyone who bounces has all of their subscriptions paused until they can fix the problem and reinstate themselves.
############ End quote Website address: http://librelist.org
I would like to add that Librelist is a much need alternative to existing mailing list solutions. Let's say that a group of people, as you said, are trying to collaborate over free knowledge. These people usually need a mailing list. What options do they have?
There are two sets of options: (1) commercial solutions and (2) self-hosted open-source solution.
Commercial mailing list providers, such as Google and Yahoo, have a lot of resources in their disposal that could in principle be used for providing a great mailing list service. But that's not what happens in practice. To paraphrase a comment from Librelist's founder Zed Shaw, Google and Yahoo optimize their services to give the best experience for the user; Problem is, from their perspective, the "user" is not the person trying to communicate on the mailing list, but the advertiser paying Google/Yahoo for advertising on the mailing list.
Needless to say, this does not result in a very good experience for the actual user. I know personally some people who manage a mailing list hosted by Google, and I was told there are many problems with it, specifically an abundance of spam and lack of good tools for dealing with it.
The second approach is to use mailing list software such as mailman or piper. This has two problems:
(1) It requires a server for hosting the list, and a system administrator to configure and maintain the mailing list. For some project this is a big barrier, for others it's merely a waste of time and resources.
(2) The popular mailing list programs are not very good. Take mailman for example, which is used for this mailing list. It does many things which may have been considered acceptable 10 years ago, but not today. The subscription process is cumbersome, the program sends the user his password in plain text, and generally its interface looks like a 1995 website.
So there aren't very good options for a group that needs a mailing list. I would like to note that I have been in this exact situation recently, as I needed to make mailing lists for my open source projects. I just couldn't find a good solution. This is how I found Librelist.
I believe that Librelist is a good solution, and I think of it as the Wikipedia of mailing lists. Every user can start a new mailing list, and post on any mailing list he wishes.
And I would say, that the biggest disadvantage Librelist currently has is this: Since it is a relatively new community project, it's hard to trust that it will stay operating and well-maintained for years. People don't want to start a mailing list on a service that might get closed 6 months from now. The founder of Librelist seems enthusiastic enough, but this is a non-profit project for him, so it's impossible to be certain that he will not become too busy for the project in the future.
I think that the Wikimedia foundation should sponsor this project. I think it wouldn't require a big amount of resources, but it will require the persistence and reliability over time that Wikimedia has shown with Wikipedia and its other projects.
This will solve the concern I mentioned above, and will make Librelist a very attractive choice for people who want to collaborate.
I'd be happy to hear any comments.
Best Wishes, Ram Rachum.
On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 8:51 AM, Samuel Klein [email protected] wrote:
Hello Ram,
This is the right list, to the extent that one exists.
It is hard to answer a question this abstract. In general, Wikimedia hosts Projects that help people collaborate on free knowledge, and software, scripts and other tools related to those Projects (say, on our toolservers). We are not a generic project host. In what sense does this service have 'a spirit similar to Wikimedia's projects'?
Cheers, SJ
On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 8:20 PM, cool-RR [email protected] wrote:
Hello all!
This is my first time on any Wikimedia mailing list, so please forgive me
if
I'm actually posting on the wrong list or something.
I'm a programmer, and recently I've been using a nice little service,
which
is run by a few independent programmers. The trouble is that it's a kind
of
service which potential users would like to know that it will be
maintained
well for a few years in the future, and these independent programmers
can't
guarantee something like that. Then I thought, this project has a spirit similar to Wikimedia's projects, so maybe Wikimedia would want to adopt
it
or sponsor it? I think it will require little maintenance effort.
Do note that this project is not a wiki exactly.
I have not yet said what this project it, cause I'm not even sure I'm on
the
right mailing list. Is this a good place to discuss this matter?
(Also, please 'cc' me in any replies, because I don't get mail delivered from this list.)
Best Wishes, Ram Rachum. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
cool-RR wrote:
Hello Samuel,
I'm glad I got the right list.
According to your definition, the project fits Wikimedia's goal. I will now introduce it.
The project is called Librelist. The official website introduces it quite well, so I'll just quote it:
Librelist is a free as in freedom mailing list site for open source projects. It is a place for FOSS communities to discuss all the things they want without ads, censorship, signup requirements, bundled apps, or requirements that you use any particular email client or service.
Anyone Can Make A List
You can make a mailing list by simply sending an email to [email protected], and if it doesn’t exist, it will make it for you and subscribe you. That’s all there is to it, and no restrictions on making the lists.
Some steps shuld be a little harder. How do you difference a typo from a request for a new list? Who is set as admin? Etc.
Anyone Can Subscribe To A List
You also subscribe to a list by simply sending your first message to [email protected]. That’s it. It ditches your original message and sends you a confirmation you reply to. No signup or web forms involved.
From http://librelist.com/help.html it looks like you don't need to
answer a payload to be subscribed. That will produce lots of problems when its mailing lists gets sent spam messages with faked from headers. It could even be abused as a remailer. I'm pretty sure it is mentioned in some RFC, but it's proper netiquette anyway.
And I would say, that the biggest disadvantage Librelist currently has is this: Since it is a relatively new community project, it's hard to trust that it will stay operating and well-maintained for years. People don't want to start a mailing list on a service that might get closed 6 months from now. The founder of Librelist seems enthusiastic enough, but this is a non-profit project for him, so it's impossible to be certain that he will not become too busy for the project in the future.
That can be solved to some extent by making it easy to fork. I see that the mailing lists are rsyncable which is very nice. If the mailing list admin can download with a click a mailing list backup that can be installed on a server with a couple of clicks should librelist go down. (Note that these contain email addresses so they must not be public)
I think that the Wikimedia foundation should sponsor this project. I think it wouldn't require a big amount of resources, but it will require the persistence and reliability over time that Wikimedia has shown with Wikipedia and its other projects.
I don't think that fits cleanly into the Mission, but the decision is up to the board.
Ram, thanks for sharing your interesting project.
On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 7:15 PM, Platonides [email protected] wrote:
Librelist is a free as in freedom mailing list site for open source projects. It is a place for FOSS communities to discuss all the things they want without ads, censorship, signup requirements, bundled apps, or requirements that you use any particular email client or service.
Limited to FOSS communities?
People don't want to start a mailing list on a service that might get closed 6 months from now. The founder of Librelist seems enthusiastic enough, but this is a non-profit project for him, so it's impossible to be certain that he will not become too busy for the project in the future.
That can be solved to some extent by making it easy to fork. I see that the mailing lists are rsyncable which is very nice.
+1
I don't think that fits cleanly into the Mission, but the decision is up to the board.
Platonides is right, it's not clearly part of our current mission - though it does facilitate some types of collaboration, mail threads are parallel to our notion of talk pages. There's certainly something to be gained from thinking about what our mailing lists provide that LiquidThreads* does not, and identifying/supporting efforts to improve that channel for conversations. (*This is our current concept of threaded discussion in the context of directly collaborating on some sort of lasting knowledge)
But just as we don't support multiple wiki platforms or mailman itself, we aren't generally a project host. Have you talked to the FSF about hosting such a service, considering your FOSS focus?
SJ
On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 9:49 PM, Samuel Klein [email protected] wrote:
But just as we don't support multiple wiki platforms or mailman itself, we aren't generally a project host. Have you talked to the FSF about hosting such a service, considering your FOSS focus?
Over the years, I've seen two general approaches to trying to launch a new Wikimedia site. The first is trying to come up with a *new* idea for a wiki. They start discussion on here or meta and typically it dies out because people lose interest in trying to flesh out a new project. The second approach that I've seen used is trying to get the Foundation to "adopt" some existing project. This also tends to fail as people get caught up over specifics (licensing, etc) and then lose interest. Or it gets said that Wikimedia is not a "host*" for projects.
I'm curious to know, how does one start a new project in Wikimedia anymore?
-Chad
On Apr 29, 2010, at 9:08 PM, Chad wrote:
On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 9:49 PM, Samuel Klein [email protected] wrote:
But just as we don't support multiple wiki platforms or mailman itself, we aren't generally a project host. Have you talked to the FSF about hosting such a service, considering your FOSS focus?
Over the years, I've seen two general approaches to trying to launch a new Wikimedia site. The first is trying to come up with a *new* idea for a wiki. They start discussion on here or meta and typically it dies out because people lose interest in trying to flesh out a new project. The second approach that I've seen used is trying to get the Foundation to "adopt" some existing project. This also tends to fail as people get caught up over specifics (licensing, etc) and then lose interest. Or it gets said that Wikimedia is not a "host*" for projects.
I'm curious to know, how does one start a new project in Wikimedia anymore?
-Chad
Unashamed plug: there's a task force on the strategy wiki to discuss exactly these issues: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Content_scope
Participation is welcomed.
Philippe
____________________ Philippe Beaudette Facilitator, Strategy Project and Head of Reader Relations Wikimedia Foundation
Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 10:08 PM, Chad [email protected] wrote:
Over the years, I've seen two general approaches to trying to launch a new Wikimedia site. The first is trying to come up with a *new* idea for a wiki. They start discussion on here or meta and typically it dies out because people lose interest in trying to flesh out a new project.
That's one good approach. It often involves setting up a trial project; as with the genealogy projects discussed on Meta's new project proposals page.
The second approach that I've seen used is trying to get the Foundation to "adopt" some existing project. This also tends to fail as people get caught up over specifics (licensing, etc) and then lose interest.
Adoption is a bit trickier -- we haven't had very good test cases to see what makes sense and what doesn't. There are a number of interesting educational collaboration projects out there, but those of general widespread interest haven't been the ones looking for adoption.
Niche projects that are far more specific than our current Projects can be hard to consider for adoption. Unlike projects such as Wikia, we encourage unified namespaces so that there is one Project for a given type of knowledge or collaboration. So ParliamentWiki and CongressCMS would ideally make peace with becoming portals within a larger existing Project. This has not happened yet, save perhaps for some adopted dictionaries.
Or it gets said that Wikimedia is not a "host*" for projects.
That was poor phrasing on my part - Wikimedia is prominently a host for global multilingual collaborative-knowledge projects.
But Wikimedia is not at present a host or explicit supporter of any satellite services that might be useful to such collaborations -- say, public scratchpad providers (etherpad), public wiki providers, or public mailing list providers (librelist?). It is not even a host or explicit supporter of services that provide part of a toolchain for frequent contributions to existing Wikimedia projects -- such as Distributed Proofreaders or Librivox.
I would expect to see us start recognizing and supporting the latter class of projects before the more abstract former set, though both are important to the larger task of facilitating knowledgework. And in many cases, the best way that we could support a project may not be through hosting, but instead through directing traffic and attention; or sponsoring current work. [we do occasionally give explicit support and recognition to projects such as Freenode without which our community would be much poorer]
The questions of what projects are important to free collaboration, and how we can support them, are quite important. As Philippe mentioned, this is being discussed currently at http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Content_scope
SJ
Chad wrote:
I'm curious to know, how does one start a new project in Wikimedia anymore?
-Chad
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects
Creating a new language for an existing project is easier: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages
Before getting its own wiki, the proposal will probably go by the incubator first.
Samuel Klein <meta.sj@...> writes:
Ram, thanks for sharing your interesting project.
| | On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 7:15 PM, Platonides <Platonides@...> wrote: | > | >> Librelist is a free as in freedom mailing list site for open source | >> projects. It is a place for FOSS communities to discuss all the things they | >> want without ads, censorship, signup requirements, bundled apps, or | >> requirements that you use any particular email client or service. | | Limited to FOSS communities?
I don't think so.
Platonides is right, it's not clearly part of our current mission - though it does facilitate some types of collaboration, mail threads are parallel to our notion of talk pages. There's certainly something to be gained from thinking about what our mailing lists provide that LiquidThreads* does not, and identifying/supporting efforts to improve that channel for conversations. (*This is our current concept of threaded discussion in the context of directly collaborating on some sort of lasting knowledge)
But just as we don't support multiple wiki platforms or mailman itself, we aren't generally a project host. Have you talked to the FSF about hosting such a service, considering your FOSS focus?
SJ
Thanks for your opinion. I did not think about the FSF, that's a good idea and I will contact them.
Ram.