Thread: Reorganizing PG lists

Greetings,

The migration of the active mailing lists from mj2 to PGLister has
largely been completed and a few things from that have come to light
regarding the current organization of the lists.

Today we have these categories:

User Lists
Developer Lists
Regional Lists
Associations
User Groups
Project Lists
Inactive Lists

Reviewing actual usage shows that a number of the lists aren't really
categorized correctly under these categories.  In particular, the
"Regional" lists are actually more "per-language" lists than they are
"Regional" in nature.  To address that, we're planning to create a new
category called "Per Language Lists" (better name suggestions are
welcome) and move a number of the currently "regional" lists to that
category.

Individuals who are familiar with the various non-English lists are
solicited to please help us distinguish the lists that are truely
"Regional" from those which are really "Per-Language".  My understanding
is that, at least, the following lists are really per-language and not
really regional:

pgsql-es-ayuda
pgsql-es-fomento
pgsql-es-trabajos
pgsql-fr-generale
pgsql-de-allgemein

While the following lists are really "Regional" lists and not really
"PUGS" and therefore they should be recategorized accordingly:

arpug
ecpug

Lastly there is the "User Groups" category which, given the above moves,
are all essentially defunct lists that are, at most, used just as a
cross-post from Meetup.com and other services.  We've actually been
actively told by individuals who are involved in running PUGs in a
number of places that the PG lists for them should be retired.  What
we've seen is that the per-language and regional lists are good to have
but the PUGs are organized through other means and the lists end up
being unused, which is worse than simply not having those lists because
individuals looking for active user groups are misled into thinking that
there isn't an active user group because there's no activity on the
list.  We also have the explicit "Local User Groups" portion of the
website (which will be independently cleaned up to remove actually
inactive groups and dead links).

Please let me know if there are other lists which should really be
categorized as "per-language" (honestly, I'm tempted to say that *all*
of the currently "Regional" ones should be per-language...).  I will
also continue to reach out to individuals who are active on those lists
for their advice as well.

If any of the user groups are really active and have only the mailing
list as a mechansim for communication (which, given that almost all of
them haven't seen traffic in over a year and those that have nearly
always have a meetup.com link...), please let me know and we can
discuss what can be done to address that.

I'm hoping to implement these changes in the next week to allow us to
finally move completely off of mj2.

Thanks!

Stephen

On 03.01.2018 19:43, Stephen Frost wrote:

> pgsql-de-allgemein

The traffic on this list is in German, but it covers 3 countries: 
Germany, Austria and Switzerland.


Regards,

-- 
                Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group
European PostgreSQL User Group - Board of Directors
Volunteer Regional Contact, Germany - PostgreSQL Project

Stephen Frost wrote:

> Reviewing actual usage shows that a number of the lists aren't really
> categorized correctly under these categories.  In particular, the
> "Regional" lists are actually more "per-language" lists than they are
> "Regional" in nature.  To address that, we're planning to create a new
> category called "Per Language Lists" (better name suggestions are
> welcome) and move a number of the currently "regional" lists to that
> category.
> 
> Individuals who are familiar with the various non-English lists are
> solicited to please help us distinguish the lists that are truely
> "Regional" from those which are really "Per-Language".  My understanding
> is that, at least, the following lists are really per-language and not
> really regional:
> 
> pgsql-es-ayuda
> pgsql-es-fomento
> pgsql-es-trabajos
> pgsql-fr-generale
> pgsql-de-allgemein

I think renaming the "Regional" category to "Language" is a fine
solution to the most of the problem.

AFAICT the only non-dead PUG lists are:

pdxpug
seapug
ecpug
lapug

Maybe those are the only ones that should be under "regional".

(I defended arpug previously but looking at it again, it seems to have
mostly languished & dead.)

-- 
Álvaro Herrera                https://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services

Alvaro,

* Alvaro Herrera (alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org) wrote:
> Stephen Frost wrote:
>
> > Reviewing actual usage shows that a number of the lists aren't really
> > categorized correctly under these categories.  In particular, the
> > "Regional" lists are actually more "per-language" lists than they are
> > "Regional" in nature.  To address that, we're planning to create a new
> > category called "Per Language Lists" (better name suggestions are
> > welcome) and move a number of the currently "regional" lists to that
> > category.
> >
> > Individuals who are familiar with the various non-English lists are
> > solicited to please help us distinguish the lists that are truely
> > "Regional" from those which are really "Per-Language".  My understanding
> > is that, at least, the following lists are really per-language and not
> > really regional:
> >
> > pgsql-es-ayuda
> > pgsql-es-fomento
> > pgsql-es-trabajos
> > pgsql-fr-generale
> > pgsql-de-allgemein
>
> I think renaming the "Regional" category to "Language" is a fine
> solution to the most of the problem.

Great, glad we agree there.

> AFAICT the only non-dead PUG lists are:
>
> pdxpug
> seapug
> ecpug
> lapug

I know that pdxpug has basically said that they use Meetup and really
don't see value in cross-posting to that list.  Seapug appears to just
be -announce repostings, and lapug also has a meetup account that they
use.  Moveing ecpug to a Regional list is fine, of course.

> Maybe those are the only ones that should be under "regional".

I'd rather not have mailing lists which are just re-postings about
Meetups, if we can avoid it.

> (I defended arpug previously but looking at it again, it seems to have
> mostly languished & dead.)

Ok.

Thanks!

Stephen

Jeff,

* Jeff Janes (jeff.janes@gmail.com) wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 1:43 PM, Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> wrote:
> > Reviewing actual usage shows that a number of the lists aren't really
> > categorized correctly under these categories.  In particular, the
> > "Regional" lists are actually more "per-language" lists than they are
> > "Regional" in nature.  To address that, we're planning to create a new
> > category called "Per Language Lists" (better name suggestions are
> > welcome) and move a number of the currently "regional" lists to that
> > category.
>
> I would just call then non-English lists.  It clarifies that human
> languages, not computer languages are being referred to; and seeing "per
> language" would make me think every list (hackers, bugs, general, etc.) is
> trying to be replicated into every language.

Saying 'non-English' feel a bit English-centric to me, perhaps just list
the initial set of lists as "English Speaking" and then have the other
lists be "Other Language Lists"?

Thanks!

Stephen

> On Jan 3, 2018, at 3:46 PM, Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> wrote:
>
> Jeff,
>
> * Jeff Janes (jeff.janes@gmail.com) wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 1:43 PM, Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> wrote:
>>> Reviewing actual usage shows that a number of the lists aren't really
>>> categorized correctly under these categories.  In particular, the
>>> "Regional" lists are actually more "per-language" lists than they are
>>> "Regional" in nature.  To address that, we're planning to create a new
>>> category called "Per Language Lists" (better name suggestions are
>>> welcome) and move a number of the currently "regional" lists to that
>>> category.
>>
>> I would just call then non-English lists.  It clarifies that human
>> languages, not computer languages are being referred to; and seeing "per
>> language" would make me think every list (hackers, bugs, general, etc.) is
>> trying to be replicated into every language.
>
> Saying 'non-English' feel a bit English-centric to me, perhaps just list
> the initial set of lists as "English Speaking" and then have the other
> lists be "Other Language Lists”?

Or "Locallized?"

Jonathan

* Jonathan S. Katz (jkatz@postgresql.org) wrote:
>
> > On Jan 3, 2018, at 3:46 PM, Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> wrote:
> >
> > Jeff,
> >
> > * Jeff Janes (jeff.janes@gmail.com) wrote:
> >> On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 1:43 PM, Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> wrote:
> >>> Reviewing actual usage shows that a number of the lists aren't really
> >>> categorized correctly under these categories.  In particular, the
> >>> "Regional" lists are actually more "per-language" lists than they are
> >>> "Regional" in nature.  To address that, we're planning to create a new
> >>> category called "Per Language Lists" (better name suggestions are
> >>> welcome) and move a number of the currently "regional" lists to that
> >>> category.
> >>
> >> I would just call then non-English lists.  It clarifies that human
> >> languages, not computer languages are being referred to; and seeing "per
> >> language" would make me think every list (hackers, bugs, general, etc.) is
> >> trying to be replicated into every language.
> >
> > Saying 'non-English' feel a bit English-centric to me, perhaps just list
> > the initial set of lists as "English Speaking" and then have the other
> > lists be "Other Language Lists”?
>
> Or "Locallized?"

So, the other thought that I had here was actually to have "English"
lists and then simply have a category for each of the other sets of
lists.  In other words, something like:

English

  User Lists
    pgsql-announce
    pgsql-general

  Developer Lists
    pgsql-hackers
    pgsql-gui-dev

  whatever else

German

  pgsql-de-allgemein

French
  pgsql-fr-generale

Spanish
  pgsql-es-ayuda
  pgsql-es-fomento
  pgsql-es-trabajos

This makes it a bit less English-centric, imv, but keeps the more
popular lists towards the top.  I'll need to chat with Magnus a bit
about making this a reality since it adds another level, but I don't
expect that to be a huge issue and it wouldn't change the actual email
addresses.

Thanks!

Stephen

Jonathan,

* Jonathan S. Katz (jkatz@postgresql.org) wrote:
> > On Jan 3, 2018, at 3:46 PM, Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> wrote:
> > * Jeff Janes (jeff.janes@gmail.com) wrote:
> >> On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 1:43 PM, Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> wrote:
> >>> Reviewing actual usage shows that a number of the lists aren't really
> >>> categorized correctly under these categories.  In particular, the
> >>> "Regional" lists are actually more "per-language" lists than they are
> >>> "Regional" in nature.  To address that, we're planning to create a new
> >>> category called "Per Language Lists" (better name suggestions are
> >>> welcome) and move a number of the currently "regional" lists to that
> >>> category.
> >>
> >> I would just call then non-English lists.  It clarifies that human
> >> languages, not computer languages are being referred to; and seeing "per
> >> language" would make me think every list (hackers, bugs, general, etc.) is
> >> trying to be replicated into every language.
> >
> > Saying 'non-English' feel a bit English-centric to me, perhaps just list
> > the initial set of lists as "English Speaking" and then have the other
> > lists be "Other Language Lists”?
>
> Or "Locallized?"

Interesting and I get that it's a play off of 'localization' wrt L10N
and whatnot, but I don't think most people would get it (particularly
those whose first language is not English...).

I also don't really want to modify the webcode, if we can avoid it, so
what do people think about this:

User lists -> User lists (English speaking)
Developer lists -> Developer lists (English speaking)
(add) User lists for other languages (not English)
Regional lists -> Regional lists (primary native language)
Associations -> Associations (English speaking)
(remove) User groups
Project lists -> Project lists (English speaking0
(remove) Inactive lists

With the associated migration between lists groups proposed previously.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Stephen