Thread: Mailing List Etiquette FAQ

Mailing List Etiquette FAQ

From
Joe Conway
Date:
(undoubtedly this has come up before, but top of
  mind for me today)

On the oft cited wiki page here:

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists

we link to the "Mailing List Etiquette FAQ" here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170426175120/http://www.gweep.ca/~edmonds/usenet/ml-etiquette.html

While using web.archive.org certainly works (although it did time out on 
my first attempt), should we try to get permission to just create our 
own copy of it?

The domain itself (http://www.gweep.ca/) is still in use but gives the 
default lighttpd splash page.

I cannot tell is the author is still around (twitter account inactive 
since ~2010, no other activity that I could find with a quick search).


-- 
Joe Conway
PostgreSQL Contributors Team
RDS Open Source Databases
Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com



Re: Mailing List Etiquette FAQ

From
"Jonathan S. Katz"
Date:
On 11/21/22 10:42 AM, Joe Conway wrote:
> (undoubtedly this has come up before, but top of
>   mind for me today)
> 
> On the oft cited wiki page here:
> 
> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists
> 
> we link to the "Mailing List Etiquette FAQ" here:
> 
> https://web.archive.org/web/20170426175120/http://www.gweep.ca/~edmonds/usenet/ml-etiquette.html
> 
> While using web.archive.org certainly works (although it did time out on 
> my first attempt), should we try to get permission to just create our 
> own copy of it?
> 
> The domain itself (http://www.gweep.ca/) is still in use but gives the 
> default lighttpd splash page.
> 
> I cannot tell is the author is still around (twitter account inactive 
> since ~2010, no other activity that I could find with a quick search).

+1; there are some things in it we would likely want to modify as well 
(e.g. exact troubleshooting contact info) so having permission would be 
good.

The author did provide an email to reach out to request permission, so 
we can try that.

If the author does not reply, we can say we made a best effort, host our 
own copy while linking back to the original on archive.org.

Thanks,

Jonathan

Attachment

Re: Mailing List Etiquette FAQ

From
Joe Conway
Date:
On 11/21/22 10:46, Jonathan S. Katz wrote:
> On 11/21/22 10:42 AM, Joe Conway wrote:
>> I cannot tell is the author is still around (twitter account inactive 
>> since ~2010, no other activity that I could find with a quick search).
> 
> +1; there are some things in it we would likely want to modify as well
> (e.g. exact troubleshooting contact info) so having permission would be
> good.
> 
> The author did provide an email to reach out to request permission, so
> we can try that.
> 
> If the author does not reply, we can say we made a best effort, host our
> own copy while linking back to the original on archive.org.

Well the problem with that is that the page specifically says:

"This document may be freely retransmitted in Usenet or email; 
permission to reproduce in any other media should be requested from the 
author, Brian Edmonds <brian@gweep.ca>."

I will send an email (and perhaps try a DM on twitter) and see if he 
responds or it bounces.

-- 
Joe Conway
PostgreSQL Contributors Team
RDS Open Source Databases
Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com




Re: Mailing List Etiquette FAQ

From
"Jonathan S. Katz"
Date:
On 11/21/22 10:54 AM, Joe Conway wrote:
> On 11/21/22 10:46, Jonathan S. Katz wrote:
>> On 11/21/22 10:42 AM, Joe Conway wrote:
>>> I cannot tell is the author is still around (twitter account inactive 
>>> since ~2010, no other activity that I could find with a quick search).
>>
>> +1; there are some things in it we would likely want to modify as well
>> (e.g. exact troubleshooting contact info) so having permission would be
>> good.
>>
>> The author did provide an email to reach out to request permission, so
>> we can try that.
>>
>> If the author does not reply, we can say we made a best effort, host our
>> own copy while linking back to the original on archive.org.
> 
> Well the problem with that is that the page specifically says:
> 
> "This document may be freely retransmitted in Usenet or email; 
> permission to reproduce in any other media should be requested from the 
> author, Brian Edmonds <brian@gweep.ca>."
> 
> I will send an email (and perhaps try a DM on twitter) and see if he 
> responds or it bounces.

We read the same page :) I think it's OK if we make a best effort, 
especially given that the page itself is hosted on archives.org at tihs 
point and not readily accessible.

Thanks,

Jonathan


Attachment

Re: Mailing List Etiquette FAQ

From
"Jonathan S. Katz"
Date:
On 11/21/22 10:55 AM, Jonathan S. Katz wrote:
> On 11/21/22 10:54 AM, Joe Conway wrote:
>> On 11/21/22 10:46, Jonathan S. Katz wrote:
>>> On 11/21/22 10:42 AM, Joe Conway wrote:
>>>> I cannot tell is the author is still around (twitter account 
>>>> inactive since ~2010, no other activity that I could find with a 
>>>> quick search).
>>>
>>> +1; there are some things in it we would likely want to modify as well
>>> (e.g. exact troubleshooting contact info) so having permission would be
>>> good.
>>>
>>> The author did provide an email to reach out to request permission, so
>>> we can try that.
>>>
>>> If the author does not reply, we can say we made a best effort, host our
>>> own copy while linking back to the original on archive.org.
>>
>> Well the problem with that is that the page specifically says:
>>
>> "This document may be freely retransmitted in Usenet or email; 
>> permission to reproduce in any other media should be requested from 
>> the author, Brian Edmonds <brian@gweep.ca>."
>>
>> I will send an email (and perhaps try a DM on twitter) and see if he 
>> responds or it bounces.
> 
> We read the same page :) I think it's OK if we make a best effort, 
> especially given that the page itself is hosted on archives.org at tihs 
> point and not readily accessible.

Just to clarify, if we can't reach the author and we don't want to link 
to the archive anymore, we would have to write our own version of 
mailing list etiquette.

Thanks,

Jonathan

Attachment

Re: Mailing List Etiquette FAQ

From
Magnus Hagander
Date:


On Mon, Nov 21, 2022 at 6:35 PM Jonathan S. Katz <jkatz@postgresql.org> wrote:
On 11/21/22 10:55 AM, Jonathan S. Katz wrote:
> On 11/21/22 10:54 AM, Joe Conway wrote:
>> On 11/21/22 10:46, Jonathan S. Katz wrote:
>>> On 11/21/22 10:42 AM, Joe Conway wrote:
>>>> I cannot tell is the author is still around (twitter account
>>>> inactive since ~2010, no other activity that I could find with a
>>>> quick search).
>>>
>>> +1; there are some things in it we would likely want to modify as well
>>> (e.g. exact troubleshooting contact info) so having permission would be
>>> good.
>>>
>>> The author did provide an email to reach out to request permission, so
>>> we can try that.
>>>
>>> If the author does not reply, we can say we made a best effort, host our
>>> own copy while linking back to the original on archive.org.
>>
>> Well the problem with that is that the page specifically says:
>>
>> "This document may be freely retransmitted in Usenet or email;
>> permission to reproduce in any other media should be requested from
>> the author, Brian Edmonds <brian@gweep.ca>."
>>
>> I will send an email (and perhaps try a DM on twitter) and see if he
>> responds or it bounces.
>
> We read the same page :) I think it's OK if we make a best effort,
> especially given that the page itself is hosted on archives.org at tihs
> point and not readily accessible.

Just to clarify, if we can't reach the author and we don't want to link
to the archive anymore, we would have to write our own version of
mailing list etiquette.

If we think about "the bigger picture", we probably almost want that anyway. That is, we want something that tells people how to use *our* lists as well -- ISTM that the same place that would hold this information could/should also hold things like "how to use the retransmit feature to interact with an existing thread" and "how to use mbox downloads"  and stuff like that. We want the general one as well yes, we should try to do an adapted version. There's also stuff on that one (such as the "bounces list") that is irrelevant to our lists.

That said, definite +1 for trying to contact the person first and making it a "based on" thing.

--

Re: Mailing List Etiquette FAQ

From
Joe Conway
Date:
On 11/21/22 12:42, Magnus Hagander wrote:
> That said, definite +1 for trying to contact the person first and making 
> it a "based on" thing.

I sent an email -- will report back if I get a reply.


-- 
Joe Conway
PostgreSQL Contributors Team
RDS Open Source Databases
Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com