Mailing lists

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The mailing lists are coming!

You might like to know our plans, so here they are.

There will be three mailing lists, as follows.

[1]

This is a public list, its contents are published on the internet. This is the general purpose mailing list that all members are subscribed to upon registration. The rules for this mailing list are that you can talk about anything at any time. There is no 'topic'. The only posts that you are not allowed to send to this list are complaints about the topic. People who complain about the topic on this list will be flamed to high heaven. So, if you have a burning political agenda and simply need to tell everyone you possibly can about what's bothering you, then [2] would be an entirely acceptable place to send your rant. We'll judge you on what you say, not on how we perceive its relevance to our idea of what the mailing list should be about.

[3]

This is a public list, its contents are published on the internet. This is a programming and systems administration specific mailing list that all members are subscribed to upon registration. We understand that there are a class of people who can't tolerate deviations from a particular 'topic' on the internet. They have been sending completely off-topic emails to mailing lists around the world complaining about the 'topic' since the internet was invented, and we're pretty sure they're not going to go away. So [4] is for them. You should only send material related to programming or systems administration to this list, other topics are unacceptable. This includes, by the way, complaints about the 'topic'. If someone makes a mistake and sends off-topic material to [5] then you should reply to them directly informing them of their indiscretion -- the rest of the list really doesn't need to know about it. If you have something that you think is interesting to say in response to a message on this list, but you know that what you have to say is not strictly related to programming or systems administration, then you should reply to the message and re-address it to [6]. That way, you get to have your say, and you don't upset the topic nazis. We don't anticipate ever being large enough to justify sub-topic areas for particular programming languages or platforms, so you can send your message here if its related to any programming language or platform.

admin@progclub.org

This is a private list, its contents are not published on the internet. This is the mailing list that all ProgClub administrators are subscribed to. It won't be available to the general public, nor to non-administrator members. Send messages to this list if you are having a problem with your account that you need an administrator to address. Don't send anything else to this list. As with the programming list, if you have something to say that is not relevant to ProgClub systems administration, then send your reply to list@progclub.org instead. Be aware however that sensitive information might have been sent to this private list, so if you're replying to another list make sure you remove anything that might be considered sensitive, such as the identity of the person you are responding to (if they're not a known member of the other list) or the like.

Choosing a list to send your message to

So there are three lists, where do you send your message? Firstly, don't send it to more than one list, that would be annoying. If your message is about something related to the configuration of the ProgClub network that you need fixed, then send your message to [7]. If you're pretty sure your message is specifically related to programming or systems administration, then send your message to [8]. In any other event, or even if you just feel like it, send your message to [9].

Complaining about the mailing list policy

People feel strongly about mailing list issue like this, so the rules are being dictated. With benevolence, naturally. If you have a complaint about the rules, send your complaint to [10], and we can gauge people's opinion and pretend like we're a democracy for a little while. Like Australia.