[HCoop-Discuss] Mailing list subscription policies (was: Re: [HCoop-SysAdmin] ... Someone to take over as lists moderator?)

[Richard Darst]

Hello -discuss,

At first, I wasn't going to comment since I figured it wouldn't come
to anything, but this morning I was thinking that I should say
something, at least to promote the spirit I'd rather hcoop be...

(Moving to -discuss since this is more of a philosophical thing)

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 02:25:24PM -0400, Adam Chlipala wrote:

> - Our current policy is not to allow subscriptions from addresses that 
> aren't in the form USER at hcoop.net.  Members should subscribe only 
> through the portal, and you should reject direct subscription requests 
> of any kind.  Sending from non-HCoop addresses is supported through 
> whitelisting by moderators, and receipt of list mail at arbitrary 
> addresses is supported by forwarding from HCoop accounts.  (The policy 
> is open to discussion, but I still think it's the right way to do things.)

I strongly feel that this isn't the right default policy...

As an open, community, cooperative project, I think defaults should be
open.  (of course, there could be specific exceptions, like the
sysadmin list what was already discussed at some point in the past.)
I think the question should be "why not" rather than "why".

I can still think of several cases why it might be useful: someone
wants to follow the happenings of hcoop, because they are involved or
would like to start their own hosting cooperative[0].  Or someone is
considering joining/helping hcoop and checks things out first[1] (as I
will soon prod my friends to do once we do this upgrade).  However,
the real reason for keeping an open policy should be "why not?".

Someone could argue "but the list archive are open if they want to
see", but if that's the case, why not let them subscribe?

If allowing other subscribers becomes a problem, then we can
reconsider.  If it's too hard to approve subscriptions, that would be
another reason to reconsider...

- Richard



[0] In this case, we should add them to the sysadmin list on request,
    too.

[1] As a side note, if the list archives weren't open, I probably
    wouldn't have joined, since I did check the archives to make sure I
    knew what I was getting myself into and that the organization was
    somewhat effective.

-- 
| Richard Darst  -  rkd@          -  boltzmann: up 114 days, 9:50
|            http://rkd.zgib.net  -  pgp 0xBD356740
| "Ye shall know the truth and -- the truth shall make you free"