Introducing list "topics"

Greetings Geminauts!

Following on (finally!) from semi-recent discussion about the
possibility of splitting the mailing list up into multiple smaller lists
to allow people to follow only the subset(s) of discussion that re
interesting or relevant to them, I am happy to announce that we're ready
to begin testing something in this spirit.  I know some people have been
waiting for something like this for quite a while - thanks for your
patience.

The GNU Mailman software which powers this list has support for
something called "topics", and I've set some of these up just now.  For
example, any post to the list which has "[users]" in its subject or in
the first 5 lines of its body will be included in the "users" topic
(I'll say more below about the available topics and their intended
purposes below).  If you subscribe to one or more topics, then you will

On the other hand, if you do not subscribe to any topics then you will
receive any and all posts, as if nothing had changed.  This basically
means nothing will change for you unless you opt-in to the new system by
subscribing to some subset of the available topics.  You can change your
subscription settings at any time by visiting
https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/listinfo/gemini.

The catch is that all of this only works if people remember to include
topic tags in their subjects, or early in their message bodies.  This is
mostly an issue for people starting new threads - once a topic tag is
included in the subject of a post, all replies will be included too
unless the person replying edits the subject to remove the topic.  If
you start a new thread and forget to add a topic, relatively few people
will actually see it - only those brave souls who follow the entire
list, or people who have subscribed to some topics but also made the
choice to still receive topicless posts (this is the option immediately
after the topic choices at the subscription options page).  This may
take a little getting used to, but hopefully it will not prove too hard
for us to pick up the habit.

Without further ado, the four currently defined topics are below.  I've
started out with just four to keep things relatively simple, but if over
time it becomes clear that we would benefit from more fine-grained
distinctions, I'm not opposed to moving in that direction.

# Users

Any post containing "[users]" in its subject belongs to the Users topic.
This topic is supposed to be used for discussion relevant to people
consuming and publishing content in Gemini-space, and is supposed to be
fairly non-technical.  Announcements of new capsules, new search
engines, new public resources (e.g. games like Astrobotany or
aggregators like CAPCOM or Spacewalk), and of new user-oriented software
(like clients, or site generators) is welcome here.

# Tech

Any post containing "[tech]" in its subject belongs to the Tech topic.
This topic is supposed to be used for discussion relevant to people
implementing Gemini software, running Gemini servers, or who are
generally interested in the technical side of things.  For example,
questions about the best way to implement some aspect of Gemini in a
particular language or environment, announcements of new libraries or
other developer/admin-oriented software, or discussion of advanced
subjects like building applications which use client certificates to
maintain state, are all welcome here.

# Spec

Any post containing "[spec]" in its subject belongs to the Spec topic.
This topic is supposed to be used for discussion towards finalising the
spec and the process of moving toward formally standardising Gemini with
bodies like IETF and IANA.  This is not a place to propose random
additions to the spec, but to address ambiguities and inconsistencies in
the existing spec and to resolve the few outstanding issues which have
already been raised.  It is possible (although hopefully increasingly
unlikely) that there are still important outstanding issues which
haven't been discovered yet - my sincere hope is that this kind of thing
will "bubble up" to [spec] after thorough discussion on [tech].

# Announce

Finally, any post containing "[announce]" in its subject belongs to the
Announce topic.  This is intended as a tool for me to make official,
important and infrequent announcements about the entire project which I
expect to be of very broad interest.  This will be a very low-traffic
topic, suitable for people who just want to keep loose tabs on the
project without trying to keep up with a daily stream of messages.  Note
that there's no access control on any of the topics, which means in
principle anybody can post to [announce].  I ask you to please not abuse
this, and don't post to [announce] unless you're me or I've told you
that you can do so.

That's all for now.  I hope that this change will help make the mailing
list a more manageable and more relevant resource for people.  Please be
patient and helpful during the transitional period (people are sure to
forget to include topics in their posts while the change is still new).
If this change does not seem to make the situation better we can
consider a proper splitting of the list in future, but this seems like a
less disruptive first step which we can try first.

Cheers,
Solderpunk

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