What's the method to list a mailing list subscriber ?


-- 
Jean-Christophe Helary @brandelune
https://mac4translators.blogspot.com
https://sr.ht/~brandelune/omegat-as-a-book/

On Tue May 25, 2021 at 9:30 AM EDT, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> What's the method to list a mailing list subscriber ?

You cannot list mailing list subscribers.

> On May 25, 2021, at 22:31, Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue May 25, 2021 at 9:30 AM EDT, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
>> What's the method to list a mailing list subscriber ?
> 
> You cannot list mailing list subscribers.

How do I manage list members ? Can't I unsubscribe people who don't respect list  rules for ex ?

-- 
Jean-Christophe Helary @brandelune
https://mac4translators.blogspot.com
https://sr.ht/~brandelune/omegat-as-a-book/

On Tue May 25, 2021 at 10:18 AM EDT, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> How do I manage list members ? Can't I unsubscribe people who don't
> respect list rules for ex ?

No, but you can block them. Settings => access => add an entry which
removes their reply or post permissions.

> On May 25, 2021, at 23:19, Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue May 25, 2021 at 10:18 AM EDT, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
>> How do I manage list members ? Can't I unsubscribe people who don't
>> respect list rules for ex ?
> 
> No, but you can block them. Settings => access => add an entry which
> removes their reply or post permissions.

Ok. Unusual but good enough. Thank you.


-- 
Jean-Christophe Helary @brandelune
https://mac4translators.blogspot.com
https://sr.ht/~brandelune/omegat-as-a-book/

hi,

On Tue May 25, 2021 at 16:19 CET, Drew DeVault wrote:
> On Tue May 25, 2021 at 10:18 AM EDT, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> > How do I manage list members ? Can't I unsubscribe people who don't
> > respect list rules for ex ?
>
> No, but you can block them. Settings => access => add an entry which
> removes their reply or post permissions.

to assess the health of a project, knowing how many subscribers there
are on a mailing list (w/o necessarily getting their email identity),
how many new subscribers per month/year, are valuable informations,
though.
getting a sense of the number of lurkers on a mailing list is also
valuable (both for the admin and for the subscriber).

are those kind of stats meant to be gathered and made available at some
point?

-s

On Tue May 25, 2021 at 10:37 AM EDT, Sebastien Binet wrote:
> to assess the health of a project, knowing how many subscribers there
> are on a mailing list (w/o necessarily getting their email identity),
> how many new subscribers per month/year, are valuable informations,
> though.  getting a sense of the number of lurkers on a mailing list is
> also valuable (both for the admin and for the subscriber).

We consider this explicitly unwanted by design, similar to GitHub stars.
SourceHut does not dispense dopamine.

On Tue 25 May 2021 at 10:38, Drew DeVault wrote:
> We consider this explicitly unwanted by design, similar to GitHub stars.
> SourceHut does not dispense dopamine.

There is a difference between these two examples in my opinion - one is
purely social, and one is administrative with the potential to be social
if misimplemented. This count doesn't need to be advertised in any way,
or used as a measure of inter-project popularity. A good middle ground
could be a way for just project owners to be able to run an API call to
see how many subscribers there are. This way it isn't prominently
displayed, and requires a bit of extra effort before seeing it, although
for when you actually need it for its purely administrative uses, it is
accessible. For example, I don't know if its worth it for me to send out
announce messages to my mailing lists, what is the point if I am the
only subscriber?

On Tue May 25, 2021 at 7:16 PM EDT, Armaan Bhojwani wrote:
> On Tue 25 May 2021 at 10:38, Drew DeVault wrote:
> > We consider this explicitly unwanted by design, similar to GitHub stars

> On May 26, 2021, at 8:16, Armaan Bhojwani <me@armaanb.net> wrote:
> 
> For example, I don't know if its worth it for me to send out
> announce messages to my mailing lists, what is the point if I am the
> only subscriber?

Indeed. I'm not sure I see the point hiding the list of subscribers. It's not about dopamine (mailman is not know for its dopamine effect).

In other mail software, we have the possibility to approve subscriptions. I'm not seeing this option here. I don't even have a notification when a new person subscribes. I wish I could at least have that.

-- 
Jean-Christophe Helary @brandelune
https://mac4translators.blogspot.com
https://sr.ht/~brandelune/omegat-as-a-book/

On Tue May 25, 2021 at 7:37 PM EDT, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> Indeed. I'm not sure I see the point hiding the list of subscribers.
> It's not about dopamine (mailman is not know for its dopamine effect).
>
> In other mail software, we have the possibility to approve
> subscriptions. I'm not seeing this option here. I don't even have a
> notification when a new person subscribes. I wish I could at least have
> that.

This is a matter of privacy. It's none of your business who subscribes
to the list. If you want a private list, then you can tune that in the
access controls and manually add each subscriber.

Everyone here is asking for different levels of list anonymity, which
makes this discussion a bit difficult to have, but re:

On Tue 25 May 2021 at 19:38, Drew DeVault wrote:
> This is a matter of privacy.

I simply don't see how a number of people subscribed is a privacy
issue. A simple, entirely anonymous integer accessible only by
list admins tells much less information than say server access logs that
Sourcehut keeps.

On Tue May 25, 2021 at 7:58 PM EDT, Armaan Bhojwani wrote:
> Everyone here is asking for different levels of list anonymity, which
> makes this discussion a bit difficult to have, but re:
>
> On Tue 25 May 2021 at 19:38, Drew DeVault wrote:
> > This is a matter of privacy.
>
> I simply don't see how a number of people subscribed is a privacy
> issue. A simple, entirely anonymous integer accessible only by
> list admins tells much less information than say server access logs that
> Sourcehut keeps.

My comment was responding directly to someone who was asking for a
detailed list of all subscribers and to be emailed every time a new
person subscribes.

Regardless, a numeric count is not going to be added, either. That
decision was made a long time ago, and it is final.

> On May 26, 2021, at 8:38, Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue May 25, 2021 at 7:37 PM EDT, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
>> Indeed. I'm not sure I see the point hiding the list of subscribers.
>> It's not about dopamine (mailman is not know for its dopamine effect).
>> 
>> In other mail software, we have the possibility to approve
>> subscriptions. I'm not seeing this option here. I don't even have a
>> notification when a new person subscribes. I wish I could at least have
>> that.
> 
> This is a matter of privacy. It's none of your business who subscribes
> to the list.

I am talking about a list that I own. Not just any list. Why make it harder for list owners to manage their list ? I don't understand the privacy issue.

> If you want a private list, then you can tune that in the
> access controls and manually add each subscriber.

If I could have a notification for people who try to subscribe and then let them in, that would be enough. Right now I have no idea who is joining my list.


-- 
Jean-Christophe Helary @brandelune
https://mac4translators.blogspot.com
https://sr.ht/~brandelune/omegat-as-a-book/

On Tue May 25, 2021 at 8:36 PM EDT, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> Right now I have no idea who is joining my list.

Yes, by design. This is not going to change. You should maintain your
own mailing lists if you don't like it.

On 5/25/21 10:38 AM, Drew DeVault wrote:
> On Tue May 25, 2021 at 10:37 AM EDT, Sebastien Binet wrote:
>> to assess the health of a project, knowing how many subscribers there
>> are on a mailing list (w/o necessarily getting their email identity),
>> how many new subscribers per month/year, are valuable informations,
>> though.  getting a sense of the number of lurkers on a mailing list is
>> also valuable (both for the admin and for the subscriber).
> 
> We consider this explicitly unwanted by design, similar to GitHub stars.
> SourceHut does not dispense dopamine.
> 

I'm respectfully curious what it is you consider bad or avoidable about 
things like stars and knowing the amount of people that are on the list. 
Are you trying to avoid gamify-ing software development? If these things 
make it easier to gauge interest in a project, or if by "dispensing 
dopamine" project maintainers feel more motivated to write free 
software, then what's the issue?

P.S. I do wish that there were a "follow" type feature similar to GitHub 
stars. Although not perfect, it is helpful to be able to see at a glance 
if a project is liked or trusted. I guess the alternative and more 
natural thing would be to see commit activity, or mailing list activity.

-- 
Sebastian LaVine | https://smlavine.com

> On May 26, 2021, at 9:37, Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue May 25, 2021 at 8:36 PM EDT, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
>> Right now I have no idea who is joining my list.
> 
> Yes, by design. This is not going to change. You should maintain your
> own mailing lists if you don't like it.

Fair enough.

But it looks like the issue stems (at least partly) from the fact that the "browse" access also gives the right to subscribe, ie post *requests* to the list even if non subscribers don't have the right to post messages.

That's weird. Why would browse access give the right to post anything to the list ?

-- 
Jean-Christophe Helary @brandelune
https://mac4translators.blogspot.com
https://sr.ht/~brandelune/omegat-as-a-book/

On Tue May 25, 2021 at 9:58 PM EDT, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> But it looks like the issue stems (at least partly) from the fact that
> the "browse" access also gives the right to subscribe, ie post
> *requests* to the list even if non subscribers don't have the right to
> post messages.
>
> That's weird. Why would browse access give the right to post anything to
> the list ?

The right to subscribe/browse does not imply the right to post. The
configurable permissions are:

- Browse & subscribe, which lets you read messages on the web archive or
  have them forwarded to your inbox
- Post: the ability to start new threads
- Reply: the ability to reply to threads
- Moderate: the ability to remove threads

Post implies reply, but otherwise these permissions are not related to
one another.

> On May 26, 2021, at 12:12, Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue May 25, 2021 at 9:58 PM EDT, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
>> But it looks like the issue stems (at least partly) from the fact that
>> the "browse" access also gives the right to subscribe, ie post
>> *requests* to the list even if non subscribers don't have the right to
>> post messages.
>> 
>> That's weird. Why would browse access give the right to post anything to
>> the list ?
> 
> The right to subscribe/browse does not imply the right to post. The
> configurable permissions are:

I know what they are. I wrote that the browse permission is also a "post request" permission.

Once you have posted a subscription request *then* you have post access. Thus browse access = implicit post access, and that's weird and not the way decades of ML management experience makes us expect as behavior.

-- 
Jean-Christophe Helary @brandelune
https://mac4translators.blogspot.com
https://sr.ht/~brandelune/omegat-as-a-book/

On Tue May 25, 2021 at 11:19 PM EDT, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> I know what they are. I wrote that the browse permission is also a "post
> request" permission.
>
> Once you have posted a subscription request *then* you have post access.
> Thus browse access = implicit post access, and that's weird and not the
> way decades of ML management experience makes us expect as behavior.

A subscription request is not a post. It's an administrative function.
The permission to browse & subscribe requires a mechanism to browse &
subscribe.

On 21/05/25 07:58, Armaan Bhojwani wrote:
> > This is a matter of privacy.
> 
> I simply don't see how a number of people subscribed is a privacy
> issue. A simple, entirely anonymous integer accessible only by
> list admins tells much less information than say server access logs that
> Sourcehut keeps.

Making and maintaining programs should ideally only be motivated by the
enthusiasm of the programmers, not social engineering and (Google) analytics. By
now everyone should recognize those two are harmful and should become a thing of
the past.