Last modified: 2014-01-03 16:12:45 UTC
we have too many lists with "[no description available]" in the list overview page. when creating lists the procedure is usually to let mailman create a random password for the "initial list owner" who is then being handed the admin rights to change all the list settings. while list creators do make sure certain basic criteria are met (like private archiving if necessary), they mostly leave lists at defaults and leave the fine-tuning to the list admin. This includes setting the "a terse phrase describing the list" and "description" because the list admin usually knows this way better than the list creator. Unfortunately this did not seem to always work out the way intended though, leaving us with many lists without a description. It would be nice if all list admins seeing this could check "their" list for these, but nevertheless i am going through all of them and if i don't know better i will set them to a copy of the list title.
thehelpfulone, i know you have also requested this and you were auto-cc'ed. so here you go.
list admins please update: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/admin/<listname> minimal: -> [General Options] -> A terse phrase identifying this list. (Details for description) optional: "An introductory description - a few paragraphs - about the list. It will be included, as html, at the top of the listinfo page."
Thanks Daniel, I've already set up a page on Meta relating to this, I was going to email all list admins with what my proposed change was and give them 2 weeks to respond, no response means it will be done. Page is at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thehelpfulone/Mailing_lists_cleanup - I have adopted a standard format of translated description first then the English description. Please don't do any changes yourself, yet, I have this set up in mind to send a courtesy email to all list admins first.
Ok, i was about to create a mail just like this and was momentarily thinking about how to script "all list owners without description". Would that be work done twice? I shall stop for now unless you tell me you need (updated) info or something.
Actually, I'm just going to send to the -owner email address, but there's a chance people don't look at this or have these emails to be filtered elsewhere. Can you give me a listing (privately) of all the list admin email addresses per mailing list, that is the people in the list admin email field, do that they are more likely to see my email address? If this is not doable or is an issue, I can use the -owner email address, I would just like to make sure that as many list admins see my email as possible.
overkill or reasonable to just keep using bugzilla and actually assign it to all affected list owner adresses to comment in until it is resolved? :)
My email will include: Old mailing list description: <old terse phrase> New mailing list description: <New terse phrase> Much more personal and then they can just say yes/no/tweak instead of having to think of something or check if they have a list terse phrase.
please use the email addresses you fetch from public list overview html as "list run by". note how there is an "obfuscated" one like "foo_at_bla.net"-link with a link target like foo-owner@lists.wm. If you are worried you do not get attention at owner@ addresses that a) is a good point to make because they should have (some) attention b) if you reconstruct the "real" addresses from the link (at->@) and also mail these that seems legit to raise your chance to avoid filters
I will use the list -owner email address then, it's far too much work to get that list run by addresses for over 100 mailing lists, and your point a) is a valid one.
it's scriptable. on server or for anyone from public, but yeah, also a one-time action. i mailed 2 recently created ones manually. it is also a good cleanup task if you want to note which lists appear to not have owners, might want an owner change or additional owners added.
Yes, okay so that's why I would like you to do it, then I don't need to mess around with converting email addresses etc. Please run the query, and privately provide me with a list of both the list owners and the list moderators email addresses for all lists, in a normal example@domain.com format - with none of the anti spam adjustments.
Wait why does anyone need the "real" addresses? I mean the point of these owner addresses is that a) the real address is reachable there anyways and 2) [yes I did just say "a" and 2] these are easily scriptable, why make things harder than they need to be?
Yes, sorry. I am currently not planning to do this as using the owner addresses is better, you already have a raw list of all list names and all you have to do is use listname-ower@lists.wm.
back to topic: boldly just fixed these for now, of course they can still update, but less "no description". --- design -> A list for the design team. museum-l -> merged with / converted to the "glam" list Otrs-es -> Spanish OTRS discussion / OTRS discusión en Español toolserver-l -> A list for the Toolserver run by WMFDE travel -> A list for travel related discussion. wiki-offline-reader-l -> deprecated - please use offline-l wikimedia-california -> Wikimedia California wikimedia-connecticut -> Wikimedia Connecticut Wikimediareference-l -> "Discussion about the use reference sources by Wikimedians" WikiPT -> Portuguese Wikipedia Wikiversityde-l -> German Wikiversity Wiktionarypt-l -> Portuguese Wiktionary wmfkids -> A list for Wikimedians with kids.
Just as an update, I sent emails out today to all those lists where the list descriptions needed tweaked in my opinion, I've requested a response by 17 October (2 weeks from now), else I'm presuming they don't have a problem with the change. I'll update again in a couple of weeks.
Mediawiki-distributors: done. (and also made the case change for the list name itself. Yes, just changing case is not a problem).
Updated 15 descriptions per a Google docs document with the replies from list admins provided by Thehelpfulone.
checked and was done already: wikinews-zh done: wikinews-fa WiktionaryDE-l Toolserver-announce Press-nl WikimediaMY WikimediaDK WikimediaHR Wikimediaau-l
done: gozetmen Exyu-tech WikiSV-l WikiFI-l Bilderberg-l Oversight-request-fiwiki-l Mediawiki-enterprise WikiDE-l wikija-l Otrs-de-l Wikinews-de-l WikiPL-l WikimediaBR-l Wikimediaco-l Crc-es-l already has another description meanwhile: Glamtools already done: WikiFR-l
done: Wikies-l WikiEO-l Arbcom-ko Wikimedia-kk Wikipedia-CAK Wikiia-l Pressemeldungen Wikiid-l Wikihe-l Wikibooksde-l Wikiskan-l Wikieu-l Destacado-l Egyptopedia-l Privacy-fr-wp Wikimediafr-l Wikimedianl-l WikiNL-l Car-fr-l Wikimedia-DE-BY Wikipedia-bn-help InfoBG-L Wikihu-l Wiki-offline-reader-l Wikifr-colloque-l was done: Moderators-nl
I just see a single list that currently has no description available. That is Wikimetrics, and it's relatively new. https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimetrics per RT #5554. I'll ask Diederik and already closing this ticket.
