Wikimedia Bugzilla is closed!

when we renamed active lists we also did this (forwarding mails from one list to another).  merge a mail redirect like here:

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/4693/1/files/exim/exim4.listserver_aliases.conf

then add the old list to list of "acceptable aliases" to new list.

Would this work and still allow emails sent to WikimediaAnnounce-l to be sent to the subscribers of the WikimediaAnnounce-l list? The intention is that an email would be sent to WikimediaAnnounce-l (which has different subscribers to Wikimedia-l) and then that email would be forwarded to Wikimedia-l so that it can then be commented on/discussed etc.

My thoughts were to subscribe Wikimedia-l to the WikimediaAnnounce-l list (adding whatever sender/recipient filters that are required)?

well, if what you want is what is decribed in the bug above, linked by Nemo, then i think that works. note how the bugs.launchpad link links to http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1220144&group_id=103&atid=300103 which just describes the "accept_these_nonmembers" option we have in mailman, i may have mixed up "acceptable aliases" and "accept these nonmembers" though, gotta double check that

It would have been a good idea to notify the owners/admins of both lists when filing this bug - thanks to Thehelpfulone for remedying that afterwards.

I'm really not sure what the bug filer means by "it never worked". foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org has been subscribed to Wikimediaannounce-l since September 2011, and since then hundreds of messages have been forwarded automatically, including some by Nemo himself I believe ;) Just look at the Wikimedia-l list archives (say http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-July/date.html ) and search for thread titles starting with "[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements]".

Or take the two announcement messages sent this month so far, which made it through fine: 
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2013-June/date.html
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-June/date.html

It's true though that the forwarding has sometimes failed, or at least was delayed for too long for some messages. I seem to recall observing this first last summer. I have developed the hypothesis that only HTML emails are been affected (the Wikimediaannounce-l rules stipulate that messages should be in plaintext; of course not everyone reads them), but I haven't tested it fully yet. And at least some HTML emails still get through, such as the two this month so far.

To summarize, this bug is based on false premises (and already wasted some commenters' time because of this). To be useful, it would need to be renamed to something like "Some messages are not automatically forwarded from Wikimediaannounce-l to Wikimedia-l", and provide a collection of examples so we can investigate the reason. With adminship of Wikimedia-l transitioning as of last week, now might be a good time for this.

As an addendum, here are the steps taken in September 2011 to set up the  Wikimediaannounce-l --> Foundation-l forwarding (done by Ral315/Ryan Lomonaco - as a then moderator of Foundation-l - and myself, as a moderator of Wikimediaannounce-l). Writing these down in case we need to repeat the process at some point to bypass the Foundation-l --> Wikimedia-l forwarding that has since been established, or in case it is useful for the moderators of other lists.


1. We signed up foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org as a subscriber at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l (as mentioned above, it is still subscribed as of today).

2. The resulting sign-up confirmation message needed to be caught by
the Foundation-l moderators, so as not to spam the whole list and
reveal the subscriber password. (This assumed that postings from
non-members to foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org were held in
moderation or rejected automatically while still being retrievable. If not, wikimediaannounce-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
would have needed to be put on moderation in advance.) As Foundation-l moderator, Ral315 clicked on the confirmation link and then discarded the message.

3. Because WikimediaAnnounce-l@lists.wikimedia.org was still not a
member of Foundation-l, the forwarded postings would have been discarded automatically (or held in moderation each time, if Foundation-l had been configured differently). So Ral315 whitelisted WikimediaAnnounce-l@lists.wikimedia.org under "List of non-member addresses whose postings should be automatically accepted" on the "Privacy options/[Sender filters]" subpage at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/admin/foundation-l/privacy/sender (should now be under https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/admin/wikimedia-l/privacy/sender ).

(In reply to comment #4)
> I'm really not sure what the bug filer means by "it never worked". [...]

TL;DR: apparently it already works, as Daniel said in comment 1; so this report is just what we call a WORKSFORME. :)
Comment 0 may have pointed to a "better" solution, though, in which case having tracked that suggestion from mailman may come handy in the future.

> [...]something like "Some messages are not automatically forwarded from
> Wikimediaannounce-l to Wikimedia-l", and provide a collection of examples so
> we
> can investigate the reason.

You should file that as a separate bug; I've not observed it, but it's worth investigating.

(In reply to comment #6)
> (In reply to comment #4)
> > I'm really not sure what the bug filer means by "it never worked". [...]
> 
> TL;DR: apparently it already works, as Daniel said in comment 1; 

I think Daniel was referring to something else in comment 1 (namely Foundation-l as a mere alias for Wikimedia-l - but here we are talking about a separately existing list, WikimediaAnnounce-l.)

> so this
> report
> is just what we call a WORKSFORME. :)
> Comment 0 may have pointed to a "better" solution, though, in which case
> having
> tracked that suggestion from mailman may come handy in the future.
I don't understand how that would apply to our situation, can you explain? Please be aware that anyone can subscribe to WikimediaAnnounce-l (but subscribers' messages to the list get moderated just like anybody else's). So why would it be useful for Wikimedia-l to automatically accept messages from all the >700 WikimediaAnnounce-l subscribers?

> 
> > [...]something like "Some messages are not automatically forwarded from
> > Wikimediaannounce-l to Wikimedia-l", and provide a collection of examples so
> > we
> > can investigate the reason.
> 
> You should file that as a separate bug; I've not observed it, but it's worth
> investigating.

I've started a list here and am inviting the Wikimedia-l moderators to take a look as well:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mailing_lists/Wikimedia_Announce#Automatic_forwarding_to_Wikimedia-l