Subject: Re: [AUDITORY] Moving the AUDITORY list? From: Eric Humphrey <humphrey.eric@xxxxxxxx> Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2018 10:21:25 -0400 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>--0000000000005af3280578d1f8b9 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable hi DAn, all, I may have an interesting perspective to share (though I'll leave you, dear reader, to make that value judgment). After careful consideration, I migrated the ISMIR community mailing list <https://groups.google.com/a/ismir.net/forum/#!forum/community> in 2013 to Google Groups. If I recall correctly, there are, at a high level, a few options to operating a list like this: - Pay a mailing list provider (MailChimp, ...) - Run a mail server on - a VM you pay for from a hosting provider (GoDaddy, Hostgator, ...) - a physical machine someone owns (volunteer X, University Y) - Use a free service on the internet (Google Groups, Github, ...) I had a few constraints: - I was a PhD student and didn't have the bandwidth to sys-admin it (turns out, I still don't). - I was more concerned about centralizing risk in a single *person* than a single *entity, *and wanted to decouple the technical (access, operation) from the human (responsibility, time). People quit (or get fired), go on vacation, change jobs / careers, etc ... and it's not fair= to them (or the group) that their affiliations become a sticking point in running the thing, or leaving it behind for someone else to deal with. - I assumed we had zero revenue. While ISMIR has a conference component, which could help, I didn't want to bank on it as a funding source. And I had opinions: - We had been using Sympa <https://www.sympa.org/>. At the time, it felt rather retro (though in digging up this link, the new version looks quit= e modern), and if we were going to be disrupted, it seemed like a good tim= e to modernize. - I wanted to make account management easier for users. People play musical chairs with affiliations (one person ends up with four email addresses over a decade), and it seemed like no one could change their password / see how they were signed up. - I wanted a searchable webview. This helps with inclusivity, because new people can catch up on old threads. The previous webview wasn't grea= t, and I'm not even sure you could search. Taking all of this together (in 2013), I ended up at Google Groups. And, af= ter five-going-on-six years, it's been really positive on the whole: - No one ever noticed / complained. I really worried about this, but it functions like a mailing list for those who want a list, and others can = opt in to the bells and whistles. - No management. No downtime. It's been pretty much set it and forget it. - I've personally only used it a handful of times, but good search is invaluable. It has been a massive time-saver, and I've heard that it's b= een helpful for folks who weren't on the list years ago. - Spam protection! I didn't see this coming, but the built-in filter is pretty great. Here's what kinda stinks about it. - I managed the migration myself, and this was a week+ of personal misery. Bulk adds of addresses are *not* easy, for obvious reasons: they want to limit spam abuse. I moved over 2k addresses over, and after all = of that, a bunch of them were stale. I wish 100 times over that I had said, "we're moving! come with, or don't!" and left it at that. On a related note... - I am (or at least was) worried about number of people on the list. This is *not* the solution for 1M person lists. That said, while I wish this was a problem music and audio groups had, this didn't really apply = to us, and I don't think we've every had an issue (call this one a push) - I meant to migrate the archives, but never did... but no one's complained about this either. - Some users still don't know / understand how to manage their own accounts. I get a few pings a year asking for help, but it's definitely under 1% of users / traffic, whichever way you want to count. Still here? I guess I've a parting thought or two as well. - I was (and maybe am) worried about the "What if Google shuts down Groups / starts charging money / builds robots for the military / etc?" There are three things that have helped me sleep at night, but of course ymmv: - We've already migrated once, and the process is documented. If we had to do it again, it'd be easier, and we already know our options. Member list exports are offered by Google Groups. - We have to use something, and a doomsday scenario for Groups hasn't happened yet. In contrast, other options actively cost money, and I (personally) have been at three different institutions in this time frame. The spectre of negatives has been more than outweighed by tangible negatives (and positives!). - Unlike Google plus / wave / buzz / other past experiments, a lot of people use Google Groups. Not as many as GMail or search, but it's included in the G Suite and, if I'm not mistaken, I think it drives their help forums <https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!myforums>. Groups appears to be as stable as anything might be on the Internet. I love (love) GitHub, and it'll be inside the Microsoft ecosystem soon pending revi= ew. - List admin is a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it ... and I can't even begin to describe how great a fully managed system is. It might see= m like "install X on a machine" is easy, but between bots / hackers / syst= em upgrades / university technical constraints & penchant for bureaucracy .= .. keeping a list up and running can be death by a thousand paper cuts. I hope this recap has been helpful. It was for me, and maybe I'll migrate this to a blogpost or something. Thanks for reading, I'll go back to lurking now. :o) best, e On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 3:44 AM Gaston Hilkhuysen <ghilkhuysen@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > Dear Dan > > Thank you for your past and present efforts to keep the auditory list and > its community running. Like most previous repliers, I would prefer to kee= p > the group on a university server over having it on any commercial > organisation. > > HTH > > Yours, > > -Gaston. > > On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 09:33, Gaston Hilkhuysen <G.Hilkhuysen@xxxxxxxx> > wrote: > >> Dear Dan >> >> Thank you for your past and present efforts to keep the auditory list an= d >> its community running. Like most previous repliers, I would prefer to ke= ep >> the group on a university server over having it on any commercial >> organisation. >> >> HTH >> >> Yours, >> >> -Gaston. >> >> On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 09:04, Stefan Strahl <stef@xxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >>> Dear Dan, >>> >>> I join with Pierre, kudos to your effort and voluntary work! >>> >>> I also see a move to Google Groups a bit critical. For example if I >>> did understand their terms of service correctly they can stop their >>> service anytime. And this happens from time to time, the last example >>> would be Google+. >>> >>> So I would, inline with Peter, suggest a move to a mailing list >>> service like GNU mailman hosted by an university computing center. If >>> needed, I could contact the university computing center here in >>> G=C3=B6ttingen, Germany - they offer free GNU mailman mailing lists [1]= . >>> >>> Greetings, >>> Stefan >>> >>> [1] >>> https://info.gwdg.de/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=3Den%3Aservices%3Aemail_colla= boration%3Amailing_lists%3Astart >>> >> >> >> -- >> Gaston Hilkhuysen >> UCL Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences >> room 302 >> Chandler House >> 2 Wakefield Street >> London WC1N 1PF >> >> email: g.hilkhuysen@xxxxxxxx >> phone: +44 20 7679 4235 <+44%2020%207679%204235>(internal: 24235) >> > > > -- > Gaston Hilkhuysen > Research Associate > UCL Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences > Chandler House > 2 Wakefield Street > London WC1N 1PF > > > --0000000000005af3280578d1f8b9 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <div dir=3D"ltr"><div class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font-family:tahoma,s= ans-serif">hi DAn, all,</div><div class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font-fam= ily:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font= -family:tahoma,sans-serif">I may have an interesting perspective to share (= though I'll leave you, dear reader, to make that value judgment). After= careful consideration, I migrated the <a href=3D"https://groups.google.com= /a/ismir.net/forum/#!forum/community">ISMIR community mailing list</a> in 2= 013 to Google Groups.</div><div class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font-famil= y:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font-f= amily:tahoma,sans-serif">If I recall correctly, there are, at a high level,= a few options to operating a list like this:</div><div class=3D"gmail_defa= ult" style=3D""><ul style=3D""><li style=3D""><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-se= rif">Pay a mailing list provider (MailChimp, ...)</font></li><li style=3D""= ><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">Run a mail server on=C2=A0</font></li><u= l><li style=3D""><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">a VM you pay for from a = hosting provider (GoDaddy, Hostgator, ...)</font></li><li style=3D""><font = face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">a physical machine someone owns (volunteer X, U= niversity Y)</font></li></ul><li style=3D""><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-seri= f">Use a free service on the internet (Google Groups, Github, ...)</font></= li></ul><div><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">I had a few constraints:</fo= nt></div><div><ul><li><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">I was a PhD student= and didn't have the bandwidth to sys-admin it (turns out, I still don&= #39;t).</font></li><li><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">I was more concern= ed about centralizing risk in a single <i>person</i>=C2=A0than a single <i>= entity, </i>and wanted to decouple the technical (access, operation) from t= he human (responsibility, time). People quit (or get fired), go on vacation= , change jobs / careers, etc ... and it's not fair to them (or the grou= p) that their affiliations become a sticking=C2=A0point in running the thin= g, or leaving it behind for someone else to deal with.</font></li><li><font= face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">I assumed we had zero revenue. While ISMIR has= a conference component, which could help, I didn't want to bank on it = as a funding source.</font></li></ul><div><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif"= >And I had opinions:</font></div><div><ul><li><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-se= rif">We had been using <a href=3D"https://www.sympa.org/">Sympa</a>. At the= time, it felt rather retro (though in digging up this link, the new versio= n looks quite modern), and if we were going to be disrupted, it seemed like= a good time to modernize.=C2=A0</font></li><li><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-= serif">I wanted to make account management easier for users. People play mu= sical chairs with affiliations (one person ends up with four email addresse= s over a decade), and it seemed like no one could change their password / s= ee how they were signed up.</font></li><li><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif= ">I wanted a searchable webview. This helps with inclusivity, because new p= eople can catch up on old threads. The previous webview wasn't great, a= nd I'm not even sure you could search.</font></li></ul><div><font face= =3D"tahoma, sans-serif">Taking all of this together (in 2013), I ended up a= t Google Groups. And, a</font><span style=3D"font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"= >fter five-going-on-six years, it's been really positive on the whole:<= /span><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif"><br></font></div></div><div><ul><li= ><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">No one ever noticed / complained. I real= ly worried about this, but it functions like a mailing list for those who w= ant a list, and others can opt in to the bells and whistles.</font></li><li= ><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">No management. No downtime. It's bee= n pretty much set it and forget it.=C2=A0</font></li><li><font face=3D"taho= ma, sans-serif">I've personally only used it a handful of times, but go= od search is invaluable.=C2=A0It has been a massive time-saver, and I'v= e heard that it's been helpful for folks who weren't on the list ye= ars ago.</font></li><li><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">Spam protection! = I didn't see this coming, but the built-in filter is pretty great.</fon= t></li></ul><div><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">Here's what kinda st= inks about it.</font></div></div><div><ul><li><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-se= rif">I managed the migration myself, and this was a week+ of personal miser= y. Bulk adds of addresses are <u style=3D"font-style:italic;font-weight:bol= d">not</u>=C2=A0easy, for obvious reasons: they want to limit spam abuse. I= moved over 2k addresses over, and after all of that, a bunch of them were = stale. I wish 100 times over that I had said, "we're moving! come = with, or don't!" and left it at that. On a related note...</font><= /li><li><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">I am (or at least was) worried ab= out number of people on the list. This is=C2=A0<i>not</i>=C2=A0the solution= for 1M person lists. That said, while I wish this was a problem music and = audio groups had, this didn't really apply to us, and I don't think= we've every had an issue (call this one a push)</font></li><li><font f= ace=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">I meant to migrate the archives, but never did..= . but no one's complained about this either.</font></li><li><font face= =3D"tahoma, sans-serif">Some users still don't know / understand how to= manage their own accounts. I get a few pings a year asking for help, but i= t's definitely under 1% of users / traffic, whichever way you want to c= ount.</font></li></ul><div><font face=3D"tahoma, sans-serif">Still here? I = guess I've a parting thought or two as well.<br><ul><li>I was (and mayb= e am) worried about the "What if Google shuts down Groups / starts cha= rging money / builds robots for the military / etc?" There are three t= hings that have helped me sleep at night, but of course ymmv:</li><ul><li>W= e've already migrated once, and the process is documented. If we had to= do it again, it'd be easier, and we already know our options. Member l= ist exports are offered by Google Groups.</li><li>We have to use something,= and a doomsday scenario for Groups hasn't happened yet. In contrast, o= ther options actively cost money, and I (personally) have been at three dif= ferent institutions in this time frame. The spectre of negatives has been m= ore than outweighed by tangible negatives (and positives!).</li><li>Unlike = Google plus / wave / buzz / other past experiments, a lot of people use Goo= gle Groups. Not as many as GMail or search, but it's included in the G = Suite and, if I'm not mistaken, I think it drives their <a href=3D"http= s://productforums.google.com/forum/#!myforums">help forums</a>. Groups appe= ars to be as stable as anything might be on the Internet. I love (love) Git= Hub, and it'll be inside the Microsoft ecosystem soon pending review.</= li></ul><li>List admin is a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it ... a= nd I can't even begin to describe how great a fully managed system is. = It might seem like "install X on a machine" is easy, but between = bots / hackers / system upgrades / university technical constraints & p= enchant for bureaucracy ... keeping a list up and running=C2=A0can be death= by a thousand paper cuts.</li></ul><div>I hope this recap has been helpful= . It was for me, and maybe I'll migrate this to a blogpost or something= . Thanks for reading, I'll go back to lurking now. :o)</div><div><br></= div><div>best,</div><div>e</div></font></div></div><div><font face=3D"tahom= a, sans-serif"><br></font></div></div></div></div><br><div class=3D"gmail_q= uote"><div dir=3D"ltr">On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 3:44 AM Gaston Hilkhuysen &l= t;<a href=3D"mailto:ghilkhuysen@xxxxxxxx">ghilkhuysen@xxxxxxxx</a>> wr= ote:<br></div><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;= border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr"> <div>Dear Dan</div><div><br></div><div>Thank you for your past and=20 present efforts to keep the auditory list and its community running.=20 Like most previous repliers, I would prefer to keep the group on a=20 university server over having it on any commercial organisation.</div><div>= <br></div><div>HTH</div><div><br></div><div>Yours,</div><div><br></div><div= >-Gaston.</div> <br><div class=3D"gmail_quote"><div dir=3D"ltr">On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 09:3= 3, Gaston Hilkhuysen <<a href=3D"mailto:G.Hilkhuysen@xxxxxxxx" target= =3D"_blank">G.Hilkhuysen@xxxxxxxx</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote clas= s=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;pad= ding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr"><div>Dear Dan</div><div><br></div><div>Than= k you for your past and present efforts to keep the auditory list and its c= ommunity running. Like most previous repliers, I would prefer to keep the g= roup on a university server over having it on any commercial organisation.<= /div><div><br></div><div>HTH</div><div><br></div><div>Yours,</div><div><br>= </div><div>-Gaston.<br></div><br><div class=3D"gmail_quote"><div dir=3D"ltr= ">On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 09:04, Stefan Strahl <<a href=3D"mailto:stef@xxxxxxxx= trahl.de" target=3D"_blank">stef@xxxxxxxx</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockq= uote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc = solid;padding-left:1ex">Dear Dan,<br> <br> I join with Pierre, kudos to your effort and voluntary work!<br> <br> I also see a move to Google Groups a bit critical. For example if I<br> did understand their terms of service correctly they can stop their<br> service anytime. And this happens from time to time, the last example<br> would be Google+.<br> <br> So I would, inline with Peter, suggest a move to a mailing list<br> service like GNU mailman hosted by an university computing center. If<br> needed, I could contact the university computing center here in<br> G=C3=B6ttingen, Germany - they offer free GNU mailman mailing lists [1].<br= > <br> Greetings,<br> Stefan<br> <br> [1] <a href=3D"https://info.gwdg.de/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=3Den%3Aservices%3A= email_collaboration%3Amailing_lists%3Astart" rel=3D"noreferrer" target=3D"_= blank">https://info.gwdg.de/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=3Den%3Aservices%3Aemail_co= llaboration%3Amailing_lists%3Astart</a><br> </blockquote></div><br clear=3D"all"><br>-- <br><div dir=3D"ltr" class=3D"m= _1861423591547437146m_8261843340354476012m_-8625352164420650284gmail_signat= ure" data-smartmail=3D"gmail_signature"><div dir=3D"ltr"><div>Gaston Hilkhu= ysen<br>UCL Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences<br>room 302<br>Chandler H= ouse<br>2 Wakefield Street<br>London WC1N 1PF<br><br>email: <a href=3D"mail= to:g.hilkhuysen@xxxxxxxx" target=3D"_blank">g.hilkhuysen@xxxxxxxx</a><br>= </div><div>phone: <a href=3D"tel:+44%2020%207679%204235" target=3D"_blank">= +44 20 7679 4235=C2=A0 </a>(internal: 24235)<br></div></div></div></div> </blockquote></div><br clear=3D"all"><br>-- <br><div dir=3D"ltr" class=3D"m= _1861423591547437146m_8261843340354476012gmail_signature" data-smartmail=3D= "gmail_signature"><div dir=3D"ltr"><div><div dir=3D"ltr"><div>Gaston Hilkhu= ysen<br>Research Associate<br>UCL Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences<br>= Chandler House<br>2 Wakefield Street<br>London WC1N 1PF<br><br></div><br></= div></div></div></div></div> </blockquote></div> --0000000000005af3280578d1f8b9--