[kwlug-disc] Should kwlug-disc archives be private?

[Andrew Kohlsmith (mailing lists account)]

> On Nov 26, 2018, at 3:45 AM, Paul Nijjar via kwlug-disc <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> wrote:
> A long time ago, this made sense. Stack Exchange did not exist, so
> sometimes people would search for solutions to technical problems and
> find them in our archives. That is much less the case now. 

It still makes sense today.

I am a very loud “hell no” on the idea of making the archives private.

This is a public discussion forum. Knowledge is shared publicly and with the express intent of making it easier for others to find this information in the future. Making the lists private is a terrible idea. Even if we make it private today and require a valid login, what happens when we’re all old(er) and gray(er) and no longer maintain the archive? The information becomes lost.

No. Absolutely please do not make the archives private.

I understand wanting email privacy but I also understand and feel this is a personal responsibility. As you can see from my own messages, my mailing lists use a separate email address. I also use automatic site-specific email addresses (foo-uniqueidentifier at mixdown.ca <mailto:foo-uniqueidentifier at mixdown.ca>) which allows me to block specific addresses if they become spammy. Gmail has allowed the same thing for over a decade (using + instead of - to separate the email from the identifier).

I agree that email addresses should perhaps be obfuscated better (even a plain rot13 would be fine in my opinion), or perhaps even strip email addresses for people searching the archives without a login (do the archives/Mailman even have an enhanced interface for list members?). The information though — the email bodies, subject lines and threading information — should remain public and indexable/searchable.

-A.

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