[Systers-dev] bin/newlist cannot be used to create a new list from the command line [bug]

[Kathy Richardson]

Hi Robin

This bug was uncovered by a lack of documentation.  Documentation can 
prevent the next administrator from wasting all the time we did chasing 
down a bug that doesn't effect us or our system configuration.

I think this is a documentation and sort of a UI issue.

As users neither Svaksha nor I easily got our brain around the idea that 
there is a "zombie"-list if you will (MM_SITE_LIST).
It seems like a hack.   If people told me that it was a hack, and it was 
written down and said "just go with it", and whatever you do, do NOT 
ever try to muck with the list you created in the installation process 
we would have been fine.  Totally fine.  Some things you don't want to 
know.   I can accept that especially when I'm trying to do system admin 
work.

Evidently the installation Svaksha and I created was 100% functioning 
correctly,  (or at least 100% the way that experienced MM folks like Jen 
and Teri would expect it to work).

The current MM + systers code has setting such that the SITE_LIST is 
visible in the UI.  If you don't know that you are NEVER suppose to 
touch this list.  You click on it and bad things happen and you think 
you have incorrectly installed the system OR that something is broken.  
When in reality it is 90% user error and 10% should have never been able 
to try a feature that wasn't really expected to be used anyway.

I will make sure that Svaksha puts enough notes in the system set-up  
wiki document to guide others away from doing the bad thing we were  so 
confused by. 

There is a bug(s), depending on how the functionality of the system is 
defined. 
Personally I'd say there is a UI bug in that it lets you try to muck 
with the SITE_LIST, and doesn't denote that list as the SITE_LIST
Others say there is a bug because the newlist doesn't properly create a 
newlist.    I don't know if  creating actual lists via newlist instead 
of the GUI is a feature that is supposed to exist or to be used.  I'm 
going to use the GUI.

Happy to know there is nothing actually  wrong with our setup -  just 
user error!

-Kathy




Robin Jeffries wrote:
> 1.  I would consider adding the CLI support to be a new feature, not a bug
> fix.  For various reasons (one of them being that we create about 2 new
> lists a year), we have prefered to use the GUI to create new lists.  So to
> keep systers running, we need to be able to create new lists with the GUI.
>  Svaksha is right that we will need to fix this before we can integrate with
> mailman 3.0, but we are as much delayed by the slowness of mailman 3.0
> coming out as we are delayed by this not being fixed.  As Jen says, it isn't
> top priority.
>
> 2.  Just to get this recorded for posterity.  We changed the name of the
> base list from mailman to systers-admin because users were confused (as were
> spam filters) by mail from mailman at systers.org .  I'm pretty sure (and
> events seem to have confirmed) that we didn't understand all the
> ramifications of making that change :-)
>
> I haven't completely followed this thread, but is the current issue that
> once someone has messed up and created this as a visible list, things go
> wrong (and we need to find a way to fix these mixed up installations)? or is
> it that as various folk try to bring up mailman on their system, our lack of
> complete, correct instructions is keeping them from getting it working?
>
> Robin
>
> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 7:38 AM, Jennifer Redman <jenred at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 7:15 AM, स्वक्ष <vid at svaksha.com> wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 05:48, Kathy Richardson <kjr at casaveracruz.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>       
>>>> The bug statement is correct, but I think it is missing some
>>>>         
>> information.
>>     
>>>> One still needs to use bin/newlist to create the MAILMAN_SITE_LIST. (At
>>>>         
>>> True, the admin cant create a pseudo list otherwise. From this list
>>> other lists are created for regular subscriptions --> the part which
>>> works only from the GUI and not the Cli.  Hence, at this point  I
>>> would really appreciate folks giving feedback if they were able to use
>>> the CLI to create a
>>> newlist. Even if you have used the GUI earlier, you can now check via
>>> the cli and confirm. This will help me close the the bug. So please
>>> take a few minutes to check this and give feedback.
>>>
>>>       
>> In the past we used bin/withlist to create dlist enabled lists - but last
>> year we moved that functionality to the gui.
>>
>> Anna - thanks for looking in to see if there were any quick changes you
>> could do to enable the cli feature -- I had completely forgotten about the
>> previous withlist requirement to create the new lists.
>>
>> At this point, I think it's great that we have documentation on how new
>> list
>> creation does not work just using bin/newlist for anything other then the
>> site list - that needs to be noted on the wiki and now we have the bug open
>> as well.
>>
>> Great!  Let's move on.  It sounds like implementing the cli feature is not
>> something that can be done easily and we have other priorities at the
>> moment.
>>
>> Svaksha if you have time -- after the dev machine is installed and
>> functional -- you can investigate using the withlist option and documenting
>> how to use if you'd like to use -- but I think at this point the bug needs
>> to stay open, marked low-priority  -- we can change to unassigned (or
>> assign
>> it to me).  I think it would be a much better use of  time to start testing
>> the dev.systers.org install.
>>
>> I'm only available intermittently this week - but starting next Tuesday
>> fully available for the rest of the summer.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jen
>>
>>
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>
>
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