[Systers-dev] GSoC Bug Fixes and Mailman setup in Ubuntu 9.10

[Robin Jeffries]

Our model of how the dlist feature would be used is that
   - someone would make a new mailman installation and add the code to
enable dlists before creating any lists (at least before creating any dlist
enabled lists)
   - people would use the web interface to create dlist lists (we think of
it as empowering people who start new communities to decide what features
they want for their community).

If that's a realistic scenario for how this would be used, then this really
is a "wishlist" item to do someday just for completeness. But it seems worth
discussing whether we have been somewhat provincial in thinking about how
this would be used (only thinking about the use cases that matter to us).
 Two things I can think of:

Mozilla has expressed interest in using the dlist feature.  They have
hundreds of lists.  I don't know how many they would move to dlists, but
they aren't going to want to delete an existing list and reconvene it as a
dlist.   So that's an important use case for changing an existing (and
active) list to dlists -- even some testing corner cases; what happens when
someone replies to a message that wasn't part of a dlist conversation? (I
have no idea what the right answer is)

What if someone wants to create a bunch of similar lists.  I assume (not
that i have tried this) that you can write a script that takes the list
names from a file or something and creates them all using the command line.
 If this seems like a likely scenario (it may or may not be), then we would
need a command name way to create a dlist.

So maybe the first thing to do with the bug you have filed priya is to
investigate how important these scenarios are (and if there are other
situations where the ability to add dlists to a running instance of mailman
and to create dlists via the command line are important).

Oh, and you should be able to create a wiki account on your own.  Please do
update the wiki.

Robin


On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 12:05 PM, priya iyer <wordsofagirl at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 6:18 PM, kanika vats <kanika.krikan at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hi Priya,
> >
> > Yes,you have migrate_old_lists script to take care of that.Since solution
> is
> > available it is definitely not a bug.You can have your idea in the
> wishlist
> > though.
> >
> > What I think is that it is good to have a feature in the web interface
> only
> > if it is used quite often or every time a particular action needs to be
> > triggered.If a person uses Systers Mailman code from the very beginning
> then
> > he/she will face no such problem but if that person used the original
> > Mailman code first to create lists and then plans to switch to Systers
> > Mailman then he or she will need to run migrate_old_lists only once after
> > integrating Systers code,as later on all other lists are provided with an
> > option in the user interface to whether have the Dlist feature enabled or
> > not.
>
> Understood :). That's why I was wondering if it should just be called
> a wishlist item. But I have been experimenting with Syster's mailman
> for past several hours and I have a few more observations regarding
> this matter.
>
> Before migrating to Syster's mailman I had created around 3 lists.
> After the migration, I created the required Systers-Admin mailing list
> via the command line. All was good. I could send emails, tinker with
> admin settings and so on. But I realised I could not subscribe even in
> the mailing lists created _after_ adding Syster's mailman code. I
> finally realised that if I make a list via the command line it doesn't
> have the Syster's modifications.
>
> Only the new lists created via the web will have those attributes
> (fullname_required etc.). I realised this when I was browsing the
> PostgreSQL database using PgAdmin3 to learn how the data is stored
> (for solving the essay bug #296181 [1] and would need this knowledge
> for the archival project as well). I could not see any database with a
> mailing list name even after migrating the old lists. After creating
> another list via the web interface I saw a database with the list name
> appear in PgAdmin that had all the required tables.
>
> So I guess the command line 'newlist' tool does not create a
> compatible list. Also the migrate script does not seem to be creating
> any database for existing lists.
>
> > I think we should mention about the 'migrate script' in step by step
> system
> > installation at Systers wiki so that other people dont face similar
> > problems.
>
> I would like to try and add this. I haven't checked yet to see if the
> wiki needs approved  membership or not. Will do it as soon as am done
> with some more exploration. :)
>
> Regards
> Priya Kuber (beachbrake)
>
> 1] Bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/systers/+bug/296181
>
>
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