[Listwork] PROPOSAL (updated): Reduce mailing list naming conventions

[Alster]

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Hi!

Once again, if in a hurry, please scroll down to the proposal.

I proposed the following a couple days ago:
>>>...I hereby propose to completely discard the listwork naming
>>>conventions despite of the requirement that either the topic OR IMC name
>>>must be present somewhere in the mailing list name.

Simon (see the other email I sent a few minutes ago) and Micah responded
to the proposal.

Micah Anderson schrieb:
[..]
> It seems to me however, that your proposal is a little over the top. I
> think removing all the imc-/cmi- prefixes is good, but having lists with
> some sort of topic relevance in their names seems like a good thing to
> keep. Regarding removing the IMC name from the list name, this would be
> a good step if we were moving towards having lists be associated with a
> domain name (so video at seattle.indymedia.org for example), but removing
> geographic location makes it harder for people to find a list in their
> area that they need. If there is no naming conventions at all (no topic,
> no IMC name) then we remove any ability to find a list. If the video
> team in seattle wants to name their list "gravelballoonface", it makes
> it awfully hard for someone who doesn't know them to find them.
> 
> 
>>>Should I not see any contrary statements to this proposal within a week
>>>(January 28th), I'll consider the naming conventions as no longer valid
>>>and will, starting this date, only require that the name of the IMC or
>>>topic is present somewhere in the name of a mailing list.

I *did* propose to remove the "imc-"/"cmi-" prefix altogether.

I did not propose to remove the IMC name off the list name altogether,
but to *not* ask for it to be put in the beginning (or right after the
"imc-"/"cmi-" prefix) of the list name, i.e. to allow for the IMC name
to be put anywhere inside the list name. Maybe I was not clear about this.

However, after reading Simon's + Micah's emails, I understand and agree
that it makes sense to name mailing lists in a way which, when sorting
them alphabetically, will allow to easily see which mailing lists exist
for each IMC. This is only possible if the IMC name is put to the very
beginning of the mailing list name.

I also discussed this with pabloindio from CMI Rosario who had requested
the boletin-rosario mailing list. He agreed that it makes sense to have
the alphabetical ordering.

For this reason, I'm updating my proposal. Here's the new one:

- ---------------------------- PROPOSAL --------------------------------

I propose to change the listwork mailing list naming conventions as
following:

Remove the requirement to have a mailing list name start with either
"cmi-" or "imc-" altogether, disallow these prefixes for newly setup
mailing lists, and instead ask for mailing list names starting with the
name of the IMC they relate to if they relate to a single IMC or a group
of IMCs which a common name can be assigned to.

Cases not covered by this will be decided on when they come up. As an
additional goal, a generalization of these cases should also be
attempted and the naming onventions should be extended accordingly.




If this proposal is passed, I understand that the following mailing list
naming conventions will become part of the listwork policy:

Requestors of mailing lists for single IMCs can deliberately choose the
name of the mailing list to be setup, as long as it meets the following
criteria:
- - it starts with the name of the IMC/CMI it relates to
- - unless it is the main mailing list of an IMC/CMI, the name is followed
by one or more closer specification(s) of the purpose it will serve [1]
- - the characters used in all of the mailing list name meet the
requirements of the user part of an email address as defined in RFC 822
(http://rfc.net/rfc822.txt)


[1] Common closer specifications are 'editorial', 'features', 'tech',
'support', 'audio', 'video', 'photo', 'print', 'radio', 'finance',
'contact', 'news' and translations of these terms. There is not a closed
set of possible terms, though.



Unless contrary statements to this proposal are made within a week
(i.e. until February 10th), I will consider this proposal to be passed.

- ---------------------------- PROPOSAL --------------------------------

I hope I've taken everything into account here... actually there is not
much change to what we've had before, but I'd like to see this defined,
as I'm really lacking *any* guideline sometimes...

In case this proposal is passed, I'm planning to make another proposal
about global mailing lists naming conventions as well as - possibly (I'm
still considering this) - on renaming and thus unifying currently
existing mailing lists.

Thanks for reading.

Alster
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