[governance] IGF MAG 2018: NO NEWS

[Tapani Tarvainen]

On Wed, Jan 03, 2018 at 02:59:10AM +0100, Chris Prince Udochukwu Njoku (udochukwu.njoku at unn.edu.ng) wrote:

> So, let's approve the reconstruction proposal, so that Tapani et al. can
> get to work. The sooner the better.

If I get all messages in, eh, "raw" format, it won't take long to rebuild
the archive (I'd just create a temporary mailing list on my own machine
and use Mailman command-line tools, easy enough). If some of the messages
are in less convenient format it may be harder and/or result may not be
perfect (threading in particular is likely to be lost).

My own archive reaches to July 2005, and Jeanette has them from
December 2003, which must be pretty close to the very beginning.

But, what should we do with the archive once reconstructed?

In principle it might be possible to merge it with this (current) list
archive, but in practice probably not (I'm not familiar with the list
software Riseup uses, but messing with the archive probably requires
server privileges normal list admins don't have). If someone knows
Riseup better and can tell if there'd be an easy way to move the old
(reconstructed) archive there, do tell.

Otherwise it'd need another place. I could put it on my own server for
now, or I could probably have it hosted by Effi (there it'd survive
even if I'm run over by a bus) at no cost (resource requirements are
trivial). Other suggestions would be welcome as well.

If hosting it on my or Effi's server I'd want to get a new domain
for it, too, just to keep it distinct and easily movable. That
would cost something but little enough not to worry me. We'd have
to agree on the domain name though.

There's also an ethical question: should the archive be then made
world-readable? The original one was not, it was restricted to
subscribers only (which is of course why we need to reconstruct
it now from sundry sources rather than just archive.org).

Technically it would be possible to set it up so that it'd still be
readable by subscribers only, but managing the subscriber list would
be cumbersome (linking it to the new list would probably be impossible,
it'd have to be maintained separately), so I'd rather avoid that.

Given the nature of the list I don't think there's anything that's in
any way sensitive at this point of time (even if some may have been at
the time), but I would like to see something of a consensus on this
point before proceeding.

The new list archive seems to be public, btw, even if its location
isn't entirely obvious (https://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/governance)
and the spammer protection mechanism there probably prevents it from
being archived by archive.org.

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen