[IBIS] Request for feedback on proposed IBIS email list changes

From: Mike LaBonte <mike@labonte.com>
Date: Fri Feb 27 2015 - 15:15:08 PST
All,

Please review this proposal to transition the _ibis@eda.org 
<mailto:ibis@eda.org>_ and _ibis-users@eda.org 
<mailto:ibis-users@eda.org>_ email lists to _ibis@freelists.org 
<mailto:ibis@freelists.org>_ and _ibis-users@freelists.org 
<mailto:ibis-users@freelists.org>_. Freelists is already used 
successfully for IBIS task group email lists 
<http://www.eda.org/ibis/subcommittee/>. You may already receive task 
group emails, and you can see a Freelists archive sample here 
<http://www.freelists.org/archive/ibis-macro/>. Your feedback on this 
proposed change is solicited, but first some details (or spare yourself 
and jump to Proposal below).


        Reasons to move IBIS email to Freelists

  *

    Freelists administrators have solved the DMARC/DKIM list problem,
    which sometimes causes _ibis@eda.org <mailto:ibis@eda.org>_ and
    ibis-users@eda.org emails to not reach about 10% of our subscribers.
    This problem is most common, but not restricted to, emails sent to
    the list from yahoo.com addresses. Some IBIS member companies also
    have the problem that eda.org list emails sent by employees are not
    received by any employees of that company.

  *

    Freelists has a nicely indexed email archive, much better than our
    current archives <http://www.eda.org/ibis/support/> produced by
    software for which support was dropped long ago (Hypermail).

  *

    Freelists has integrated ShareIt social media linking, which allows
    list messages to be easily shared by link with any of hundreds of
    social media services. This can help propagate IBIS messaging
    through social media and also help lead people back to our own web
    content.

  *

    The Freelists administrator has said they have plenty of capacity
    and now allow attachments up to 5MB, more than 10 times what eda.org
    supports.

  *

    Freelists actively deals with any server reputation issues that
    arise. This has been an ongoing problem for the eda.org list server,
    which uses stanford.edu SMTP servers that apparently have a
    reputation for producing much spam. Periodically a significant
    percent of eda.org list subscribers fail to receive any IBIS emails
    because their servers have blacklisted it.


        Potential issues related to a transition to Freelists:

  *

    /Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) requires email generators to
    subscribe only those who opt in./
    Freelists is based in Canada and subject to the CASL requirements.
    Therefore we would have to subscribe ourselves to the new lists, a
    process that Freelists makes easy. We can investigate if there is
    any opportunity for bulk subscription transfer for existing email
    lists of obvious repute.

  *

    /Our existing email archives can not be moved into Freelists./
    We would have to leave our existing list message archive
    <http://www.eda.org/ibis/support/> behind, permanently archived in
    HTML at eda.org. There are viruses in some of the archived
    attachments, and they probably should not be propagated anyway.

  *

    /Our open inquiry email addresses (ibis-request, ibis-bug,
    ibis-info, ibis-summit) are not supported./
    We would leave the email addresses such as ibis-request@eda.org that
    we use for inquiries at eda.org. Emails to those addresses are
    received only by IBIS Open Forum officers, and of course no
    subscription is required. Freelists is not suitable for these
    because it does not support "open" lists. These addresses receive a
    lot of spam traffic anyway, and Freelists should be spared from that
    to maintain our welcome.


        Proposal:

The details of the proposed transition are:

  * The new Freelists email lists will be created after the next IBIS
    Open Forum teleconference, March 20. Like the current eda.org lists
    each subscription will require my approval. Currently subscribed
    addresses will be approved without inquiry.
  * The IBIS website will be updated to point to the new lists but also
    maintain links to the existing archives. List policy will have the
    same provisions but be updated to reflect the new list host. See the
    current policy in our existing email archive here
    <http://www.eda.org/ibis/email/hm/ibis/2001-present/2783.html>.
  * A weekly email will be sent to the existing eda.org lists with
    instructions for subscribing to the freelists.org lists. Note that
    we encourage everyone interested in IBIS models to subscribe to at
    least the "ibis-users" list. IBIS Open Forum member representatives
    and anyone else interested in formal announcements should also be
    subscribed to the "ibis" list. Most people are currently subscribed
    to both.
  * As addresses are subscribed to freelists.org they will be removed
    from eda.org by me, no need to unsubscribe yourself.
  * I will monitor email posts continuing to arrive at the eda.org lists
    and ask the senders to subscribe to the corresponding freelists.org
    list and repost there. In this case I will wait a week before
    unsubscribing them from eda.org, to allow for responses to be received.
  * After the May 22 IBIS Open Forum teleconference a final notice will
    be sent to the eda.org lists stating that all addresses remaining in
    the eda.org lists will be unsubscribed 5 days later.
  * Once the eda.org lists are emptied out the autoreply for any
    incoming emails will /NOT /contain instructions for subscribing at
    freelists. The reason for this is that the eda.org lists currently
    autoreply to thousands of spam emails per month from unsubscribed
    addresses, and we don't want to give them a new place to go to. The
    lists will be instead deleted, resulting in "bad address"bounces for
    any incoming email.


        Your feedback:

Please reply (preferably to just me) with any feedback you have by March 18.

 1. Are there any reasons not to move IBIS email lists to Freelists?
 2. Should this be done only if no one has to subscribe themselves to
    the new lists?
 3. Should the dates or any other aspect of the proposed plan be changed?
 4. Anything else?

Thanks in advance for you help.

Mike LaBonte
IBIS Postmaster and Webmaster


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Received on Fri Feb 27 15:15:31 2015

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