# Replace mailinglists, newsgroups and forum with Discourse The TYPO3 Server Team is responsible for managing the server infrastructure related to the TYPO3 project. We're in the process of streamlining our infrastructure, especially to remove legacy software not widely used and/or maintained anymore. This applies to the current mailing lists, newsgroups and forum software, which were built a long time ago by former team members, and where we see no clear upgrade path. Therefore, we would like to replace mailing lists, newsgroups and forum with a single Discourse forum. ## Current situation Mailing lists * \url{http://lists.typo3.org} * Installed version: Mailman 2.1.11 (Debian 5) * Available version: Mailman 3.0.3 Update not yet encouraged by the Mailman Team: > While it is possible to upgrade existing Mailman 2.1 lists to run on Mailman 3, we are not yet officially sanctioning it. The plan is to officially support upgrades with Mailman 3.1, but for now, feel free to experiment with upgrading and let us know how it goes. It should be possible to run Mailman 2.1 on the same site as Mailman 3. Newsgroups * nntp://news.typo3.org * Installed version: inn2 2.4.5 (Debian 5) * Available version: inn2 2.6.1 Forum * \url{https://forum.typo3.org/} * Installed version: Fudforum 3.0.4 * Available version: Fudforum 3.0.7 * Posts are synchronised to our NNTP / mailing list server * Local modifications for NNTP sync: \url{https://github.com/TYPO3-infrastructure/FUDforum} * was never maintained by the TYPO3 Server Team, former maintainer not available anymore * Maintainer required, has to take care of updating Fudforum and fixing bugs without breaking our custom NNTP sync ## Proposal With the current size of our team, it is not possible to update and maintain all parts mentioned above in a feasible manner. The usage of NNTP and mailling lists is shrinking more and more, as there are other means of communication in place (Slack, Stackoverflow) more suited to the communication nowadays. Therefore, we propose to replace mailing lists, newsgroups and the current forum with a new forum based on Discourse. Discourse - \url{http://www.discourse.org/} - modern forum - mailing list features available - already part of the TYPO3 infrastructure (\url{https://decisions.typo3.org/)} - the new TYPO3.org will use Discourse for comments on news. We could comibine this nicely with a new, central communication platform - widely known and used by others, and also well known to members of the TYPO3 Server Team Numbers To have some general idea, we compared numbers of messages on some of our mailing lists for April: - typo3-team-core: 2017: 4, 2016: 5, 2015: 35, 2014: 93 - typo3-english: 2017: 103, 2016: 135, 2015: 215, 2014: 332 - typo3-german: 2017: 216, 2016: 377, 2015: 696, 2014: 868 Those numbers reflect messages sent to the mailing list and newsgroup combined. We have no seperate logs for newsserver available, however looking at the number of open NNTP connections, we think this is used only by a very small number of people. ## Impact * Fudforum will not be available anymore, however web browser based access is covered by Discourse * Mailing lists will become categories in Discourse * you will still be able to send mails to category@lists.typo3.org * you will be able to watch certain categories in Discourse to get new posts by e-mail * Discourse vs Email \& Mailing lists FAQ: \url{https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-email-mailing-lists/54298} * this will be pretty close to the current mailing list behaviour and is used widely by other projects already * Julia: \url{https://discourse.julialang.org/t/discourse-as-a-mailing-list/57} (Migration discussion: \url{https://groups.google.com/forum/#}!topic/julia-users/Ov1J6MOVly0) * HTM Forum, with some caveeats explained: \url{https://discourse.numenta.org/t/guidelines-for-using-discourse-via-email/314} * Chef: \url{https://github.com/chef/chef-rfc/blob/master/rfc028-mailing-list-migration.md} * Background of the migration at Chef with some problems we plan to avoid: \url{https://coderanger.net/chef-mailing-list/} * Apple Swift is migrating right now: \url{https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/Week-of-Mon-20170206/031657.html} * NNTP server will not be available anymore * old posts might not be available in Discourse * at some point, we have to decide if we migrate all current content to the new Discourse installation * maybe, we will start with a empty installation and keep the mailinglist posts exported as readonly archives * The TYPO3-announce list can be set up as category as well, existing users could be imported as recipients. Alternatively, we will use another solution to continue announcements by e-mail (to be defined) ## Pro * modern setup with a widely used technology * integrated into TYPO3.org user database through LDAP * the TYPO3 Server Team is able to maintain the whole stack * future proof solution * modern interface on desktop and mobile, mobile app available for notifications * we can keep current mailinglist features more or less * we could integrate Discourse as solution for comments on third-party websites (Wiki, News, ...) ## Con * people who still use NNTP exclusively by now will have to switch to another technology (use Discourse web frontend or watch categories once to get new posts by e-mail) * migration means more work for us (but we look forward to do take that step!) ## Organizational Topic Initiator: TYPO3 Server Team Topic Mentor: Andri Steiner