[DECtalk] The future of this Email discussion list

[Karen Lewellen]

Hi Jayson,
would freelist.org provide another option for you?
No cost, but working comparatively to what is done now I believe?
Karen


On Sun, 12 Jan 2025, Jayson Smith wrote:

> Hello,
>
> For the past several months, I've been putting off writing this Email, but 
> tonight I decided it was finally time.
>
> I run two relatively low-traffic Email discussion lists on this server, Blind 
> Apple, for discussion of Apple II computers as used by the blind, and 
> DECtalk, for discussion of the DECtalk speech synthesis system, in all its 
> various hardware and software forms. If you're receiving this message, you're 
> on one or both of these lists.
>
> I've been running these lists for around twenty years now. When I first 
> started running mailing lists on my server, it seems the Internet was more 
> forgiving in some ways. Running your own Email server was a cool thing to do. 
> I was on top of the world, running mailing list management software (Mailman) 
> on my own server, so I had complete control over how everything was handled, 
> etc. Now, not so much. Running your own Email server is definitely not the 
> cool thing to do any more, and Mailman version 2, which I'm still using, has 
> been end of life for a few years now, as far as its development and 
> maintenance status is concerned. And yet, as little traffic as these lists 
> get, it hardly seems worth upgrading to Mailman version 3, especially 
> considering that I'd also need to find and pay for a reliable outgoing Email 
> server which is okay with handling mailing list traffic.
>
> Okay, I know what you're saying. "Just move to Groups.io!" That's actually an 
> excellent suggestion, and I have several other lists hosted there. The 
> problem is that they want a year's subscription to their Premium plan up 
> front in order for me to import all the existing group members and message 
> archives. That's $220, so since there are two lists, that's $440. I'm not 
> sure I want to put that much money into these lists out-of-pocket. Another 
> option would be to create the groups at Groups.io, invite all existing 
> members (that's all you can do for free, as direct adding requires a 
> subscription), and whoever joins, joins, and people can talk. But then, the 
> archives from before the move to Groups.io stay at bluegrasspals.com, and it 
> kind of seems clunky to have two sets of list archives.
>
> Something will need to definitely happen within a year or two. At some point 
> I'll have to upgrade my server to a Linux distribution that doesn't have 
> Python 2, and without going through all sorts of hoops to install this 
> outdated software, Mailman 2 won't run. So I need to decide what to do before 
> that happens.
>
> I'm sorry this Email seems a bit disorganized. If anyone has any thoughts, or 
> can think of any other options for keeping these lists moving forward, feel 
> free to let me know. I just want to know your thoughts as to whether you 
> think I should move the lists to Groups.io without archives, shut them down, 
> or something else.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jayson
>
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