Lots of posts since my last so I’ll group some replies/feedback
Not in any special order:
I will not be migrating any users from Google Groups. At all. Ever. As per my suggestion above, I recommend emailing all existing users saying GG will not be accepting any new posts from XYZ date and please follow these instructions if you wish to remain subscribed, etc. However, I would not be opposed to someone else performing a user account migration task, but I personally, will not be (I have no idea how you’d export the existing user accounts from Google, or import them to Discourse, or deal with duplicates, or people who already have DF accounts, etc) - someone else may take on this task if deemed essential, but I will not.
I would not recommend deleting the existing Google Groups. Simply ‘lock’ the groups so no new posts can be made.
The last vote on this subject was quite controversial and was almost 50/50 so I fully support a user vote here and now, on this Loomio thread.
The server which I rent to host Diaspora Forum is private but I will happily provide root level access to the server itself for one or two other team members. I will not provide access to the web admin control panel for the hosting account as I have many servers from the same provider, my bank/payment details are on there, etc, but I will gladly setup/share some root-level SSH server logins where required.
I will not be changing the domain name of Diaspora Forum - there is too much content on the forum now.
It would probably never happen, but to protect Diaspora some thought should be given to “what if Rich stops paying for the server” (perhaps I lost my job, my marbles, etc) - there should be a continuity plan somewhere perhaps?
Diaspora debe tener GRUPOS por que las personas nos colocamos naturalmente en grupos y nos gusta unirnos a los que pertenecen a nuestro grupo para compartir información.
@rich1 Thanks for being so clear on the status of the Diaspora Forum server! If it will end up being the main discussion board, I think it’s reasonable to think about funding it, not sure how, and I think that will be voted here too.
Also, in the event of you not being able to set it up, I think we’ll also need to know if you would be willing to transfer the contents to another server, donated by another member of the community (or by anyone, who knows).
On the other hand, the community itself will have to decide whether to carry on with that or choose a free (as in gratis) alternative.
That is as far as I can go for a “continuity plan”, you are very right in bringing that up.
I don’t think the migration process is going to be too-consuming if a few people handle the technical biz and let us/others know of which simple steps to take. Totally agree w/Flaburgan in this respect. My vote is FOR migration to Discourse or any other free alternative.
I agree, close post publication in google, I do not agree to migrate the old contents and users, in many countries migrate user data without their consent would be illegal in EU sure illegal.
That’s not what this vote is, Augier. That vote has already been taken here. This vote is whether Rich’s Diaspora Forum Discourse is the right community-run resource to use for Diaspora mailing lists at this time.
To (re)confirm, there is no migration strategy because nothing will be migrated.
No user accounts, no posts / content.
Nothing will be migrated from the existing Google Groups.
I could ask “why would it be? It’s a mailing list” - but I won’t
“Simply email all current Google Groups users informing them that the Google Groups mailing lists will no longer be accepting new posts from XYZ date and that if they wish to continue receiving the mails they should now subscribe at ABC etc (naturally provide them clear instructions).”
And:
“Simply ‘lock’ the [Google] groups so no new posts can be made.”
Hope that clears up the whole mailing list ‘migration’ subject
@goob I think the conditions have been made clear in these days with the questions that have been answered here, do you have more questions? Is it okay more days to vote?
Is a pity one negative vote from a person who agrees only for lack of knowing some details that can be resuletos just asking and agreeing.
It’s great that people pretend to know the server conditions, but remember that conditions in google we know and are very bad.
I do not participate on the mailing lists of Diaspora because I am conscientious objector to use proprietary software and services, I think Diaspora need not have any dependence on big corporatios doing much damage. This is a good opportunity to solve that.
To @goob@dennisschubert@steffenvanbergerem and @waithamai do you need more time to discuss and expose the blocking points for you? = should I add some time to the vote?
diaspora-discuss currently has 856 and diaspora-dev currently has 1602 members
Because of that I think we should only move our mailing lists somewhere else if we have REALLY good reasons to do that. We have more than a thousand members who would have to sign up on diasporaforum.org to use the new mailinglists. The email address is mentioned on a lot of websites and we would have to ask at least the biggest ones to change the address.
Everything on our mailing lists is public and no one needs a Google account to participate. Because of that I don’t think that using Google Groups is a privacy issue.
When we move our mailing lists to diasporaforum.org we would depend on a single person. If Rich decides that he wants to sell the domain or just doesn’t want to run the server anymore we have a huge problem. I don’t say that he would do that but he could tell us someday that he will close diasporaforum the next day. Google announced that they will close Google Code in 2016. I think if Google would decide to do the same with Google Groups we would also have at least 6 months to find another place for our mailing lists.
What Steffen said. However, I’d like to highlight that you do not need a Google account to participate on Google Groups, but you do need to sign up on diasporaforum.org.
Google is not the best company in the world, for sure. However, they will not simply remove a service. If they decide to discontinue Google Groups, we would have at least 3 months to make a decision.
In fact, Google is great at hosting reliable services and I am sure you know that. E-Mails are public anyway, so that’s nothing to protect. In addition, Google Groups got a great search, we have a nice moderation queue and it just works.
