[Theforum] css-discuss list hosting

Eric A. Meyer eric at meyerweb.com
Fri Nov 15 13:40:48 CST 2002


Hello all,

    Lachlan has passed along word that evolt would be willing to help
the css-discuss list find a new and more stable home.  I thought that
rather than keep discussing it from a step or two away, I'd join the
list and discuss it directly.
    So, first of all:  THANK YOU for being open to the idea of helping
us out!  css-discuss has had a lot of instability recently, with
periods where messages were habitually dropped on the floor and
others where some subscribers got up to 12 copies of some messages
(when others got only one copy of the same posts), so obviously it
was time to find a new home.  With the long experience of running
thelist, evolt would definitely seem to be a good choice.
    I've looked through the recent archives of theforum so I'm aware
of the generally positive disposition toward hosting css-discuss.  I
did want to talk a little bit about three of my "requested features"
for a new home.

* the ability to set up and host 'css-discuss.com' and run the list
through 'list at css-discuss.com', or some similar address
    The more I've thought about it, the more I think that's an
important feature.  While I'd like to have the list move once and
never again, it's possible that in the future I may have to migrate
to another home for some reason.  Being able to keep the list address
consistent through any moves would be highly useful.  Thus I think
having the domain name is important.  I'd certainly make the list's
affiliation with evolt evident, both in the list footer and on the
few information pages on css-discuss.com.  I just want to be sure
that this is acceptable to the evolt crew, as there were discussions
of 'css-d.evolt.org' but not 'css-discuss.com'.  I would pay the
domain registry fees, although I'd ask someone at evolt to do the
actual registering to avoid any mistakes, or else give me pretty much
all the information needed in order to do it myself and not mess
anything up.

* the ability for me to set up sophisticated filters for better spam
management and policy enforcement
    This was mostly due to my desire to set up a filter that
automatically discards posts from non-members, but not those from
non-members that contained the string [css-d] in the subject line.
Such a filter would really cut down on the amount of time I spend on
clearing out the spam filters in Mailman.  If this isn't possible or
convenient, it's not a huge deal; I wrote a small collection of
bookmarklets to help speed up my spam management via Mailman's
administrative interface.  I also wanted to set up a filter that
would take multipart-MIME messages and only pass along the text/plain
portion, as currently Mailman just blocks such messages.  But, again,
not a huge deal if this can't be done easily.

* room and resources to store the public archive and list wiki, if
they ever move from incutio.com
    I don't have any plans to move either resource from their current
homes, but I would like to confirm whether or not there would be
enough resources to handle them if necessary.  I don't know about the
size of the wiki but the archive is probably at least 100MB as of
right now.  I am talking about an archive other than the one Mailman
creates, which is limited compared to the one at
<http://archivist.incutio.com/css-discuss/>.

That pretty much does it for the points I made.  If the group is
confident the bandwidth and server load issues can be met and the
list won't be too much of a strain on your resources, then I'm
definitely interested.  If there are questions about any of the other
points raised in my original message, feel free to fire away.
    On a related note, I had been considering the possibility of
moving toward a subscriber-supported model for css-discuss, in the
event that I ended up choosing a provider who charged for the
service.  I understand the evolt is not proposing to charge for the
hosting service-- something which makes me obviously rather happy
(book writing isn't exactly a path to riches).  Still, assuming that
we do end up hosted by evolt, I would definitely be willing to post
periodically to the list with a "please support evolt.org" message--
say once a quarter, or whenever a support drive was undertaken.  We
could work the details out later, of course.
    I think that's about all for the moment.  Again, I'd like to thank
you all for being receptive to helping us out, and I look forward to
further (but hopefully brief) discussion.  If anyone wants to take
the discussion offlist, feel free to do so.

--
Eric A. Meyer  (eric at meyerweb.com)  http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/
Author, "Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide,"
  "Eric Meyer on CSS," "CSS 2.0 Programmer's Reference," and more
   http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/books/



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