Change digest function of wikimedia-l@ so it send emails only once a day
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	• jmatazzoni
	Jul 28 2016, 8:26 PM

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I recently signed up for the Wikimedia-L list and selected the Digest Mode. Since then I've received an average of two to three "Digest" emails each day. Yesterday I got six! In reading the description of digest mode, I now see that it says we'll "usually" get one email per day, but "possibly more on busy lists."

I humbly submit that when users ask for a Digest, they are saying two things: 1) I don't need to follow this discussion closely and 2) I don't want to be bothered by a lot of emails. Therefore an email "digest" that comes six times a day neither meets users' needs nor conforms with the expectations users have from other services.

I'm not sure how the system decides to send out a digest. Sometimes a digest is sent in the morning that contains only two topics. Whatever the logic or the reason for the original decision, please enable those of us who want to follow events but not so immediately to get only one email per day.

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• jmatazzoni created this task.Jul 28 2016, 8:26 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptJul 28 2016, 8:26 PM

This seems to be a request for admins of Wikimedia-l to set digest_size_threshold to 0 on https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/admin/wikimedia-l/digest
The admins are listed at the bottom of https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

@jmatazzoni please email wikimedia-l-owner@lists.wikimedia.org about that, it's an alias for these people:

Wikimedia-l list run by adhair at gmail.com, thehelpfulonewiki at gmail.com, richard at ames.id.au

Dzahn assigned this task to • jmatazzoni.Aug 24 2016, 3:51 PM

@jmatazzoni: Has this happened?

@jmatazzoni: ping

Hi @Aklapper. Sorry to be dense. Are the people listed above not on Phabricator? Is that why you suggest that I email this request ? Should I just send them the link, or the actual text of the task? Thanks.

In T141566#3173961, @jmatazzoni wrote:

Hi @Aklapper. Sorry to be dense. Are the people listed above not on Phabricator?

(Basically) every Mailman mailing list has an -owner@ to reach its maintainers. If you think other ways are better to reach out to the right people you're free to try other ways. :) Regarding Phabricator, https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/people/query/advanced/ allows you to search for people.

Aklapper renamed this task from Fix email digest function so it send emails only once a day to Change digest function of wikimedia-l@ so it send emails only once a day.Apr 12 2017, 9:29 AM

Note that the toggle we have available to play with is called "digest_size_threshhold"

How big in Kb should a digest be before it gets sent out? 0 implies no maximum size.

Currently this is set to 30.
This task is asking for it to be (re)set to 0.

I am not aware of any prior discussion around its current value. IMO it seems sensible to change it to 0.

So this has sat open for a very long time. The change requested is something that should be done via emailing the owners of the list One of us global admins overriding list owners is typically only done when the list owners are unavailable or unresponsive.

I'm going to decline this, since it was already suggested that the requestor email the wikimedia-l-owner@lists.wikimedia.org

In T141566#3174472, @Aklapper wrote:

In T141566#3173961, @jmatazzoni wrote:

Hi @Aklapper. Sorry to be dense. Are the people listed above not on Phabricator?

(Basically) every Mailman mailing list has an -owner@ to reach its maintainers. If you think other ways are better to reach out to the right people you're free to try other ways. :) Regarding Phabricator, https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/people/query/advanced/ allows you to search for people.

It is my understanding that he was suggesting you email wikimedia-l-owner@lists.wikimedia.org with the request, since those are the list administrators for that particular mailing list.

I'm going to close this as declined. However, if you feel that this is something that should remain open, please feel free to detail such and re-open. Otherwise this is best handled by those list admins directly via the above suggested email method.

Hi @RobH: FYI, I did email the list you cite, back in April. @jayvdb replied, above, in T141566#3198950, judging the proposal "sensible." But no one followed up. Are you sure you want to close this? Perhaps individual list owners like jayvdb did not feel empowered to make the change for whatever reason, or just needed more information, and the motion simply slipped between the cracks?

In T141566#3771357, @jmatazzoni wrote:

Hi @RobH: FYI, I did email the list you cite, back in April. @jayvdb replied, above, in T141566#3198950, judging the proposal "sensible." But no one followed up. Are you sure you want to close this? Perhaps individual list owners like jayvdb did not feel empowered to make the change for whatever reason, or just needed more information, and the motion simply slipped between the cracks?

I hadn't realized that @jayvdb was one of the admins. Any list administrator can indeed make that change, @jayvdb included. However, it should likely be discussed with the other adminstrators of that list, so they are aware of the change.

Anyone can re-open, it doesn't require me to do so, but I've gone ahead and re-opened the task.

@jayvdb: As you are one of this lists administrators, can you advise if you plan to discuss and make this change with the other admins?

Please note: Due to the large number of subscribers on the list, I'd hesitate to just make the change on behalf of the list admins for that list. I've not discussed it with them, so it seems like it may be overstepping bounds as opsen.

Wikimedia-l list run by asaf.bartov at gmail.com, shani.even at gmail.com, jayvdb at gmail.com

@Ijon @jayvdb Hi, @jmatazzoni has a request for you here but it's really something the list admins should agree on and can change via the web ui. Given that this task has been open since July 2016 and there has been no movement i am tempted to close it as declined again (it had been declined before).

Did you guys get to talk about this?

Dzahn changed the task status from Open to Stalled.May 11 2018, 10:51 PM

I emailed the three list admins on 2018-06-21 and have not seen any reply yet.

Restricted Application added a project: SRE. · View Herald TranscriptJul 30 2018, 12:16 PM

Dzahn moved this task from Backlog to List maintenance on the Wikimedia-Mailing-lists board.Oct 4 2018, 9:11 PM

I'm afraid we have exhausted our options here. It's a thing the list admins need to agree and change if they want to. They have been pinged about it but have not replied here and not even when they got 3 individual personal emails. Meanwhile the people who actually see this ticket when on clinic in SRE can't / shouldn't really act on it and just change settings of a popular list like that without consent from the admins. And we are stuck in this situation for over 2 years now.

I think we will have to decline this ticket.

The right venue for this issue is still emailing the list owners at:

wikimedia-l-owner@lists.wikimedia.org

Or if that fails, wikimedia-l itself.

The "list run by" footer on the list info page https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/admin/wikimedia-l also shows which individuals can be contacted directly.

https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Dzahn closed this task as Declined.Oct 12 2018, 5:48 PM

Change digest function of wikimedia-l@ so it send emails only once a dayClosed, DeclinedPublicActions

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Change digest function of wikimedia-l@ so it send emails only once a day
Closed, DeclinedPublic
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