Terri Oda wrote:

Mark Sapiro wrote:

...

Chris Clark wrote

...

I thought I'd make a quick change to the docs on Launchpad. But I do not know where the docs live. <https://code.launchpad.net/~mailman-administrivia/mailman-administrivia/admi...>.

I'm also trying to consolidate more of the documentation so it's available in the wiki (with the goal that we can just point people there in the future):

http://wiki.list.org/display/DOC/

If you're making a new wiki account, you'll need one of the admins to grant you author permission (we had to disable it by default to control persistent spam) -- if you send me your wiki name I can get that set up for you!

Following the wiki url above, I can find a link to the "old"/current docs at http://www.list.org/docs.html

From http://www.list.org/docs.html the List Managers link offers 2 options:

1. Chris Kolar's docs (indicated to be out of date)
2. GNU list admin manual, by [you :-) ] Terri Oda - click through shows this as having Barry A. Warsaw as the author. This doc appears to be the same one the GNU website has ( http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-admin/ ).

#2 above has a date of July 8, 2011, http://www.list.org/admins.html indicated it as being incomplete (with the implication that is is new).

With Mark's LP link of https://code.launchpad.net/~mailman-administrivia I found the file that generates the List Admin manual :-)

So...... what should I edit?

I'm not expecting to be making any huge or ground breaking changes but obviously I don't want to spend time on something that might get thrown away :-)

I've not read the docs from start-to-finish but from my quick scans they seem to have a good chunk of information in already. I like wiki's for docs (they are not ideal but they serve a purpose) but they tend to make sense when projects are just starting out and have zero docs to start with. As there are docs already it seems like sticking with the existing ones (and filling them out) would be a good idea. I've not used Tex in a very long time so I guess from an easy of use I might prefer the wiki! How's that for arguing with myself? :-)

Obviously I'll edit where ever I'm told to, this isn't my project! :-)

To prevent me from prevaricating (and spending time talking about doc changes rather than *making* doc updates) here is a quick attempt at the content I was planning on adding to the "GNU Mailman - List Administration Manual", section "Deleting the Mailing List". It is far from complete (it might even be wrong, this is based on observations of Mailman 2.1.9) and is in US English.

Removing/deleting mailing lists is performed with the command line tool "rmlist". rmlist has 2 modes of operating:

1. Only remove the list from the admin interface. This retains archives on file system (that is, postings) but makes the list completely inaccessible to users, this removes: * The list itself from the web admin interface as well as for users of the list * List meta data: o Name, description, etc. o Policies in place (for example, list moderation settings) o List members
2. Like #1 above but also removes the list archives

If list archives are retained (default behavior), the archive files are left on the file system. The Mailman administrator can still access the archives through web interface (if the URL has been bookmarked) but list users (and the list administrator) will not have access unless another web service is making the list archives accessible (for example through a search engine).

NOTE removing the list completely requires manual editing of the mail aliases file, that is, /etc/aliases

Once a list has been removed, it may be re-added with the "newlist" command line tool, however all information about the list (for example, description and previous members) will be missing. However the archives will then be available to all users via the web interface.

It is also possible to allow mailing list removal with the option/variable OWNERS_CAN_DELETE_THEIR_OWN_LISTS in mm_cfg.py, by default this option is disabled.

That last sentence is based on the FAQ entry http://wiki.list.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=4030594 I've no idea if is it accurate!

Thanks for the prompt replies (and of course for mailman). I've been a user in one form or another (i.e. joining someones list or admin of my own) for a while now and it always just-works :-)

Chris

Terri Oda wrote:

Chris Clark wrote:

...

So...... what should I edit?

Short answer: I prefer the wiki, please!

Cool, can you give clach04 auth perms please? I'll add the stuff I wrote earlier to a (new) section in http://wiki.list.org/display/DOC/Mailman+2.1+List+Administrators+Manual#

My *plan* is to remove all the various messy doc links and point everyone to the wiki so that they can search through the docs and the FAQs all in one place. I just haven't gotten that done yet, since it doesn't pay the bills!

:-)

Chris