A priority for our team has been to find ways to enhance the platforms and tools that we as a community use to communicate. For the past year, most of that focus has been on synchronous communication via our introduction of the Ubuntu Matrix server. We now want to shift some focus into our asynchronous platforms where we see opportunities to make some meaningful improvements.
Mailing lists have long been an important method of communication for Ubuntu and the greater open source world. There was a time when they served as the primary means of communication and coordination within our community. However, over the past 10 years, we have seen a steady decline in their usage and reach. I would like to share some findings from the community team’s assessment of the lists and explore what it means for the future of project communication.
Mailing List Breakdown
When looking at the lists currently utilized by the Ubuntu community, they typically fall into three discrete usage types:
- General Community Conversation
- Primarily used by LoCo, SIGs (Special Interest Groups), Community Teams
- Low message volume
- Governance Body
- Used by the Community Council, Technical Board and the various delegated governing bodies within the community
- Low to Medium message volume
- Mix of public and private lists
- Automated & High Volume
- Used for tracking bug reports, Package change notifications and development related communications.
- High message volume
Current State of the Ubuntu Lists
The graphs below help to illustrate the ongoing decline in usage of our mailing lists since it’s inception. From their peak in 2009 of nearly 500,000 messages per year we are currently seeing a steady decline in overall usage with the vast majority of new messages coming from automated lists e.g. bug reports, archive messages
This decrease in overall message volume strongly correlates with the significant rise in inactive lists. Looking at the chart below, 2/3 of the mailing lists have not received a single message within the past 6 months.
You can find these graphs along with a full collection of individual list metrics here.
Evolving communication
The natural question that arises from seeing these metrics is “Why the decline?”
As communities evolve, so do the tools they use. In the early days of Ubuntu, mailing lists were the most common and practical method of communication. As time progressed, more platforms were introduced that were faster, more convenient or allowed for more dynamic conversations.
Beyond feature and function, older platforms can become unsupported or have security vulnerabilities uncovered that leave them potentially exposed to malicious actors. Ensuring community platforms are being regularly audited, updated and maintained must always be a critical priority of a platform’s lifecycle.
Looking ahead
Publicizing a large number of mailing lists that are devoid of activity can be particularly harmful to newcomers to the community who are looking to get involved. This can leave people with the perception that they are being ignored or the community they are looking to participate in is in decline. To address this problem, we want to focus on two major items:
Mailing list cleanup - Using the available metrics, we are going to look at shutting down lists that have been inactive for a significant period of time (6 months - 1 year with little to no message activity). Our aim is to maintain the archives of those lists as some may contain helpful or historically significant information. This shutdown process will be communicated to the affected lists prior to any action and will also be shared here on the Ubuntu Discourse.
Future platform discussions - This is a great opportunity to discuss as a community what the future holds for our active mailing lists and chart the future for community asynchronous communication.
- Are mailing lists still a useful method of communication?
- Which lists should and shouldn’t remain on the platform?
- Are there better alternatives to the mailing lists?
These are critical questions that we would like you to offer your viewpoints on. Let’s work together to make our community the best and easiest place to converse and contribute.