[Foundation-l] private-l (was Re: Information flow)

Fri Aug 19 21:39:21 UTC 2005

Puddl Duk wrote:
> 
> Well, let's start with the non-public mailing lists. I'm aware of the leagal 
> one. What other non-public mailing lists are there (I think Erik mentioned 
> one with ''all the smartest people'' on it). Where are these list 
> documented, who are the members, and maybe, to ease some concerns and build 
> trust, what were the last twently thread topics?

I assume you mean private-l. I'm not sure where Erik said that it had
all the smartest people on it, but he did mention that he was sending
his Google report to it. Anyway, it sounds like a fair request to me.

The members are:

Anthere
Angela
Brion Vibber
Domas Mituzas
Elian
Jason Richey
Jens Frank
Jeronim
Jimmy Wales
Kate
Mark Bergsma
Erik Moeller
Sannse
Tim Starling

Basically the sysadmins plus a few extras. The last 20 subject lines
are as follows, in reverse chronological order, with explanatory text
added in square brackets where necessary:

Hardware donations
Fwd: "Powered by MediaWiki" Badge Questions
mail.wikimedia.org offline; Kennisnet support issues
Google report
Servers proposal, about France site
Fwd: interview [hardware tech]
Wikimedia domain expirations
Request for alteration to mailing list archives
pascal.knams.wikimedia.org down; Kennisnet contact?
(no subject) [Wapedia]
WikiMania Hacking Days
Fwd: RE: Potential copyright violation in Wikipedia
Fwd: Access to Wikipedia dumps
Fwd: Wikipedia privacy issue
Mirror Wikipedia
Yahoo cluster and policies
Wikimedia/Bomis [cc'ed email to colocation facility]
Fwd: Re: Lifting of IP Block
Wikipedia machines [Yahoo]
Sygate warning

That takes us back about 6 weeks. As you can see, the topics are mostly
technical. In summary, the list consists of:

* Dealings with external organisations which are required by those
external organisation to be kept confidential
* Technical information which is security-sensitive
* Privacy-related issues
* The occasional miscellaneous post

The list only allows members to post, so please direct queries on these
issues to the usual mailing addresses. Sannse, Elian and the Board
handle incoming email requests using OTRS, and pass them on to private-l
if they think the issue would benefit from discussion with that audience.

-- Tim Starling