Mailing Lists

A mailing list is an electronic discussion forum that anyone can subscribe to. When someone sends an email message to the mailing list, a copy of that message is broadcast to everyone who is subscribed to that mailing list. Mailing lists are the primary means of communication for people working within the Apache Struts Project.

HEADS UP!

A message sent to a public mailing list cannot be unpublished. Although we might be able to modify our own mail archives, the message is mirrored to a lot of other archiving systems which we do not have under control. Therefore almost 100% of all delete requests are denied. Please make sure you do not send any potential sensitive information to the mailing list, including passwords, server names, ips and so on.

Subscribing

You can use a web interface as well if you want to post a question https://lists.apache.org/

You can read the ASF Mail or the Mark Mail Archives if you are looking for older discussions. There are many other archives out there as well.

If you want to discuss patches or contribute to Struts you should subscribe to the developers list.

Moderators

Users with the moderate right to the above lists can check subscribers, subscribe and unsubscribe given users, check Mailing list moderation for more details, basically to unsubscribe someone you can email:

{listname}-unsubscribe-badboy=menace.com@tlp.apache.org

Unsubscribe from the Users mailing list

Guidelines

Mailing lists provide a simple and effective communication mechanism. With potentially thousands of subscribers, there is a common set of etiquette guidelines that you should observe. Please keep on reading.

Join the lists that are appropriate for your discussion.

Please make sure that you are joining the list that is appropriate for the topic or product that you would like to discuss. For example, please do not join the Struts mailing list and ask questions about Tomcat. Instead, you should join the Tomcat User list and ask your questions there.

Respect the mailing list type

The “User” list is where you can send questions and comments about configuration, setup, usage and other “user” types of questions. The focus of the user list should be one “how” to do something with the framework we have today. The focus of the dev list is how we want to do something with a future version of the framework.

The “Developer” (or “Dev”) list is where you can send questions and comments about the actual software source code and general “development” types of questions. Questions about the “future” of Struts are best addressed to the dev list.

Some questions may seem appropriate for posting on both the “user” and the “developer” lists. In this case, pick one and only one. Do not cross post, unless a Committer asks that the thread be moved to the other list.

Do not cross post messages.

In other words, pick a mailing list and send your messages to that mailing list only. Do not send your messages to multiple mailing lists. The reason is that people may be subscribed to one list and not to the other. Therefore, some people will only see part of the conversation.

Watch where you are sending email.

The majority of our mailing lists have set the Reply-To to go back to the list. That means that when you Reply to a message, it will go to the list and not to the original author directly. The reason is because it helps facilitate discussion on the list for everyone to benefit from. Be careful of this as sometimes you may intend to reply to a message directly to someone instead of the entire list.

Do not send HTML emails to the list.

If you are using Outlook or Outlook Express or Eudora, chances are that you are sending HTML email by default. There is usually a setting that will allow you to send “Plain Text” email.

Keep your email short and to the point.

If your email is more than about a page of text, chances are that it won’t get read by very many people. It is much better to try to pack a lot of informative information (see above about asking smart questions) into as small of an email as possible. If you are replying to a previous email, it is a good idea to only quote the parts that you are replying to and to remove the unnecessary bits. This makes it easier for people to follow a thread as well as making the email archives easier to search and read.

Don’t feed the trolls.

“In Internet terminology, a troll is a person who posts rude or offensive messages on the Internet, such as in online discussion forums, to disrupt discussion or to upset its participants (see Anonymous Internet posting). “Troll” can also mean the message itself or be a verb meaning to post such messages. “Trolling” is also commonly used to describe the activity.”

For more, see Internet Trolls in the Wikipedia.

If someone makes an off-topic post that offends you, our best advice is to filter posts from that person to the trash. When subscribers do choose to respond, sometimes a thread will feed on itself, and grow out of control. When that happens, our best advice is to filter the entire thread to the trash.

Our spam filters will catch most types of commercial spam, but troll spam is a hard for software to spot. The best defense is to withhold from the troll what he or she wants most: A response.

Ask smart questions.

Every volunteer project obtains its strength from the people involved in it. You are welcome to join any of our mailing lists. You can choose to lurk, or actively participate; it’s up to you. The level of community responsiveness to specific questions is generally directly proportional to the amount of effort you spend formulating your question. Eric Raymond and Rick Moen have even written an essay entitled Asking Smart Questions precisely on this topic. Please read the essay, follow its advice, and then post your smart questions to the appropriate list.