XSF Communications Team - 2021-02-07

Conv mailchimp from another room: > purplebeetroot: not happy about the tracking either > ಠ_ಠ What needs to be done to change it?

I guess first we need a reliable and privacy respecting suggestion for another provider. ✏

I disagree. First it needs the interest in switching and difined requirments for such a switch. Second step would be to collect questions and find answers to them, regarding that shift. If the most active XMPP members don't have a quick answer themselves forward that question to a wider community. If it would be just about a suggestion of a nice provider: Go with autistici and you're done.

I dont see what kind of other question is in there apart from switching to another provider?

I think we cannot host it there because there are quite politically active, which does not work with XSF. But thanks for suggesting

And mailchimp is better because they are only political active in capitalism and surveillance but not in emancipatory struggles? What's the issue with being political active? Afterall XMPP is a also a political project, to work towards federated communication that can be controled by those using it, and is not bound to cooperate interest. This political affiliation is also a reason funding for XMPP is little. Anyways your answer proofs that the switch is not about just finding a privacy respecting server.

XSF has stated to attempt to be neutral as much as possible. That is not my decision. But Im personally also not happy with all of it. > Anyways your answer proofs that the switch is not about just finding a privacy respecting server. I am always happy to discuss, but please do not put you interpretations into my mouth.

The quote purplebeetroot put was my post I meant that the links are wrapped via their url redirector. Which might be a feature useful for marketers, I don't think it's one for XSF/Comms. emus: maybe that can be tweaked and put the real links in the email instead?

I cannot follow 😅️

Ah I see the issue

But I cannot do this effort

Currently I prefer people if they really dont want tracking to use the RSS feed. I think its better any email newsletters anyway

emus: > Ah I see the issue > But I cannot do this effort It's not a tinyletter setting, or you/xsf wants this?

No, but I can opt-out of this?

No, I dont see any options

Somebody should check the buttons or define it's usage. > Currently I prefer people if they really dont want tracking to use the RSS feed. I think its better any email newsletters anyway There's a difference between, tinyletter has my email and tinyletter tracks every url I open from the newsletter for an unknown reason (it's a condition from tinyletter or?)

Eg. Sendgrid has this https://sendgrid.com/docs/ui/account-and-settings/tracking/ I guess

Just to make it clear: I haven't setup the entire Newsletter environment, I am just trying to keep the whole thing running. I see the captcha issue and tracking issue, but I cannot do more if we dont have a decent alternative (tbh. I would be happy those things could be run internally).

Other then that, the UI of Tinyletter is very very limited

there is no opt out, I guess thats part of their business 🤷‍♂️️

There are great alternatives. But if the requirments are unknown, it is unknown what you're looking for. So the question remains: What is needed to switch?

> XSF has stated to attempt to be neutral as much as possible. That is not my decision. But Im personally also not happy with all of it. And? Prioritizing a service that is conducting surveillance over a service that promotes an anti-masssurveiliance position is not a neutral stance. And in this current discussion, it's not something the XSF came up with, but you.

Mass surveillance is not neutral Surveillance capitalism is not neutral.

purplebeetroot, please stop blaming me for decisions and circumstances I haven't made or set. People seem to require a privacy-respecting hoster to run newsletter, but not expecting us to join any specific ideologies in advance. can also be a paid service and then discussions can start. ✏

emus: I'm *not* blaming you for decisions and circumstances you have not made or set, I'm criticising your communication in the dialogue that just happend.

And what do you not like?

You said you need > I guess first we need a reliable and privacy respecting suggestion for another provider. You got that suggestion, but argue it's not an option because they don't take a neutral stance on politics. (That is, how I understand you) Status quo is mailchimp and they are neither having a neutral stance on politics. If your argument aplies to the suggestion, why does it not apply to mailchimp? My issue is not the reason that you propably won't go with autistici, but the narrative you use in order to get there. The "we are neutral" thing. XSF is not neutral on politics and its members actually have some very clear positions about some aspects that matter to XMPP, that includes your recent blogpost (btw great job!) You can argue that you want XSF to only take position on [what ever the definition will be], and not engage with any group that's behond that and it would be an argument that I can logically follow, even so I might disagree, but that the XSF wants to be neutral and by that prefers mailchimp over autistici doesn't come from a logical conclusion but an ideology that sets the status quo as neutral. It's a logical fallacy. Don't ask me how it's called, maybe status quo fallacy. What so ever, if you (plural, not just you) wish to switch, how can we get clear about the requirments to actually switch? (thought I'd prefer more to talk about this then my criticism)

- Austistici expects to be at least clear about anti-military. I see that is not the case in the XSF, even that is not my personal opinion. But if we want to go for a change, we need a provider not expecting any statements from our side.

- The current situation has been made before I did anything with the Newsletter. We are definitely not there because we are some "capitalist advocates" but I guess when this has been setup being a simple solution. And I think Tinyletter is just marketing as all the other providers do. I guess not nice for many, but we have not other good option so far. And we have about 500 subscribers there. Before I call them to switch, I need to know what alternatives we have and happy to hear and look at those. So far, my gut feeling but also looking at austici expectations tells me, it wont work, even if I would say "lets go with that". (because I have to discuss with the team)

- So, in general: Happy to hear more suggestions which could be feasible

With the same argumentation one could argue "Why is the XSF on Twitter?!?"

So, no one is forced to use the Email newsletter. Please opt-out if you are not happy with the tracking. There is always the website + the RSS feed

If there is a solution, we can improve. But for the moment resources and any big extra efforts are not quite feasible 🙁 🤷‍♂️️

> - So, in general: Happy to hear more suggestions which could be feasible Ok. Is it correct to say, that your requirments for a service are as following: - must be a privacy improvment - must be free software - must require as little resources as possible from XSF - must not require a statement from XSF Something missing?

Yes, I think that is good. Free software or project is always nice, but not that mandatory. At least it should not have that much tracking as criticized. Basically, the last things is just if the providers have active political strategies or activism.

> Basically, the last things is just if the providers have active political strategies or activism. That's a blocker? So service run by GNU would be a blocker, because they are explicit about their politics and engage in activism?

If that's a case, I'd say it would be usefull to have a general communication strategy discussion for the reason that this approach does not only look hostile towards other projects, but is also harmfull to xmpp adoption. Imho

I might also just get you wrong.

Thought if you want something that's closer connected to marketing then privacy and free software, but still is open source and actually a powerfull automation email marketing software and service you should check out mautic. They also have/had a talk at fosdem. Here's what I would do: Write a short mastodon post explaining the current situation and asking people for input. Tails did that recently and it worked out pretty well.

Fosdem: https://www.mautic.org/blog/community/join-mautic-fosdem-online-weekend

(Note: I'm not uptodate with mautic and haven't followed its development for the last 4 years maybe)

The mastodon post of Tails that I mentioned: https://fosstodon.org/@tails/105684244090696525

purplebeetroot, what's that?

purplebeetroot - I think you are taking one or the other thing to hard. We just cannot run our services at some "radical-anti-everything" website. Please just provide a list of providers for the moment you think is fine, also austici if you like it. Then we can check. Yes I can call for more support on this, too. But I am not investing time in this the next weeks unfortunately. You can raise an issue on github if you want, too

> purplebeetroot - You can raise an issue on github if you want, too No, because I cannot consent to github's requirments.

ok but honestly. Maybe it is okay to keep it as it is in the moment, as long as we dont see any obvious alternatives. We have ressources issues in general. No body is forced to use it, the website is there, the rss feed and fosstodon

> purplebeetroot - We just cannot run our services at some "radical-anti-everything" website. Please just provide a list of providers for the moment you think is fine, also austici if you like it. Wait, is this an response to me asking if an service offered by GNU would be a blocker because of their political engagements? Nearly all friendly collectives that offer hosting to other friendly peojects are to one or the other way explicit about their politics, which are what they moivate to offer the hosting in first place. You're asking for something, that's likly hard to find, and which might have been the reason why mailchimp was considered the easier solution to go. Seriously, to find a service and get offers, it doesn't require more then a single mastodon post, and you'll get input and knowledge from several people rather then just me.

> ok > but honestly. Maybe it is okay to keep it as it is in the moment, as long as we dont see any obvious alternatives. We have ressources issues in general. No body is forced to use it, the website is there, the rss feed and fosstodon Just from a perspective of communicating XMPP as a brand one can trust in, does running mailchimp look bad. It's not solved by offering rss feeds, because the email list is marketized directly at the webpage.

> Maybe it is okay to keep it as it is in the moment, as long as we dont see any obvious alternatives. You don't see obvious alternatives because you block them incl. an approach that requires less resources then our discussion here is consuming, under disguise of XSF wants this so. This is partly what I critisiced earlier as status quo fallacy (even so I'm not sure if that's its correct term)

Publishing a post at mastodon costs you less then a minute. (Yes, I could have been the post that writes it for you) The question is, and that is what I asked at the beginning, first start to be clear if you actually want to switch and understand the requirments. If you don't want to switch, while making it look as you are, you're wasting the time of those offering help for the switch.

Remember this conversation started with me asking what is required to switch. Long talk, and it's nearly as unclear as in the beginning. This style of communication is super bad at efficacy and time wasting, at times resources are spare. I'm out for the moment. Please reflect.

(and not just you individually)

purplebeetroot: To kept it simple I suggested to make a list of providers for the moment. And please stop pushing with this attitude and blaming 100% of volunteers here for likely not having the ressources for this currently. ✏

1. I'm a volunteer too 2. You consume more resource by this working approach (without us getting anywhere), then the one I proposed 3. You blocked my working approach proposal. 4. I was offering resources, but they got consumed by this chat. 5. There're only 2 people to blame in respect of this discourse. That's you, and me. I could have done something different, you could have done something different and we could have had today offers from friendly service providers. We both failed. Understanding the reasons for failure is important, so that we can improve, in order to not repeat them next time 6. Reflect

7. Trying to improve working culture is work too, same as writing this feedback to you.

Hey all, as of now there is no German translation and no one working at it, is there?

Hi Jeybe, yes

Okay

I started once, but then the workin of redaction took over

are you looking for it or do you want to start with trnaslations?

Would there be interest in me writing a translation?

I could do it for this month ✏

I could do it for this months newsletter ✏

Jeybe: Yes there is interest. What would be prefered in general is to have some consistency. For example to have it placed always on the same page as I did once with jabber.de. If you can imagine I can ask the admin if he could imagine this. But of course I dont want you get stopped with translating. The point is that we dont have translations on our side, but always link to the website which is publishing (after the release). This is why I am asking.