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lists.md 23.91 KiB

Our mailing list server, lists.torproject.org, is running an instance of mailman.

The "listmaster" team is responsible for configuring all lists as required. They make decisions about which lists to create and which to retire, who should have owner or moderator access to existing lists, if lists are private, restricted, or public, and many other aspects of running mailing lists.

If you want to request a new list or propose a change to existing lists please file a ticket. If "listmaster" approves, they will coordinate with the admin team to have the list added and then configure it as needed. Don't forget to update the list of mailing lists (below) upon changes.

How-to

create a list

A list can be created by running newlist on the mailing list server (currently eugeni):

ssh eugeni.torproject.org sudo -u list newlist

If you do not have root access, proceed with the mailman admin password on the list creation form, which might or might not work.

Mailman creates the list name with an upper case letter. Usually people like all lower-case more. So log in to the newly created list at https://lists.torproject.org/ and change the list name and the subject line to lower case.

If people want to have specific settings (no archive, no public listing, etc.), can you set them also at this stage.

TPA should store the new list password in their password manager.

Don't forget to update the list of mailing lists (below) upon changes and close the trac ticket.

Remove a list

To remove a list, use the rmlist command on eugeni:

ssh eugeni.torproject.org sudo -u list rmlist LISTNAME

By default, archives are kept. If that's not wanted, use the -a flag.

Don't forget to update the list of mailing lists upon changes.

What are our most important lists?

New to Tor? If so then welcome! Our most important lists are as follows...

  • tor-talk@ - High traffic general discussion list, useful for general user questions and discussion. The list's lack of moderation is something we're growing to view as a problem, and as such might not be the best place at present.
  • tor-dev@ - Discussion list for developers, researchers, and other technical discussions.
  • tor-relays@ - Discussion list for relay operators.
  • tor-project@ - Discussion list for tor contributors. Only active and past tor contributors can post to this list.

How do I get permission to post to tor-project@

Just ask. Anyone is allowed to watch, but posting is restricted to those that actively want to make Tor better. As long as you're willing to keep your posts constructive just contact Damian.

Note that unlike many of our lists this one is pretty actively moderated, so unconstructive comments may lose you posting permissions. Sorry about that, but this is one list we're striving to keep the noise down on. ;)

How do I ask for a new mailing list?

Creating a new list is easy, but please only request one if you have a good reason. Unused lists will periodically be removed to cut down on bloat. With that out of the way, to request a new list simply file a ticket with the following...

  • What is the list name?
  • What is the email address of the list maintainer? This person will be given the list's Mailman administrator password, be notified of bounces, and emails to the list owner. If this is a closed list then they'll be responsible for maintaining the membership.
  • What is a one sentence description of the list? (see lists.torproject.org for examples)

Lists default to being public and archived. If you would prefer something else then you'll need to change its configuration in Mailman.

Creating lists involves at least two people, so please be patient while your list is being created. Be sure to regularly check the ticket you created for questions by list admins.

Members of tor-internal@ do not require approval for their lists. Non-members will need sign-off of Damian or qbi.

Why do we have internal lists?

In additional to our public email lists Tor maintains a handful of communication channels reserved for core contributors. This is not a secret inner cabal, but rather community members (both paid and unpaid) who have been long-time contributors with the project. (See our Core Contributor Guidelines.)

Why do we have these internal discussions? Funding proposals, trip reports, and other things sometimes include details that shouldn't be public. In general though we strongly encourage discussions to happen in public instead.

Note that this is a living document. Policies are not set in stone, and might change if we find something better.

How do I get added to internal lists?

Internal communication channels are open only to core contributors. For information on becoming a core contributor, see the Core Contributor Guidelines.

Reference

List of mailing lists

Discussion Lists

The following are lists with subscriber generated threads.

List Maintainer Type Description
tor-project arma, atagar, gamambel Public Moderated discussion list for active contributors.
tor-talk saint, pili, phw, sysrqb, gaba Public all discussion about theory, design, and development of Onion Routing
tor-users qbi, saint, gamambel, gunner Public General discussion list about the technical aspects of Tor and its subprojects
tor-dev teor, pili, phw, sysrqb, gaba Public Development related discussion list.
tor-onions teor, dgoulet, asn, pili, phw, sysrqb, gaba Public technical discussion about running Tor onion (hidden) services
tor-relays teor, pili, phw, sysrqb, gaba Public Relay operation support.
tor-relays-universities arma, qbi, nickm Public Relay operation related to universities (lightly used).
tor-mirrors arma, qbi, nickm Public Tor website mirror support.
tor-teachers mrphs Public Discussion, curriculum sharing, and strategizing for people who teach Tor around the world.
ux mrphs, isabela, antonela Public UX mailing list for discussion about user-experience of Tor products.
tor-team arma, atagar, qbi, nickm Private Internal discussion list (externally reachable).
tor-internal arma, atagar, qbi, nickm Private Internal discussion list.
onion-advisors isabela Private
onionspace-berlin infinity0, juris, moritz Private Discussion list for Onionspace, a hackerspace/office for Tor-affiliated and privacy tools hackers in Berlin.
onionspace-seattle Jon Private Discussion list for the Tor-affiliated and privacy tools hackers in Seattle
global-south sukhbir, arma, qbi, nickm, gus Public Tor in the Global South

Notification Lists

The following lists are generally read-only for their subscribers. Traffic is either notifications on specific topics or auto-generated.

List Maintainer Type Description
anti-censorship-alerts phw, cohosh Public Notification list for anti-censorship service alerts.
metrics-alerts irl Public Notification list for Tor Metrics service-related alerts
regional-nyc sysrqb Public NYC-area Announcement List
tor-announce nickm, weasel Public Announcement of new Tor releases. Here is an RSS feed.
tbb-bugs boklm, sysrqb, brade Public Tor Browser Bundle related bugs.
tbb-commits boklm, sysrqb, brade Public Tor Browser Bundle related commits to Tor repositories.
tor-bugs arma, atagar, qbi, nickm Public Tor bug tracker.
tor-commits nickm, weasel Public Commits to Tor repositories.
tor-network-alerts dgoulet Private auto: Alerts related to bad relays detection.
tor-wiki-changes nickm, weasel Public Changes to the Trac wiki.
tor-consensus-health arma, atagar, qbi, nickm Public Alarms for the present status of the Tor network.
tor-censorship-events arma, qbi, nickm Public Alarms for if the number of users from a local disappear.
ooni-bugs andz, art Public OONI related bugs status mails
tor-svninternal arma, qbi, nickm Private Commits to the internal SVN.

Administrative Lists

The following are private lists with a narrowly defined purpose. Most have a very small membership.

List Maintainer Type Description
tor-security dgoulet Private For reporting security issues in Tor projects or infrastructure. To get the gpg key for the list, contact tor-security-sendkey@lists.torproject.org or get it from pool.sks-keyservers.net. Key fingerprint = 8B90 4624 C5A2 8654 E453 9BC2 E135 A8B4 1A7B F184
bad-relays dgoulet Private Discussions about malicious and misconfigured Tor relays.
board-executive isabela Private
board-finance isabela Private
board-legal isabela Private
board-marketing isabela Private
meeting-planners jon, alison Public The list for planning the bi-annual Tor Meeting
membership-advisors atagar Private Council advisors on list membership.
tor-access mikeperry Private Discussion about improving the ability of Tor users to access Cloudflare and other CDN content/sites
tor-employees erin Private Tor employees
tor-alums erin Private To support former employees, contractors, and interns in sharing job opportunities
tor-board julius Private Tor project board of directors
tor-boardmembers-only julius Private Discussions amongst strictly members of the board of directors, not including officers (Executive Director, President, Vice President and possibly more).
tor-community-team alison Public Community team list
tor-packagers atagar Public Platform specific package maintainers (debs, rpms, etc).
tor-research-safety arma Private Discussion list for the Tor research safety board
tor-scaling arma, nickm, qbi, gaba Private Internal discussion list for performance metrics, roadmap on scaling and funding proposals.
tor-test-network dgoulet Private Discussion regarding the Tor test network
translation-admin sysrqb Private Translations administration group list
wtf nickm, sysrqb, qbi Private a wise tech forum for warm tech fuzzies

Team Lists

Lists related to subteams within Tor.

List Maintainer Type Description
anti-censorship-team arma, qbi, nickm, phw Public Anti-censorship team discussion list.
dir-auth arma, atagar, qbi, nickm Private Directory authority operators.
www-team arma, qbi, nickm Public Website development.
tbb-dev boklm, sysrqb, brade Public Tor Browser development discussion list.
tor-gsoc arma, qbi, nickm Private Google Summer of Code students.
tor-qa boklm, sysrqb, brade Public QA and testing, primarily for TBB.
ooni-talk hellais Public Ooni-probe general discussion list.
ooni-dev hellais Public Ooni-probe development discussion list.
ooni-operators hellais Public OONI mailing list for probe operators.
network-health arma, dgoulet, gk Public Tor Network Health Team coordination list
tor-l10n arma, nickm, qbi, emmapeel Public reporting errors on translations
tor-meeting arma Private dev. meetings of the Tor Project.

Internal Lists

We have three email lists (tor-team@, tor-internal@, and bad-relays@), and a private IRC channel on OFTC.

  • tor-team@ is an invite-only list that is reachable by the outside world. As such it both used for email CCs, and receives quite a bit of spam.
  • tor-internal@ is an invite-only list that is not reachable by the outside world. Some individuals that are especially adverse to spam only subscribe to this one.
  • bad-relays@ is an invite-only list that is reachable by the outside world. It is also used for email CCs.
  • Our internal IRC channel is used for unofficial real time internal communication.

Encrypted Mailing Lists

We have mailing lists handled by Schleuder that we use within different teams.

  • tor-security@ is an encrypted list. See its entry under "Administrative Lists".
  • network-team-security@ is for any security issues related to "tor" and is an invite-only list used by the Network Team. Only subscribers can post.
  • tor-community-council@ is used by Community Council members. Anyone can use it to email the community council.