Minutes/2025-03-28

Present: RL, MM, TM

Administration
- comp.lang.asm.x86
  - No response yet to RL's message to three volunteers asking for an update. RL pinged the volunteers again on 2025-02-21; awaiting a response.
  - Further posts to the MVI thread on news.groups.proposals by James Harris. RL to reply.
- news.groups.proposals
  - The group's signing key uses the e-mail address ngp-approval-key@ngp.big-8.org. Agreed to leave this as-is for now, as this is just an identifier. We can later consider adding a new identity with a new address, and/or upgrading to a GPGv2 key.
- comp.compression.research
  - RL and TM reviewed MM's group removal draft. TM to add material concerning the current moderator and then post the RFD.
- Moderated groups without moderators
  - soc.genealogy.surnames.britain : no further update from volunteer
  - rec.humor.funny : TM's conversation with Brad Templeton is ongoing.
  - TM to respond to Ivan Shmakov's post where he expressed interest in moderating several groups.
- soc.sexuality.general (non-functioning moderated group): Agreed to defer until mass deletion RFD is concluded.
- news.admin.announce
  - RL has posted an announcement about the new moderators on Usenet and on our wiki. TM to announce this on social media.
- soc.culture.jewish.moderated
  - MM discovered that this group, which has been inactive for years, has a submission address uses a "parked" domain. MM to attempt to identify and reach the moderator to ask about the status of the group.
Infrastructure
- Contabo claims to have fixed the problem with our web server's IPv6 and MM has not been able to reproduce the problem.
- Status of cron jobs for offsite backups: No further update from RL.
- Various related server issues
  - Owing to the volume of automated notifications Mail in a Box is emitting about incompatible packages, MM argued for removing it and replacing it with standalone SMTP and IMAP servers.
  - MM noted that our OS could be updated.
  - Regarding the issue with mail.big-8.org, MM advocated decommissioning this domain rather than adding a mapping of mail.big-8.org to big-8.org addresses.
  - The meeting agreed that these issues were best addressed together, and that the matter should be deferred until after the BDCAM25 conference.
- MM confirmed that UCEProtect filtering has been applied only to our mail server, not the Panix account that accepts submissions for moderation. RL to look into spam filtering on Panix.
- MM noticed that our server has Docker installed but apparently unused. Agreed that MM should try disabling and removing Docker.
- cron error messages relating to our unused Nextcloud instance are now getting through; RL has disabled these messages while MM investigates disabling or uninstalling the instance.
- MM has identified the issue with search domains and will remove the responsible wildcard.
- TM noted that HTTP(S) requests to big-8.org redirect to www.big-8.org only when the URL contains no path. MM to check the Apache redirect rules.
Software/funding
- TM: No update yet on GPG signing best practices on Savannah
- Thunderbird 128 contact deferred given Julien's comments on INN.
- TM still to respond to Julien.
- OTF IFF/NGI0/Sovereign Tech Fund: no further updates
- TM is on the electoral roll for the Thunderbird Council, which is currently holding an election. TM asked the candidates if they would commit to ensuring news support in Thunderbird. A few candidates gave noncommittal responses, citing Usenet's declining popularity, but one did suggest that support could be provided by an externally funded developer.
Misc
- Paul Schleck proposals: no further progress.
- BDCAM25: RL and TM have prepared a draft outline and will produce slides for their respective sections. TM to extend RL's slides with relevant citations to the literature.