Loaded TAXACOM: A List about Biodiversity

A couple days ago we received a request from Roderic Page to load TAXACOM. He describes it as:

...a mailing list that dates back to the early '90's, and is a forum for taxonomists and other researchers interested in biodiversity. It is lively, with some long conversations. It's also featured as the source for sociological research, such as "Systematics as Cyberscience: Computers, Change, and Continuity in Science". Given interest in the Encyclopedia of Life (see also Ed Wilson's TED talk), which could be viewed as one response to the issues raised on TAXACOM posts over the years, I think it would be a very timely addition to MarkMail.

With a description like that, how could we resist! So I'm happy to say we've loaded the list, and (for trivia buffs) it even sets a new earliest list record in MarkMail, with archives starting back in 1992.

For more, see Rod's blog and email announcements.

Loaded OpenMoko: An Open Source Smartphone Platform

Last week we received on our feedback form a request to load the OpenMoko mailing lists. These folks are creating an open source smartphone platform, very cool stuff. Along with the request, the requester explained the benefit he saw in having MarkMail archive the OpenMoko lists, from the perspective of a project participant. I've reprinted it here with permission:

I would LOVE to see the OpenMoko lists get into MarkMail.. for 2 reasons..

1. From a developer perspective, I'm new to the OpenMoko platform and still learning the build system, etc. and am eager to start writing my own applications. But there's only so much info on the wiki and like many young communities all the juicy info is buried in the Mailing lists. So I'd love to be able to search all the lists for things like installing the sim card, what new hardware bugs they've found on the dev list, how to modify the dialer application, etc. This is where MarkMail really shines and is the best platform out there for this type of information gathering from community lists. If these lists were in MarkMail it would be one of the ONLY places one could find some of this information because of the advanced search functions in MarkMail. I think this holds true for a lot of young open source communities and MarkMail can really help out.

2. I think it would help the community in general by giving users an avenue to find the information they need to start better participating and contributing back. There would be less duplication of questions which distracts everyone on the list and hopefully more "I see how things are being done because I got all caught up by searching MarkMail, how about we do it this way.." etc.
Of course we loaded the lists for him.  Here's the activity chart:

Loaded Perforce: High-End Revision Control

Recently we loaded seven mailing lists dedicated to the Perforce SCM system. If you haven't heard of Perforce, they're a high-end revision control system, with a long list of corporate clients. They're known for speed and features.

I've been using a Perforce system to manage my own files for over a decade now, appreciating their free individual license.

Their mailing lists have a lot of technical Q&A discussion, so I hope having these lists more easily searched will help people find the answers they need. Here's the historic traffic pattern:

Loaded Eclipse and NetcoolUsers

Yesterday we loaded the email archive histories for two new communities: Eclipse and NetcoolUsers. Normally I wouldn't talk about these two communities in the same blog post, but after the load it occurred to me that both projects (coincidentally) relate to IBM. More about that at the end.

Eclipse (eclipse.org) is an extremely popular open source development tool project, initiated by IBM back in 2001. (The name was widely seen as an attack on Sun.) It took off and lots of Java developers use it as their IDE. They have a beautiful growth chart:


NetcoolUsers (netcoolusers.org) is a user community focused on IBM Tivoli Netcool. For a single list it's quite hopping (25 posts/day):


The fact both these communities relate to IBM is purely coincidental, but it's also interesting because it reflects the direction of pull we're seeing from the MarkMail user base. It's an early sign of what you can expect in the future: more technical content beyond open source.

Technical lists come in many flavors: pure open source (Apache, JDOM), corporate-sponsored open source (Eclipse, Xen), standards development (W3), technical user groups (NANOG), and groups focused on proprietary technology (NetcoolUsers). We plan to expand along each of these axes.

If you have a list you'd like us to load, let us hear about it.