This was part of the grander mechanism for users to stay tuned.
Should we introduce a Whonix newsletter?
Perhaps the new Whonix website should include an easy sign-up formula? Such as:
[input field] subscribe | unsubscribe
Maybe not that hard to implement. We already have a whonix-devel / whonix-user mailing list subscribe button on the Whonix mailing list wiki page. It’s implemented using mediawiki extension mailman, which has very few lines of code.
Should the news letter be implemented in form of a public mailing list? Should we use existing whonix-users or whonix-devel mailing list? Should it be an open or closed mailing list? Open meaning, the users can reply, talk to each other, but also get many mails. Closed would mean, that users would read sent by Whonix admins only.
Have already created a very rudimentary demo here, though it doesn’t work when using Github as a host: http://egobits1.github.io/news/ Works on localhost though, so…
Currently using php to send a mail containing the entered mail address to a preconfigured mail address (in this case egobits1@gmail.com). From this point on it can obviously be extended. Verification is possible via php as well: How to Implement Email Verification for New Members
Hold with the blacklist. I just now asked fortasse if we can implement
this at the server level. Not such a common case so if admins can edit
some file on the server that would suffice.
A newsletter in ones inbox can be interesting. However, a newsletter
followed by a flood of discussion may increase the unsubscribe rate. So
what provides greater benefits in long run is a hard decision.
(I noticed on debian-security mailing list how many people send
“unsubscribe” to the list. (They mistakenly send it to the list in
public rather than mailman address.))
On the other hand perhaps, a user wanting to read discussion, post and
contribute could get higher volume from the mailing list or forum mailer.
A separate page can be nice as direct link. But I don’t think an extra link in the top is great.
Where that newsletter box would be nice is at the bottom of the homepage. (I think it’s fair to reference / [www.whonix.org/] as homepage.) When one scrolls down all the way, one may be inclined to subscribe.
Near the share links may fit well?
Can you please scratch the name field a change to…?
Small excursion to off-topic to make my point. People hate if they can sign up for paid services with a few clicks but when they want to terminate it, vendors are suddenly asking for snail mail or fax with signature.
Similar to free newsletters. Having an easy time to subscribe but a hard to unsubscribe isn’t great and is a deterrent. By having the unsubscribe button right next to the subscribe button, I think we are setting a nice example.
This we [legally and for other sane reasons] we also ought to do.
So all this has now been included. Just a small information on how it (should) work:
When someone types in his mail-address and hits “Subscribe”, a mail gets send to the recipient defined in CSS/newsletter.php. This mail should than contain the following:
Add Email: "The address provided"
If someone hits “Unsubscribe”, the content of the mail should be:
Remove Email: "The address provided"
For this to work, you’ll have to set-up a SMTP-Server to handle these mails. Adding to that, it might be a good idea to set-up a solution of some sort which automates the “addition and removal” of the addresses to your address-book.