Here is some Code4Lib mailing list administratativia.
The list has about 3,900 subscribers, and subscriptions feel flat; antidotally, as many people are subscribing as unsubscribing.
A month or two ago, I did some textual analysis of the list's content, and there has been a significant change. More specifically, ten years ago I believe the list was much more of a conversation and a place to get technical support. Now-a-days, the list is much more about announcements and job postings. The attached two images illustrate this trend. The first image (entropy.png) is akin to a frequency list and answers the question, "What words were used more frequently in one set of documents versus another?" As you can see the right side of the image (postings from 2021) is all about job postings, while the left (postings from 2011) is more about library issues. The second image (sentiment.png) addresses the question, "What is the overall sentiment of two texts?" Again, there is a significant difference; postings during 2011 were more friendly. [1] No matter how I model the archives (ngrams, topic modeling, simple bibliographies, networked collocations, etc.) the same effect can be seen. Oh well? Such might be a trend when it comes to computer mediated communication. Email, like all mediums of communication, has its own strengths and weaknesses, and other mediums may be seen as more effective when it comes to technical support and general discussion.
Finally, many people who subscribe to the Code4Lib mailing list are using Gmail addresses, and Gmail has a problem with LISTSERV (our mailing list application). More specifically, Gmail says LISTSERV is not correctly authenticating, and Gmail says the mailer ought to implement two different SMTP protocols: SPF and DKIM. [2] Well, the good folks at CLIR (which host LISTSERV for us), have implemented these protocols and the problem persists. If you have any experience in these regards, especially SMTP error 5.7.26 550-5.7.26, then don't hesitate to reach out. I needs some technical support. :-D
That's all.
[1] This analysis was done using a tool called Shifterator: https://shifterator.readthedocs.io
[2] An elaboration of the error message is located at https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126#authentication
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Eric Lease Morgan
Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship
Hesburgh Libraries
University of Notre Dame
574/631-8604
https://cds.library.nd.edu
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