Working on my ‘inbox zero’ project right now after a day of enjoying the lovely Chicago weather we are having right now. One thing that strikes me are the amount of mailing lists I seem to be subscribed to. I am currently sitting at about 50 mailing lists. Honestly, this sounds ridiculous, like totally impossible to keep up with. I know there are a few local ones I could probably ditch that I really don’t follow 100%, but I do like knowing when there is a meeting locally that I can show up at and learn something. Out of these 50 lists, between 40 and 45 are development based. How in the hell could I possibly follow 40/45 development lists? I don’t respond to every email in the list but I have and still do communicate on everyone of the lists, one way or another.

My current list subscription looks like this: For Ubuntu there are; Kubuntu (-devel and -users), Ubuntu Translations (I only know English, however this is a very important channel, as I can pimp packages ready for those hard working translators to attack), 3 MOTU channels (MC, MM, and MOTU), LP, IRC, IllinoisTeam (nobody even uses this, goodbye), Fridge, Docs, Ubuntu dev, 8.04 Commits, ChicagoTeam, Bug squad. The I have a mix of local channels ranging from the LUGs, to hackers and language communities. Then I have a few Foresight development lists, some Debian development lists, and then most of the KDE development lists.

Actually, 49 lists. One of those lists is the Hardy commit list, no responding, just keeping up with who is uploading what. So I ask you, how many lists do you follow? How many do you actively respond to? Is 49 or 50 way to many? Is 49 or 50 total developer newb status? If you follow these many lists or more, how do you do it? What is your magic?