Get better solution than Google groups to handle distribution list for meeting invites

[derberg]

Currently, we have this Google Group where people have to join if they want us to send them meeting invites.

Current issues related to this:

• from time to time community members point out this as a blocker as it requires google account
• when an invite is sent to google group distribution list, the list is auto-expanded and not anonymous

Possible solution: Get in touch with Linux Foundation, afaik they already host an alternative vendor-neutral solution for distribution lists - groups. But yeah, basically we should not now try to reinvent but rather just move to tools that are already there in the LF portfolio.

[derberg]

the list is auto-expanded and not anonymous

oh my god 🤦🏼 I was always expecting a kind of Bcc and just noticed on Monday that there is actually a checkbox that I can select to hide names...

anyway, would be good to have something vendor agnostic

[derberg]

Talked to CNCF folks and also community managers from the slack workspace where we team up.
Recommended, or basicaly the only good alternatives, not perfect but do the job:

• for distribution list -> https://groups.io/ -> it is like google group but non-google
• for calendar -> https://www.teamup.com/ -> they have API and they are non-google

[derberg]

we need to speed up stuff here.

• When I'm updating invites to AsyncAPI meetings I'm now rejected everywhere :( and gmail is cool but not if it comes about customer service, I just have no idea what is happening
  
• people do not have options to easily sign out from such meeting invites and might be that they report them at some point in time as spam

I was thinking, that maybe we just need https://www.teamup.com/ for calendar and some MailChimp-like solution for users to subscribe and provide emails that we could send invites too?

I'm running out of ideas. Anyone has some thoughts.

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity 😴

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[derberg]

solved by #245