Stewardship of an ecryptfs tag

Question

I am one of the authors and the current maintainer of eCryptfs, a cryptographic filesystem for Linux. It's been in the Linux kernel since about 2006. It's the cryptographic filesystem used by default on Ubuntu if you choose to "Encrypt your Home Directory", as well as by ChromeOS.

I'd like to move the eCryptfs community's interactive, frequently-asked-questions and answers from Launchpad to crypto.stackexchange.com (or to another site, if there's a more appropriate one).

I certainly don't intend for this to be a support forum but rather a repository for quality Q&A content.

Note that I'm doing something similar for another open source project I maintain (byobu) migrating those questions and answers to superuser.com, and I agree to abide by those same guidelines agreed upon.

Here are the guidelines I propose directing eCryptfs users with:

On-Topic on Stack Exchange sites: How and Why?

• Questions that are Ubuntu-specific eCryptfs (e.g., Ubuntu Encrypted Home or Private directories)?
  • Ask Ubuntu!
• Questions that are distribution-agnostic, or generally applicable to Linux/Unix eCryptfs, from a user perspective?
  • Unix and Linux Stack Exchange!
• Questions about eCryptfs use cases, threat assessments, appropriate and inappropriate uses?
  • IT Security Stack Exchange!
• Questions about the math or cryptography within eCryptfs?
  • Cryptography Stack Exchange!

Off-Topic on Stack Exchange:

• Errors, bugs, ideas, feature requests, potential vulnerabilities? File a bug!
  • Launchpad Bugs!
• Looking for source code?
  • Kernel Git and User space Bzr
• We suck and you hate us?
  • Mailing list!
• We're awesome and you love us?
  • Google +1!
• Wanna chat?
  • IRC!

Thanks, Dustin

Answer 1

My personal opinion (I will ping relevant moderators in a second) is that the "terms" there are sensible and fine. Basically stackexchange sites are question-and-answer as a tool for helping users and just as Ivo has said, provided your users understand that is what it is, and that it is not an official support forum, and that the asking and answering of your questions is in line with the usual running of the sites on which you post, I see no problem.

One "problem" you might have - and it's not a massive one, is where questions are on topic. For ecryptfs alone, there is:

• Security Stackexchange - "is configuration X secure for need Y?"
• Ask Ubuntu - "how do I configure ecryptfs to run on top of an ntfs-3g fuse partition on ubuntu 11.10?"
• Unix and Linux - "ecryptfs over nfs error x y z?"
• Here: I'm considering implementing EAX mode - how does the built in authentication work?

For handling this, the Stackexchange.com tag filters mechanism can work - anything tagged ecryptfs across all the sites will show up.

I'll now ping the other moderators and get them to weigh in.

---

Update: I grabbed a few mods and got them to come to chat where I also sent you a ping. The summary of that (do come along to ask any questions) having looked through what you've got already is that Ask Ubuntu / U&L might be better for the lion's share of your questions - although ones that work here (see the faq) would of course be welcome :)

Answer 2

Weighing in as an Ask Ubuntu mod and mainly to echo Ninefingers: it sounds like a plan but don't expect or try to fit everything on one site.

• For technical process (eg "How to I encrypt this in Ubuntu?"), Ask Ubuntu wants those.
• As above for non-Ubuntu, to Unix & Linux
• For underlying theory Crypto and Security are probably better audiences.

I'm honestly not sure what to do with questions that are atomically about eCryptfs. Eg "Can eCryptfs do X?" with no mention of platform. Given it's a Linux-only project, I would be tempted to suggest U&L but one of their mods might want to say if they fancy that (or not).

It does also depend on what you want but I don't think you'll get the best out of this if you plonk everything on one site.