From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Bob Proulx Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Reply to list [was: Different key maps in different dired buffers] Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2016 17:38:37 -0600 Message-ID: <20160603170513369314933@bob.proulx.com> References: <4159df5c-3545-4c5a-829f-abc80f620813@default> <57473688.4020503@gmail.com> <20160527070959.GB27615@tuxteam.de> <83mvnc0vze.fsf@gnu.org> <83pos7z6gv.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1464997160 10605 80.91.229.3 (3 Jun 2016 23:39:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2016 23:39:20 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Whitfield Diffie To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Jun 04 01:39:15 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1b8ygM-0004SC-Ki for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 04 Jun 2016 01:39:14 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:58198 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1b8ygL-0005Eb-QM for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 03 Jun 2016 19:39:13 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:59465) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1b8yfu-000563-7C for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Jun 2016 19:38:47 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1b8yfo-0002rS-BV for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Jun 2016 19:38:45 -0400 Original-Received: from havoc.proulx.com ([96.88.95.61]:50243) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1b8yfo-0002qF-2T for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Jun 2016 19:38:40 -0400 Original-Received: from joseki.proulx.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by havoc.proulx.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8E2BDA8E; Fri, 3 Jun 2016 17:38:38 -0600 (MDT) Original-Received: from hysteria.proulx.com (hysteria.proulx.com [192.168.230.119]) by joseki.proulx.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3B04121237; Fri, 3 Jun 2016 17:38:38 -0600 (MDT) Original-Received: by hysteria.proulx.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 104822DC4D; Fri, 3 Jun 2016 17:38:37 -0600 (MDT) Mail-Followup-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org, Whitfield Diffie Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <83pos7z6gv.fsf@gnu.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 96.88.95.61 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "help-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:110288 Archived-At: Eli Zaretskii wrote: > Glenn Morris wrote: > > Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > > Either one is okay. > > > > I'm so sure that reply-to-all is correct that I thought it was > > official policy for GNU lists. > > You may be right. I just don't think I've ever seen it written, but > it could be that I missed something. I don't think anything is written down. (But I have only been doing this for ten years or so and still haven't learned all of the secrets.) Because for the GNU project we would need to get rms to approve it and as far as I know no one has pushed an official policy through for approval. Until that happens it can only be an defacto standard. But by defacto standard reply-all is normal, unless you know the poster is on the list already. Pragmatically the bug reporting lists can't be reply only on the mailing lists. Because we don't require bug reporters to subscribe before posting bug reports. We don't require bug reporters to subscribe first. Doing so would be a burden and would alienate bug reporters. Therefore for any random bug report we should always include the original reporter in the recipient list. (Unless we know them and know they are already subscribed.) Because the bug reporting lists are open and need to include the original sender this carries over to other lists too. Like this help-gnu-emacs list. Should it require people to be subscribed? That is more of a gray area since it isn't a bug reporting list. But people writing for help are almost the same as bug reporters. So by default help lists get the same treatment as bug lists. But what about discussion lists? At some point maintainers of individual projects may state a policy for their own project. And so there isn't a 100% uniform policy across all of the mailing lists. Some lists.{non,}gnu.org lists are one way and some another way. Other free libre projects have different policies. For example on the Debian lists the official policy is to reply only to the list unless specifically requested by the poster that they be CC'd. And many other projects have that policy too. Generally I reply-all unless I recognize the senders as already being members of the mailing list. For example here on this message it is safe to reply only to the mailing list because all of the recipients obviously read the message that was posted to the mailing list and so must be subscribed. I would hate to annoy them with a second copy. The only unknown is the original poster who said he wasn't subscribed and therefore I specifically added as a CC. Additionally there is the problem of the News to Email gateway. (Which coincidentally I see had a backlog of old messages push through today.) Many people read on the News side of things and post there. I think for them it would be quite surprising to get an email copy of something they posted by news. However this is a mailing list and not a news group. People reading the news group have to expect that they are still participating in a mailing list. > > I don't understand why people think "recipient might get two copies" > > is worse than "recipient might get no copies". Especially when the > > former issue is trivially avoided by Mailman or MUA duplication > > suppression. > > I fully agree. I completely disagree. Mailman duplication suppression is mostly non-functional for this issue. And when it does come into play it can cause loss of messages which is the exact opposite of what you want. MUA duplication suppression is extremely complicated in order to have it working reasonably. Since discarding the second by message-id is almost always the wrong thing to do. The problem with people getting two copies is that it is terribly annoying to manage. I will almost always get the direct copy first before the mailing list copy. And because of Mailman I never know if I will actually get the Mailman copy. I have to wait and see. That makes management of all of the messages much more complicated. Which is exactly why projects that have a policy of only replying to the mailing list have that policy. This is solved with Mail-Followup-To: but since that is only another defacto standard it isn't implemented by many mailers. Since most of the popular mailers don't get basic things like threading right it isn't surprising that they don't implement more subtle things. And so we have an imperfect system that we simply have to learn to live with regardless of the problems. Even with the problems it is much better than a web forum. Bob