Bhargav Golla writes:

guess the culture varies from organization to organization

Thank you for pointing this out. Indeed it does. ASF (and the PSF for that matter) have a lot more applicants, and at least the PSF is using a generic channel -- core-mentorship -- for GSoC and OPW interns. In those cases it makes a lot of sense to clearly indicate what the post is for, and who.

In Mailman it happens to be the case that this list, although it is the generic developers list, is relatively low traffic, except at GSoC time. So we know what you're going to talk about. :-)

and I should have been wary of this or should have followed usual email etiquette. It was wrong on my part

I certainly wouldn't say "wrong", as you apparently are already well- aware of the etiquette issues. You did your best. We can't ask for more than that given varying culture and needs. (Heck, I myself didn't clean up the headers....)

Steve