[Mailman-Users] Efficient handling of cross-posting

[Mikael Hansen]

On Jan 28, 2008, at 15:40, Barry Warsaw wrote:

> What this means is that in Mailman 3.0, there is knowledge of
> subscriptions across mailing lists, so that we could do better cross-
> posting, though this isn't implemented yet.  For example, you could
> say that the 'musicians' mailing list roster is composed of the
> rosters for the 'guitar-players' mailing list and the 'bass-players'
> mailing list, plus a bunch of directly subscribed multi-
> instrumentalists.  Mailman figures all that out when it decides who
> the recipients of the message are.

This is quite interesting. I don't believe in duplication and as such  
not in cross-posting or even better cross-posting, and so the above is  
interesting to me because I admittedly was thinking along these lines,  
as I started reading this thread.

So I enjoy the roster concept which is outlined. Still, it seems odd  
to me that the list server software can adequately decide on the  
process of eliminating duplicates. To me, the roster concept implies  
that duplicates should not have been sent by list members in the first  
place.

In other words, a proper roster structure discourages any need for  
cross-posting. It's all about expectation, I think. The expectation  
for instance that if a guitar-players list exists, a guitar-players  
discussion should not take place, just or too, on the general  
musicians list.

But when the expectation is not in place, an approach such as a list  
server's elimination of duplicates appears to an awkward uphill  
battle. In short, I wonder if the suggested feature will do more harm  
than good.

Mikael