[Python-Dev] netiquette on py-dev

[Ben Finney]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org> writes:

> I don't know of any webmail implementations that provide
> reply-to-list, so a lot of us end up using reply-to-all.

Right, that puts the responsibility in the right place: the webmail
software vendor needs to add a reply-to-list command, as has been
implemented in many clients for many years and supported explicitly by
standard fields in every message header.

> So in most cases I suppose that the duplicate going to the author is
> just an issue of "energy conservation" on the part of the responder.

I agree that's likely the usual reason. It's saving short-term effort by
passing that effort on to others though, and to that extent is
inconsiderate of other people.

Better is for webmail users to pressure the vendor of the webmail
software to add the “Reply to list” feature and make it clear this is
the recommended way to reply on a mailing list.

> Note that people who are really annoyed by the duplicates can set
> their Mailman accounts to no-dupes, and Mailman won't send the post to
> that person.

Those of us who don't have a Mailman account don't have that option, as
you noted. I'm not participating in this forum by email at all, and
don't expect *any* copies of its messages in my email.

The problem is with the missing feature of the webmail program, and the
users of that program need to agitate for getting it fixed.


Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> writes:

> So yeah, the basic problem is mail clients that don't offer a
> "Reply-List" option, with the Gmail web client being a notable
> offender.

It doesn't even need to be extra effort for the user. The “Reply to
author” command can change to a “Reply to list” command when the mailing
list fields are present. That's one possible solution; but anything that
gets more people to “Reply to list” when appropriate is acceptable to me.

-- 
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Ben Finney