[Python-ideas] Explanation on how to search the archives

[Steven D'Aprano]

Christopher Reay wrote:
> Im thinking something like:
[...]
> How to Search the Archives:
> http://mail.python.org/dontReinventTheWheel
> Searching the archives is the *first* place you should go when exploring
> new ideas. ...

> As the footer of the emails.
> 
> This is a small addition which provides some great meta information to
> "people with great ideas" and also allows a terse and simple response when
> a veteran detects a repeated idea.

More bloat for every single email which will be utterly ignored. Case in 
point: the mail digest for the python-dev mailing list already states:

     When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
     than "Re: Contents of Python-Dev digest..."

and similar for python-list, tutor, etc. And this message is at the *top* of 
the digest, not the bottom, and a mere two lines, not a big wall of text[1]. 
Yet there is still a steady stream of posts like these:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2012-June/015547.html
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2012-July/120910.html
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/tutor/2012-July/090213.html

Don't believe me? How often do you read the "This email is Confidential blah 
blah blah yadda watermelon blah" footers at the bottom of oh-so-many corporate 
emails?

Everybody, sender and receiver, carries the cost of additional bloat in every 
email, and the people who most need the reminder that Python is twenty years 
old and this "brilliant idea" most likely has been thought of a dozen times 
before are the ones who are least likely to read instructions or pay any 
attention to them even if they do.



[1] Standards of what counts as big blocks of text have been steadily falling 
since the Internet became popular. I'm just waiting for people to start 
replying to twitter posts with "TL;DR", at which point I intend to turn my 
computer off and move to a cave in the desert.



-- 
Steven