CC etiquette for mailing lists (was: Don't feed the troll...)

[W. Trevor King]

On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 12:51:04AM +0000, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Jun 2013 09:09:37 +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:
> > Mailman is the software that runs python-list at python.org, so this
> > *is* applicable to everyone who reads the mailing list (including
> > myself).  The fact that there's other mailing list software isn't
> > significant;
> 
> I'm not making an argument about CCing the sender on specifically
> this list, I'm making a general observations about list etiquette in
> general.

For some lists [1], the convention *is* to CC interested parties
(which presumably includes the person who's message you are replying
to).  In the case of Mailman-hosted lists, it would seem to be more
considerate to CC folks (since they can opt-out via Mailman), while
folks who only follow the list via occasionally reading Gmane [2] will
probably appreciate the direct ping.  I'm not saying that this should
be the convention for python-list@, I'm just saying that it's not
immediately obvious what the conventions are for a particular list [3],
and there are valid arguments going both ways.

What seems more obvious (to me), is that it's polite to adjust the
subject line if your response if far enough off-topic that the
original subject no longer applies ;).

Cheers,
Trevor

[1]: http://git.kernel.org/cgit/git/git.git/tree/MaintNotes?h=todo#n10
[2]: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.general
[3]: Unless you tell new subscribers what the conventions are.  For
     example, the git@ list emails [1] to new list subscribers.

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