Fwd: mailing list management

[Rod Whitby]

Dean Collins wrote:
> Lol - yep shortly followed by the human race all moving back to wearing
> skins and living in rock caves.

Actually, filtering on Subject is the "caveman" thing to do. :-)

The following headers are *specifically* added by the mailing list
software to enable you to accurately filter your incoming mail:

> Thread-Topic: Fwd: mailing list management
> X-BeenThere: community at lists.openmoko.org
> X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5
> Precedence: list
> List-Id: List for OpenMoko community discussion <community.lists.openmoko.org>
> List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community>,
> 	<mailto:community-request at lists.openmoko.org?subject=unsubscribe>
> List-Archive: <http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community>
> List-Post: <mailto:community at lists.openmoko.org>
> List-Help: <mailto:community-request at lists.openmoko.org?subject=help>
> List-Subscribe: <http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community>,
> 	<mailto:community-request at lists.openmoko.org?subject=subscribe>
> Sender: community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org
> Errors-To: community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org

You should use one of those.  Why do you think they were added to the
mailman software in the first place?

Subject line real estate is a precious commodity.  It should not be
wasted on information that is already available in the mailing list headers.

On the other mailing list topic (Reply vs Reply-All):

When you receive a mail with one person on the To: line and many people
on the Cc: line - if you just hit "Reply", you expect it to go to the
*one* person on the To: line.  If you hit "Reply-All", you expect it to
go to all the people referenced on the To: and Cc: lines.

A mailing list is conceptually just a very big Cc: line.

If you were to change the behaviour so that Reply went straight to the
mailing list, then there would be no way (other than cutting and pasting
addresses around) to reply to *just* the sender.

My vote is to leave things exactly as they are.  Harald set things up
the way they are based on his experience in being an active participant
in many technical mailing lists.  Do the people suggesting these changes
think that they really know better about how this list should be set up?

-- Rod