Broken list threads

[Andy Waddington (software devel)]

Sometime before sending, David Woodhouse typed (and on Saturday 2011-04-02 sent):
> On Sat, 2 Apr 2011, Jonathan Wiltshire wrote:
> 
> > Some mail clients, usually the ones written with lists in mind, have a
> > shortcut to reply only to the list. In mutt it's Shift-L.
> 
> Although many people frown upon that feature and consider it extremely 
> rude to drop people from the discussion by using it: 
> http://david.woodhou.se/reply-to-list.html

Other people consider it very rude to reply direct to them as well as the
list, so that they get the reply twice. What works for mailing lists which
only allow posts from people subscribed to the list is not the same as those
which allow anyone to post.

Also, typically, it breaks the system by which mailing list messages get
filed in their own mailbox (because people filter on the "To:" field
containing the mailing list name, and may not check "Cc:" and so on. This
clogs personal mailboxes). It's almost impossible, with the great variety
of mail clients, to find a formula that works for everyone :-( Raising the
issue often results in a flame war ... I hope no-one takes exception to
my pointing out that opinions vary - I'm not suggesting that mine is a
better one than anyone else's :-)

One thing that is a universally bad idea is to reply to the sender, and
blind CC to the list, so that the list name doesn't get put anywhere that
recipients can filter on it...

Andy