mail-list behavior, was: iplayer audio to lpcm

[Jeremy Nicoll - ml get_iplayer]

David Woodhouse <dwmw2 at infradead.org> wrote:

>Now think about what happens if you *don't* do people the courtesy of
>copying them directly. Some people will be cut out of the conversation
>*entirely*

- only if they weren't mail list subscribers in the first place.  Arguably
they shouldn't have been CCed (or whatever) on public mail list posts by
whoever exposed their addresses to the world.

> and others will just be receiving it in a delayed form...

That's up to them and how they choose to get all the other traffic from that
mail list, surely?  Why should replies to their posts be given special
treatment?


> Seriously, when I start to help someone because I happen to come across
> their email in one of the dozens of mailing lists to which I'm subscribed,
> and they *fail* to reply to me directly, I'm very unlikely to see their
> response.

You amaze me.  Couldn't you filter such incoming replies (eg because they're
In-Reply-To one of your message ids), colour them differently or something?


> And if I *do* happen to see it and they haven't done me the courtesy of
> replying directly to me, I'll be very disinclined to continue helping
> them. Life's too short to help people who make life hard for themselves
> and me.

It seems to me that you're expecting people to do things differently here
because it suits you better that way.  I also know of no other mail list
that behaves like this one... but - fortunately for me - my mail client
seems to cope ok, in the sense that it does always do what /I/ want, even if
that's not what you think it should do.



Despite this, don't get me wrong, I appreciate the effort you undoubtedly
have to go to to keep this mail list running smoothly.

-- 
Jeremy Nicoll - my opinions are my own.