Mailing list etiquette (Was: Re: Linksys-E4200 Wireless N-router)

[Daniel Staal]

--As of April 8, 2011 3:50:52 PM -0600, Chad Perrin is alleged to have said:

> You seem to fail to realize that it's possible to CC someone who isn't on
> the list, but not CC someone who *is* on the list.  That would be why
> people who aren't members of the list say thinks like "please CC me",
> while people who are members occasionally say "please don't send
> duplicates to me".

--As for the rest, it is mine.

Of course that's hard to keep track of, and a manual process on the part of 
the persons sending the messages.  ;)  (And if it's not mentioned in the 
specific email you are replying to, you either have to rely on memory or 
guess.)

I've seen a variety of other solutions to this.  Some mailing lists 
programs will even check to see if the message has been sent to you 
directly, and if so avoid sending another copy to you.  Usually that's an 
option, and I tend to turn it off: It just means my filters don't work on 
the message I get.

If you have an email client that supports it, there is one good way to 
reliably indicate your preference: The 'Reply-To:' header.  I set mine to 
the mailing list when sending to the list.  Nearly all mail clients will 
then automatically send replies to that address.

Of course, that only works if I have a mail client that lets me set that 
header independently.  My at-home client does, but I also access my email 
over webmail.  The webmail program technically can do it, but it's 
interface is *very* poor.  (Squirrelmail: It allows it via profiles, but 
all profiles are named by the sender address, unchangeable.  For this 
use-case, the sending address is the same for all profiles.)  And while 
*most* email clients support replies to the Reply-To address, not all do. 
Nor does it help if people are habitually hitting reply-all.

Still, I find setting the Reply-To address works better than most of the 
other options.  It doesn't work 100% of the time, but then neither does 
anything else.  (Including address rewriting by the mailing list.)  So, if 
getting two copies is annoying you, try it.  You'll at least have made your 
preference known, without imposing it on others as their preference.

Daniel T. Staal

---------------------------------------------------------------
This email copyright the author.  Unless otherwise noted, you
are expressly allowed to retransmit, quote, or otherwise use
the contents for non-commercial purposes.  This copyright will
expire 5 years after the author's death, or in 30 years,
whichever is longer, unless such a period is in excess of
local copyright law.
---------------------------------------------------------------