Re: ignoring the CoC in regards to cc:s (Re: Can we ship sources of a PDF file in the Debian diff?
On Tuesday 28 April 2009 05:11:26 Russ Allbery wrote:
> Noah Slater <nslater@tumbolia.org> writes:
> > As far as I see it:
> >
> > * Debian has dropped the Reply-To header because it is "harmful" in
> > some way.
> >
> > * Debian has mandated that all replies must behave as if Reply-To
> > existed.
>
> If this were the case, this would be an easy solution. However, it's
> not. Debian has mandated that all *public* replies must behave as if
> Reply-To existed, but all *private* replies behave as if it did not, and
> repliers must distinguish between the two.
One very practical problem I personally have with all of this is that on
certain/some/many other mailing lists it is expected that you reply to the
poster *and* the mailing list, to be sure that the poster gets your reply in
case he is not subscribed (and also, because some people can then find replies
to their personal problems more easily among the load of other messages). And
with the multitudes of communities I deal with, I do not have the time or
concentration or infallibility to scan the emails for "please cc me" or
"please don't cc me" notes or even reverse-engineer the mailing list's posting
or subscription policy to make sure the message gets to who needs to read it.
Considering that most mailing list software has an elimnatecc feature, this is
never really a problem for people who don't want that sort of behavior.
Another problem on the flip side is that many people don't observe the "please
cc me" requests on Debian mailing lists, and that way communication gets
annoying. So in practical terms, it is safer to add more recipients to the
message to make sure it is received and noticed, and let computer software do
the filtering if necessary.
That is just my practical experience in trying to communicate with people.
The policy is what it is, but I don't like it, because it *hinders* rather
than *helps* me communicate effectively.
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