Re: ignoring the CoC in regards to cc:s (Re: Can we ship sources of a PDF file in the Debian diff?

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Frank Lin PIAT <fpiat@klabs.be> writes:

> If the sender of the previous email is subscribed to the list:
>   If I select "Reply":
>     To=mailing-list
>     CC=
>   If I select "Reply to all":
>     To=mailing-list
>     CC=Previous email's recipient.
>
> If the sender of the previous mail was NOT subscribed to the list.
>   If I select "Reply":
>     To=sender,mailing-list
>     CC=
>   If I select "Reply to all":
>     To=sender,mailing-list
>     CC=Previous email's recipient.
>
> => Do you agree with this? Can we forward it to list-masters?

I either don't agree with this or think that you're leaving out a
function that's important.

Gnus has two reply functions, which it calls "reply" and "follow-up"
using the old Usenet definitions.  Its default behavior without any
configuration is:

Reply:
  To: sender
  Cc:
Follow-Up:
  To: sender
  Cc: mailing-list

Note the capacity for private reply.  Any system that doesn't allow for
a private reply to the sender is unacceptably broken in my opinion.

If you configure Gnus with knowledge of the mailing list address, as
I've done for all the Debian mailing lists, it will instead do:

Follow-Up:
  To: mailing-list
  Cc:

and there is a separate "really wide reply" function that will copy the
sender anyway.  It also honors Mail-Followup-To, for whatever that's
worth.

I don't really care what the "default" action is, but one of the
standard reply options in any mail client should send a private reply to
a public mailing list message.

> There are a few more things I am pretty sure:
> * Joe User should not be expected to know about "Reply to list" option.
>   (Joe User only has 2 buttons: "reply" and "reply to all")

If this is the case, then your proposal above is unacceptable since it
leaves Joe User without a way to reply privately.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>