Re: call for a vote -- should debian-user mailing list replies go to author or to list?
On Thu, Aug 25, 2005 at 06:32:23AM +0100, Wulfy wrote:
[...]
} I find your side's evangelical zeal a little grating. If you have a
} case, make it without calling those who disagree with you "brain-dead"
} and "in denial". I thought there were standards of behaviour on this
} list. Apparently, they only apply to those who disagree with you.
First off, no one called you or anyone else brain-dead. What was labeled as
brain-dead was your mail program of choice which does not honor
Mail-Followup-To and does not handle list replies elegantly. Even your
choice of mail program was not attacked, though I'd suggest that, having
been enlightened about the existence of better mail programs you might want
to change.
} And if the list admins are so smart, how come we have all the spam on
} these lists? 90% of the spam I get is from the Debian lists...
Gee, I don't get any. Oh, right, I do my own spam filtering. Again, this
falls under leaving power and flexibility to the individual. If I get a
false positive in my spam filter, I get around to finding it later. If the
list filters spam and gets a false positive, someone's question or an
informative answer is never seen (unless you are going to task the list
admins with checking up on the filtering, which is simply infeasible). If
my filter screws up, it's a minor issue; if the list filters incorrectly,
it's a catastrophic failure (not that it causes a catastrophe, but that the
failure mode is far-reaching).
You see, the list admins *are* smart. They avoid handicapping the user of
the list in any way. You, the user, have the power. You do not have the
power to inflict your preferences on everyone else, however, especially
when it comes to policy that has been explored and resolved from more than
a decade (maybe two) of experience with internet mailing lists. In short,
it isn't done the way it's done just because it's always been done that
way, but because years and years of experience have shown that it's the
best way to go about it.
} Wulfmann
--Greg
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