Replying to the List (was RE: Logo Development ...)

["Dennis E. Hamilton" <de...@acm.org>]

Concerning replies and receiving multiple copies, @jan asks,

  ps. orcmid@ you wrote earlier that I dont need to copy you, the mail 
  from you has dev@ and orcmid@ so a simply reply all would cause that 
  effect.  Have you done something in your client so that your address 
  is listed ?

My local experience is that with Reply or Reply All to these list postings, my e-mail client will create a message that is to the sender, the list, and anyone copied in the original message.

Except for non-subscribers that may be copied, I remove all e-mail addresses but the list address.  (I also tend to avoid cross-posting and only post back to a single list that is one I subscribe to.)

Since most readers of my posts will not receive a copy directly from me, but only receive a copy from the list, how message headers and the reply preferences are set up is a function of the list server, as well as I can tell.  I'm not certain there is anything under my control about that.  If there is, it is definitely not something I can control selectively at the destination level.  I'd probably have to set up completely different e-mail accounts just to communicate here.

I practice this in my replies because some folks find receiving multiple copies annoying.

For myself, as you can probably tell, I watch the list rather regularly and I read everything on the list at some point.  (I don't necessarily respond in real time of course.)

When I receive multiple copies of a message to the list, I have a dilemma.  In order to maintain list threading, I need to reply to the one that was actually forwarded by the list server.  However, the Apache lists do not identify themselves when forwarding, and they show the original sender as the sender of the post from the list. (One can tell from the e-mail headers, but my client makes extra work to find those.)

In order to not break a thread (something else that annoys other parties), I have to figure it out.  

In some cases it is easy.  This list, for example, always forwards in plaintext.  If the original message was in an HTML format, I can tell the difference.  Other lists at ASF forward messages in the form that was received.  For those, when I receive duplicates I have to actually dig into the list headers to see the route by which each arrived and I have to look at them all to notice that they are duplicates.

So, that is orcmid's personal attention to email comity. 

To accommodate those who find top-posting to be toxic, I manually adjust for that within the limitations of my e-mail software and my own workflow.  It is all done manually, including breaking lines down to a length so they won't reflow incorrectly.

See what a martyr I am [;<)!

 - Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: jan i [mailto:jani@apache.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2014 07:52
To: dev@corinthia.incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: Logo Development (was RE: Apache Corinthia website is up and running)

[ ... ]

ps. orcmid@ you wrote earlier that I dont need to copy you, the mail from
you has dev@ and orcmid@ so a simply reply all would cause that effect.
Have you done something in your client so that your address is listed ?