Re: Suggested change to tee manpage to show usefulness

[The Wanderer]

Jim Meyering wrote:

> The Wanderer <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > Eric Blake wrote:
> >
> > > Please keep replies on the list.  I am not the maintainer, only
> > > an interested party; so mailing me privately will have no effect
> > > on the CVS repository.
> >
> > A suggestion: if the people who administer this mailing list are
> > going to persist in refusing to have it behave as a discussion
> > forum should, and yet expect replies to ordinarily go back to the
> > list anyway, it might be a good idea for them to add a note in the
> > automatic footer reminding people to check the addresses when
> > replying.
>
> It sounds like you don't like some aspect of the mailing list 
> configuration.  If you provide details, with suggestions for how and
> why to change it, we might be able to help.

I appreciate the attitude, but frankly, I doubt it. The policy to which
I object is the practice of not automatically directing replies to list
messages back to the list - that is, the practice of not putting the
list address in the Reply-To header.

A mailing list such as this one (contrasted with, say, an
announcement-only list whose members cannot post to it) constitutes a
discussion forum. By default, replies to messages posted on a discussion
forum should go to that forum. The only apparent way to implement that
in mailing list contexts is via the Reply-To header.

There's no need to provide the "reply-to-harmful' links; I've seen them
many times, and I disagree with them rather sharply. The only one of the
arguments presented in those documents which I find at all convincing is
that "list software should not override the poster's header settings" -
but even there, it seems to me that the appropriate response is "if a
Reply-To header already exists, add the mailing list address to it
rather than overwriting it" (or even "if a Reply-To header already
exists, leave it alone rather than directing replies back to the list"),
not "never put the list address in the Reply-To header no matter what".

I've wished many times for a forum on which I could argue for my
viewpoint in these matters without just spitting into the void; however,
there does not appear to be any central "generally accepted idea of what
constitutes good policy" forum where such arguments might actually have
an effect, and in all of the places where presenting the arguments might
result in at least a local change in policy - such as this one - they
would be significantly offtopic. So I've mostly kept my mouth shut, but
not happily so.

--
      The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.