Re: how to determine if to reply by CC as well

[Bob Proulx]

Emanuel Berg wrote:
> Perhaps an auto-reply could be sent to those who are
> not on the list, with a suggestion to join the list,
> and a note saying what ways there are to still read the
> replies (if joining the list isn't attractive for some
> reason).

That could be an interesting feature.  It doesn't currently exist.
But if it were coded up into a Mailman 2.x maintenance release (Ha!)
then it might propagate to the FSF servers.

One must be careful about auto-replies.  Otherwise it can generate
backscatter spam and get the list server onto a DNSBL.  This has
happened at various times and it is annoying.

At the present time most of the mailing lists do not auto-respond to
messages and we try hard to prevent backscatter spam from occuring
from the lists.  Some lists (thankfully only a few) do have odd
configurations and some do autorespond.

> But in a way I don't like that because every time I get
> automatic mails they say stuff I don't care for and/or
> already know.

Yes.

> But wait: When people aren't on the list, and they are
> not on Usenet, how do they learn of the list/group in
> the first place?

It is posted on the web page.

  http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

  Support

  To ask for help with GNU Emacs, use the mailing list
  help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org or the newsgroup gnu.emacs.help.  The mailing
  list and newsgroup are linked: messages posted on one appear on the
  other as well.

> At those places, perhaps the equivalent message can be
> showed? Then it is a matter of not having too much
> other text on that page, so that not the future poster
> will be tempted to skip it and remain uninformed.

Updating the text on the web page is easily done.  Would you like to
suggest an improvement to the web page that would help to improve
things?

Bob