It's incredibly obnoxious for a small number of individuals, without
broad support from the technical community, to insist that everyone else
change their habits to suit the whims of those individuals.
Exactly. The frequently requested behavior from practically everyone on
the USEFOR list is for people to send mail only to the list when
responding in public, and yet Bruce insists on sending a private copy and
then tells people to set Reply-To or filter out duplicate mail.
I'm not sure that the USEFOR list counts as "broad support from the
technical community".
If other mailing lists have other community policies, that's great. I
realize there is no consistency in this area, but I think it's a matter of
basic respect to try to follow the wishes of the communities in which one
is interacting.
well, it might depend on how connected to reality that community is.
but the point that different groups have different expectations is
certainly one that we should keep in mind.
Keith