At 09:31 AM 7/30/97 -0500, David W. Tamkin wrote:
Geez man, it's just a request not to be copied unnecessarily on posts to
the list (here and elsewhere).
[snip]
off sounding as if they viewed it as an insult ("I think you will not under-
stand this if you read it only once"), whereas it is actually a courtesy
("You shouldn't have to wait for the mailing list's turnaround time before
you get this nor have to go through everything else the mailing list carries
to see a reply to your own post") and, as I'll explain below, overriding it
Minour technical point here: very often, the reply which is carboned (or
group replied, or whatever), isn't to an inquiry posted by the person being
carboned -- it is merely that the person now posting is following up to the
most recent article on a topic, which happens to have been written by me,
or whoever.
I'm on many lists where they don't seem to have this problem. Just (too)
occasionally someone decides that I might want a "faster" reply, when in
fact I don't - when I do, I'll ask for one. The Procmail list is
reasonably quick on the turnaround, some others, not. But to me, the
biggest problem I have with cc's is that some people just do 'em
automatically - when I get a cc just because I'm the post that someone
chose to reply to (you know, when they clip a bunch of your text, and
really reply to the excerpt you took of the original post - and none of
their comments pertain to you even) - those posts are definitely not
"courtesy", they're ignorant.
Rest assured, I don't feel that they are assaults or "here, read it again".
I deal daily with folks in an office environment who feel they've got to
mail the entire corporation to tell everyone that they're going on
vacation, or that there are cookies in the lunchroom -- often, the entire
corporation includes people who aren't even located in the same state or
country. What is the similarity you ask? These people don't take a second
or two before posting to determine whether the addressing they're using is
truly appropriate to the message.
is a nuisance for the respondent, but a recipient can automate the results
But does EVERYONE really want carbons these days, on everything they post
to the list? I can't imagine that this is just a two or three person issue
here.
I just checked my mail logs, and apparently this carbon the original TO: as
a new CC: may be a function of so many people here using UNIX mailers --
which isn't the case with me, and largely the other lists I'm on, where
editing out an extra name in the TO: isn't apparently that grievous of a
problem (and in fact, where I often simply use my own procmail list alias -
no CC: to fiddle with, just REPLY, and replace the TO: with the list alias).
you write to the list. What actually is sent is a response to the previous
author; it is the list that gets the carbon. One could argue that techni-
cally group-replying is not counter to their wishes.
Ah, but I'm _really_ not looking to argue the matter. The spirit of my
simple request should be clear. Anyone spending the time to intentionally
ignore it on the grounds of (differing) technical terminology could just as
easily remove my name from the addressing on the reply.
Look at the bright side - even with the no-cc request, my sig is still only
a four-liner. Do you really want me to make it a big disclaimer-style one?
I'd rather not - but if it'd make you happy...
into To:. Sean and Eli speak as if it the reply defaulted solely to the
list and as if the respondent were taking the trouble to add a carbon to the
No, I KNOW otherwise. Most people are no doubt using some form of
"Reply-All" (which isn't available in all mailers, and isn't implemented
the same in those which do offer it).
Is the idea that people can take the time to edit out unnecessary text from
the body of the message ([snip]), but they can't be bothered with removing
unnecessary addresses?
But it is not an extra step to send it (it's two extra steps to prevent it);
If you had to stick a stamp on it to send it, you'd take the extra steps to
make sure you didn't have to post an unnecessary letter, wouldn't you?
it is a courtesy, not an insult; the practice is common convention; and when
I can understand the need for such a convention when apparently there are
many people posting to the list which are not subscribed. My convention is
to choose to identify myself as a subscriber, and to indicate that such
carbon copying is unnecessary, and even unwanted. What exactly is wrong
with this?
one wants one's mail to be different from the standard, it is one's own re-
This "standard" is very vaguely defined. You have a standard, I have a
standard, and no two mailer programs seem to use the same standard, even
though there is a standard called RFC822 - which details TECHNICAL
standards, not human procedural standards.
I take it we're talking about my standard being different from your standard?
[snip]
I've taken your recipe and will look to incorporating it in my rc. Thanks.
This does nothing for those accounts which do not have the luxury of server
mail filtering though. Moot point on the procmail list.
---
Please DO NOT carbon me on list replies. I'll get my copy from the list.
Sean B. Straw / Professional Software Engineering
Post Box 2395 / San Rafael, CA 94912-2395