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Date:      Wed, 15 Jul 1998 14:11:55 +1000
From:      Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au>
To:        Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
Cc:        Jon Hamilton <hamilton@pobox.com>, "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb@FreeBSD.ORG>, fullermd@futuresouth.com, mi@video-collage.com, "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@hub.freebsd.org>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Stopping the bloody cross posting.
Message-ID:  <19980715141154.01595@welearn.com.au>
In-Reply-To: <19980715132558.C15083@freebie.lemis.com>; from Greg Lehey on Wed, Jul 15, 1998 at 01:25:58PM %2B0930
References:  <19980715124645.A15083@freebie.lemis.com> <199807150329.MAA00907@allegro.lemis.com> <19980715132558.C15083@freebie.lemis.com>

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On Wed, Jul 15, 1998 at 01:25:58PM +0930, Greg Lehey wrote:
> On Tuesday, 14 July 1998 at 22:31:24 -0500, Jon Hamilton wrote:
> >
> > In message <19980715124645.A15083@freebie.lemis.com>, Greg Lehey wrote:
> >> On Tuesday, 14 July 1998 at 20:11:25 -0700, Jonathan M. Bresler wrote:
> >
> >>> 	we allow 2 lists so that you can move a discussion from
> >>> 	one list to another.
> >>>
> >>> 	hopefully this will ease the problems that we have had
> >>> 	with this issue.
> >>
> >> Well, it should stop the complaining, but it's a workaround, not a
> >> solution.  If I have a message that is of interest to, say,
> >> -questions, -hackers, -newbies and -chat, I should be able to send it,

If it really were relevant to that many lists, it should go out just
once, through freebsd-announce. If it's not appropriate for -announce,
then it's not appropriate for more than two lists. In fact, I have yet
to see a message that I regard as being appropriate for as many as two
lists.

> >> and the message should be delivered to each member of each list *once
> >> only*.  That goal should be within reach, at least for people who
> >> aren't also on sublists.  You could even handle the sublist case at
> >> the receiver's end: before delivering a message locally, check if he
> >> hasn't already received it.

There's no way you could make this work for me. I subscribe to the
different lists under different user names, a few lists for each user.
How are you going to stop me getting pissed off by your lazy-thinking
crossposts? You can't.

> > It's not clear that the "once only" part is universally desirable.  It
> > may be a good default, but there are no doubt people out there who will
> > want one copy for each list.   You're trying to solve a social behavior
> > problem with technology, and are doomed to fail (or at least to have less
> > than 100% success).
> 
> Correct.  We can see the vestiges of that at the beginning of the text
> you quoted.  If we take the approach of delivering once only, do we
> make an exception if the recipient is named explicitly on the To: or
> Cc: lines?  I suppose the technical answer is "that's for him to
> decide when he signs up for the list".  But let's solve the first
> order problem first.

Regarding the cc to individuals, this is a practice which has become
the habit of thousands of subscribers over a period of years. If that
were changed, you would potentially be asking thousands of people to
reconfigure their systems and/or change their habits.

If you subscribe to mailing lists from a variety of sources, you'll see
that they all have their own quirks and habits which they hold dearly.
Those of the FreeBSD lists are well known and predictable, particularly
the habit of sending a cc.

But most important of all, this is the preferred familiar method of the
majority of those who contribute most to the FreeBSD project. That
alone is good enough to cancel all arguments against it for me.


-- 

Regards,
        -*Sue*-


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