[TriLUG] About "Private notes"

[Alan Porter]

On 04/18/2012 02:53 PM, Peter Neilson wrote:
> When I ask my e-mail grinder (Opera) to reply only to the originator
> of a post, on some lists I get just the one person. On other lists
> (including TRILUG), the reply goes to the group unless I carefully
> intervene.

Recently, we've had several "oops" replies to the list, and that has
caused the steering committee to question whether we have the ideal
settings on mailman (our mailing list server).

Our current configuration has the "reply_goes_to_list" option set to
"this list".  The other alternatives are "poster" or "explicit address".

>From the mailman documentation:

    Where are replies to list messages directed?  Poster is strongly
    recommended for most mailing lists.

    When poster is selected, the reply-to line will be written by
    Mailman so that persons hitting reply in their mail program will
    send their response back to the individual who posted the note. When
    this value is set to "this list" the reply-to line will be rewritten
    so that persons hitting reply in their mail program will send their
    response back to the list itself.  When this value is set to
    "explicit address" the Reply-To header will use the value that is
    provided in the field below.

    While the program suggests that this be set to poster, you should
    consider the purpose of the list in selecting this value. Lists that
    intend to focus on discussion are best set to "list" to encourage
    conversation. Lists used for announcements are best set to poster to
    prevent unwanted traffic and the inadvertent broadcast of replies.


The reasoning behind this setting was that the TriLUG list is a
DISCUSSION list and not an ANNOUNCEMENT list.  Most of the time, when
someone replies, they want the reply to go to all 700+ members to carry
the discussion forward.  Personal off-list replies are the exception
rather than the norm.

However, I understand that this configuration can be counter-intuitive.

On the plus side, it gives us the occasional accidental reply-to-list,
and those can be good for a laugh.  Perhaps a second benefit is that it
conditions us to react a little kinder than we might otherwise do,
because we're always scared that our one-off reply is going to go to the
whole group.  :-D


Opinions?  Gripes?

(Remember that your sysadmins, policy setters and mail-garbage-men are
generous unpaid volunteers).

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