[kepler-dev] mailman changes: reply_goes_to_list/htdig

[Christopher Brooks]

BTW - HtDig is no longer supported, the last update was 2004.
I still use HtDig, but I don't recommend installing it.
Instead, try Apache's Lucene (which I have not tried) or try
creating a Google Group, Yahoo Group or forward mail to mail-archive.com

I'm somewhat neutral on the reply-to issue.  In general, I
prefer to cc the mailing list, especially when doing difficult
support because it logs the issue, it reminds developers how
tricky things are and it means I get credit for it :-).
I will take support off-line sometimes and report back
after resolution.

_Christopher



Peter Reutemann wrote:
> Hi Mark
> 
>> I've requested that our sysadmins add in htDig support or similar for
>> the mailing list archives.  This may take a bit, but we will work on
>> it.  We will also be sure the lists are google indexed.
> 
> Cool, that's gonna make life a lot easier.
> 
>> The reply_to option is the mailman default -- back to poster.
>> Changing it to point at the list has the unfortunate effect of
>> sometimes causing people to reply to a much broader group than they
>> intended.  Most people are used to 'reply' going back to the sender,
>> and 'reply_all' getting delivered to all recipients.  That is how the
>> Kepler lists are configured, and I suspect that changing it would
>> cause confusion for many people who are used to the traditional uses
>> of reply and reply_all.  I agree its frustrating if people don't reply
>> to the list, but I'm not sure if that frustration outweighs the costs
>> of a surprising reply function.  maybe this is something that we
>> should poll more broadly and see what behavior people on the list
>> would prefer.  Should 'reply' go to the poster only or to the whole
>> list?
> 
>>From my experience and in my opinion, having the reply-to pointing
> back to the list instead of the poster outweighs the occasional
> surprise in posting something to a wider audience. Here's why:
> While I was maintaining the WEKA software and moderating the mailing
> list (and mainly answering posts there) it got to a point where I was
> posting way too many private replies back to the list, since people
> just couldn't click on "reply all" (or didn't care who'd receive the
> email, poster or list), that I reconfigured mailman. Since then, as
> far as I can tell, there have been only a handful of mis-posts to the
> list instead of sending it privately. Considering that the switchover
> was several years back and that the mailing lists has several hundred
> posts/month, I think it was worth it (no private one-on-one help
> sessions, but accessible to everyone). But then, the audience on the
> kepler mailing lists could be different and I haven't been subscribed
> to them for that long.
> 
>> PS Please don't cross-post to both lists.  Many people are subscribed
>> to both lists and don't need two copies of each email. kepler-dev is
>> for primarily development-related discussions, and kepler-users for
>> usage-related questions (granted, there is a lot of grey area in
>> there).
> 
> Point taken.
> 
> Cheers, Peter

-- 
Christopher Brooks (cxh at eecs berkeley edu) University of California
CHESS Executive Director                      US Mail: 337 Cory Hall
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