Mailing lists (was Re: [oclug] Best way to upgrade Mandrake?)

[Kevin Everets]

On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 05:35:24PM -0500, Adrian Irving-Beer wrote:

> > Personally, I'd prefer to have the messages cross-posted (but only
> > the on-topic ones, of course).
> 
> Why, though?  I can see why someone would subscribe to the specialised
> list and not the general list, but why would someone subscribe to the
> general list and not the specialised one?  (Other than the lag time
> until everyone discovers it, and those who avoid it just for silly
> boycotting reasons.)

The reason I'd like to see it cross-posted for the time being is
because some people are only subscribed to the linux list (those that
really are interested in linux/free software discussion), and it will
be some time until those interested parties on the general list will
subscribe to the linux list.  So, for the moment at least, if one
wants to get the largest audience for on-topic discussion
cross-posting seems to be the way to go.  I don't recommend this
indefinitely, though.  Really, I'd like to see all linux and directly
related discussion move to the new list and leave the old list for
general chat.

> And speaking technically, I doubt crossposting is going to play well
> with the Reply-To munging (yuck IMO) or the [] subject munging,
> either.  Seems to me the replies will end up splitting threads across
> both lists.

I don't think it will be all that bad.  If people use the "Reply to
all" (or 'g'roup reply in mutt), both lists should get the responses
without difficulty.  I'd like to see how this works out in practice.

> So to keep threads whole, I'd need to either filter duplicates and put
> both lists in the same mailbox (treat them both the same and risk
> posting offtopic to the ontopic list), or not filter anything and keep
> them separate.

As I read both lists, I currently have them all going into the same
mailbox.  It wouldn't be difficult to have those messages going solely
to "oclug@" to be filtered off to another mailbox, though.

Hope that explains my reasoning a bit better.

Kevin.