[META] The issue of the unwelcome CC (please email me if you receive a CC from me)

[Robert J. Hansen]

On 1/31/2012 6:18 PM, Daniel Farina wrote:
> Okay, the harshness of language here has baited me to reply:

First, thank you for keeping your response civil.  I appreciate it a lot.

> There's a simple reason people do this, and it's because it is a
> common choice for large lists, including the Linux family of mailing
> lists, the Postgres family of mailing lists, and the FreeBSD family of
> mailing lists, and the GCC mailing lists -- and these are the first
> four projects I thought of, all of which use the "To: OP, CC: The
> List" convention.  The common (and entirely valid) use case being that
> one can filter for mail that is "To:" them, and not necessarily read
> *all* mailing list traffic.

I agree with you.  I thought this convention was sufficiently obvious as
to not need pointing out.  In 20+ years of being on the Net, this is the
first time I've ever seen a flamewar erupt over something as ridiculous
as whether it's a mark of mental retardation to have on-list and cc
responses.

With respect to GnuPG's "outlier" convention, I've never heard of it.
I've received both on-list and cc's many, many times in the past.
People are, of course, free to request what they want: but this trend of
getting angry and furious at people who do not comply seems to me to be
a social power-play and I want none of it.

Dan Geer had the right approach, I think.  He said, politely, that he
prefers not to receive a separate cc.  I plan on honoring this as far as
my memory allows.  He didn't tell me that I *must* not, or that I was a
'retard' or a 'moron' if I did so.

I don't mind people being argumentative.  (I've been accused of being
brusque many, many times.  Guilty as charged, and unrepentant.)  But the
level here has gone from good form straight into unsportsmanlike
conduct.  I'd like it if we could stop that and de-escalate back to our
usual level of vigorous, impassioned argument.  :)