Here is a message I recently sent to an individual after observing that they never CC'd the original poster. This seemed topical after reading today's discussion.
Bob Thanks very much for answering questions on the mailing lists. It is appreciated. However I noticed today that you have not been CC'ing the original poster. I looked back through several of your posts. So I thought I would drop you a note and let you know that it is very likely that the people you are replying to are not receiving your followups. Which is a shame since they are useful. This is going to sound contrary to common sense on most discussion types of lists. Normally on a discussion list you would only send your reply to the list and never include the address of the person you are replying to since they are subscribed. On discussion lists you can assume that anyone posting there is subscribed to the list. Sending them a CC means they get a duplicated message and that is not appreciated by many on the net. Certainly it is considered rude on most discussion lists. But on bug reporting lists such as the [EMAIL PROTECTED] lists there is no assumption that the original poster is subscribed. It is a cold drop address that is advertised as an address that anyone can send bug reports. Therefore on the bug-* lists it is normal to include the original poster in the address CC list. Otherwise they won't see the response at all. However, anyone who replies to the original poster is certainly subscribed since that is how they saw that message. Therefore only the original poster and the mailing list needs to be listed in subsequent messages. If you miss it is not a big deal. On the bug-* lists people don't get upset if they get an additional CC at this point. But if possible the address should be original poster and mailing list only. Normally I use the Mail-Followup-To: header when I reply to a poster setting the reply to the original poster and to the mailing list. After that anyone that replies with a mailer smart enough to respect that header will do the right thing automatically. Also, when I post original messages to these lists I set that header as well to just the list. This is all automatic with modern mailers like 'mutt'. So while it might sound complicated I don't even notice it. Hope that helps, Bob