Help!! How to use a mailing list 'effectively'
Neutrino .
Firstly. I appear to be getting two copies of everything I've posted to. Once to me personally and again from the mailing list. How can I stop this from happening please? It's enough of a pain trying to keep the mailing list deluge organised as it is.
Secondly. Gmail is my email client. It automatically groups mails with related subjects. Is there anyway to reply to the mailing list from the Gmail conversation without accidentally also replying to participants directly?
Lastly. Why on earth don't you guys just use a forum and save mailing list haters like me from busting a blood vessel?
Neutrino
Pascal Quantin
Le 03/07/2011 20:16, Neutrino . a écrit :
> I wouldn't normally touch a mailing list with a shitty stick because
> they are so *@!$ing awful. But I'm trying to work out how to
> effectively use this mailing list since it appears to be the only way
> you Mercurial guys like to chat.
>
> Firstly. I appear to be getting two copies of everything I've posted
> to. Once to me personally and again from the mailing list. How can I
> stop this from happening please? It's enough of a pain trying to keep
> the mailing list deluge organised as it is.
You can simply log to http://selenic.com/mailman/listinfo/mercurial and
edit your options so as to set "receive your own posts to the list" to NO.
>
> Secondly. Gmail is my email client. It automatically groups mails with
> related subjects. Is there anyway to reply to the mailing list from
> the Gmail conversation without accidentally also replying to
> participants directly?
This is more a question for Gmail support. My Thunderbird email client
does have an option "reply to list" while Gmail does not seem to have
one (as discussed in
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=7d19e6330b4143a8&hl=en).
>
> Lastly. Why on earth don't you guys just use a forum and save mailing
> list haters like me from busting a blood vessel?
Probably not the most effective way to ask for support.
Regards,
Pascal.
_______________________________________________
Mercurial mailing list
Merc...@selenic.com
http://selenic.com/mailman/listinfo/mercurial
Tony Mechelynck
> I wouldn't normally touch a mailing list with a shitty stick because
> they are so *@!$ing awful. But I'm trying to work out how to effectively
> use this mailing list since it appears to be the only way you Mercurial
> guys like to chat.
>
> Firstly. I appear to be getting two copies of everything I've posted to.
> Once to me personally and again from the mailing list. How can I stop
> this from happening please? It's enough of a pain trying to keep the
> mailing list deluge organised as it is.
I get list posts in my "classical" mail client (SeaMonkey Mail, but
Thunderbird, Outlook Express, Opera Mail, etc., work the same way) using
POP from pop.gmail.com, and there seems to be some magic at work, maybe
at gmail: I never see more than one copy of any post. BTW, is
"redire...@gmail.com" really your email address? I would have
thought it was a dummy address intentionally put there to _avoid_
getting replies.
To keep the mailing list deluge organized, I have mail filters in my
mail client. One of these filters moves to a separate "Mercurial" folder
anything which has merc...@selenic.com in To or Cc. Of course, if you
exclusively use webmail to read all your email, this solution is not
available to you.
>
> Secondly. Gmail is my email client. It automatically groups mails with
> related subjects. Is there anyway to reply to the mailing list from the
> Gmail conversation without accidentally also replying to participants
> directly?
IIUC, it is list policy that all replies on this list MUST be made using
"Reply to All". So the answer is: Even if you could, you must never do
it on this list.
>
> Lastly. Why on earth don't you guys just use a forum and save mailing
> list haters like me from busting a blood vessel?
There are also forum haters. Maybe the Mercurial project leader is one.
Personally I prefer NNTP newsgroups over mailing lists, and mailing
lists over forums, but not to the point of hating.
If reading the Mercurial mailing list constantly puts you in danger of
bursting a blood vessel, maybe you should forgo its use and rely only on
manpages, "hg help", and trial and error instead. Or else, maybe you
should go see a psy and ask him (or her) to help you become less hateful
of mailing lists.
>
> Neutrino
>
Best regards,
Tony.
--
There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire
someone, or forbid your kids to do it.
Mike Meyer
"Neutrino ." <redire...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I wouldn't normally touch a mailing list with a shitty stick because they
> are so *@!$ing awful.
Only if you want them to be that way. Which is an improvement on web
forums, which are generally steaming piles that you have to dig
through as is, with no alternatives available.
> But I'm trying to work out how to effectively use this
> mailing list since it appears to be the only way you Mercurial guys like to
> chat.
Not true. Looks like there's also an IRC channel available. See
http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/IRC for details and usage notes. I'm
not a big IRC user, so I can't tell you how effective it is. Sorry if
you've tried it and found it empty.
I'm not going to answer your questions about mail lists, because the
best answer is "Quit using gmail, and get a real mail client." You can
read mail to gmail addresses with those just fine. However, there may
be an answer you like better at the bottom, after the rant about why
web forums suck.
> Lastly. Why on earth don't you guys just use a forum and save mailing list
> haters like me from busting a blood vessel?
Because you can read an email list with whatever email client you
desire, and get a sane interface instead of whatever POS interface the
forum software authors chose to provide. People have been developing
tools for dealing with email for more than half a century. If you pick
good ones, they can be *really* effective. For instance, each post to
this list includes standard headers saying how to post, unsubscribe,
get help, or read the archive. My email clients knows those, and
provides menu entries to do those things. It also provides buttons to
reply just to the author, to the list, or to both. It even notices
duplicate mail, and only shows me the first one.
One neat trick you can do with email is gateway a subscription into a
different messaging system. Web forums don't have a standard API for
fetching messages, so you can't do that - you pretty much have to read
the forum. RSS tries, but that standard doesn't include a way to know
you've actually got the message, so it's only as reliable as the
forum. Some forums will send you email, but they all seem to do it
differently, and not all of them let you reply that way. Of course,
that's up to the *forum* software, instead of being just another list
subscriber.
Google leverages the flexibility of email to gateway pretty much every
email list in the world into google groups. So if you really want to
read an email list through a web interface, you can. This one is
available at http://groups.google.com/group/mercurial_general. The
email I'm replying to is already there.
<mike
--
Mike Meyer <m...@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/
Independent Software developer/SCM consultant, email for more information.
O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org
Lester Caine
>>
>> Lastly. Why on earth don't you guys just use a forum and save mailing
>> list haters like me from busting a blood vessel?
>
> There are also forum haters. Maybe the Mercurial project leader is one.
> Personally I prefer NNTP newsgroups over mailing lists, and mailing
> lists over forums, but not to the point of hating.
Personally I've stopped supporting projects that have moved over to forums that
do not provide a proper email interface. I LIKE to get things locally, and I can
digest at leisure, sort to the right folders, and search across several projects
when I've forgotten which one in particular a problem relates to. Something that
is simply not possible if the information is only available across several
incompatible forum systems ;)
I still don't agree with the small minority of email lists that INSIST that
reply only works to the person who sent the email ... mercurial being one of
them ... but I ALWAYS strip the other entries in the mailto list leaving JUST
the mail list address! THAT is a pain, but no worse than the 'top post' brigade
who then repost all of the advertising crap simply because they can't be
bothered to take the courtesy to trim the irrelevant stuff.
--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-----------------------------
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
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Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php
Mike Meyer
Lester Caine <les...@lsces.co.uk> wrote:
> I still don't agree with the small minority of email lists that INSIST that
> reply only works to the person who sent the email ...
You mean the ones that follow the email RFC that says that the
Reply-To: header is used by the author of the message (RFC 2822,
Section 3.6.2)? Personally, I used to get annoyed by the ones that
insist that Reply has to go to the list.
Fortunately, this is email, and not a web forum, so you can set up an
email client to do what you want. My mail client has four reply
buttons:
Reply - Does the traditional header dance to find a reply address.
Author - Ignores Reply-To, sends to the From: header.
List - Replies to the mail list.
All - Builds the reply list from the From/To/Cc headers.
I no longer care how a mail list is configured. If mail is to a list,
I don't hit Reply - just List, Author or All.
<mike
--
Mike Meyer <m...@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/
Independent Software developer/SCM consultant, email for more information.
O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org
Tom Anderson
You seem very angry and opinionated. Have you considered using Git instead?
tom
--
Tom Anderson | e2x Ltd, 1 Norton Folgate, London E1 6DB
(e) t...@e2x.co.uk | (m) +44 (7960) 989794 | (f) +44 (20) 7100 3749
Scott Palmer
On 2011-07-03, at 3:58 PM, Tom Anderson wrote:
> On 3 July 2011 19:16, Neutrino . <redire...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I wouldn't normally touch a mailing list with a shitty stick because they
>> are so *@!$ing awful. But I'm trying to work out how to effectively use this
>> mailing list since it appears to be the only way you Mercurial guys like to
>> chat.
>>
>> Firstly. I appear to be getting two copies of everything I've posted to.
>> Once to me personally and again from the mailing list. How can I stop this
>> from happening please? It's enough of a pain trying to keep the mailing list
>> deluge organised as it is.
>>
>> Secondly. Gmail is my email client. It automatically groups mails with
>> related subjects. Is there anyway to reply to the mailing list from the
>> Gmail conversation without accidentally also replying to participants
>> directly?
>>
>> Lastly. Why on earth don't you guys just use a forum and save mailing list
>> haters like me from busting a blood vessel?
>
> You seem very angry and opinionated. Have you considered using Git instead?
That's probably how he got that way :-)
Neutrino .
>> edit your options so as to set "receive your own posts to the list" to NO.
>IIUC, it is list policy that all replies on this list MUST be made using "Reply to All"
>>If reading the Mercurial mailing list constantly puts you in danger of >>bursting a blood vessel, maybe you should forgo its use and rely only on >>manpages, "hg help", and trial and error instead. Or else, maybe you >>should go see a psy and ask him (or her) to help you become less hateful >>of mailing lists.
>"Quit using gmail, and get a real mail client."
The last couple of weeks I've been looking at reviews for client side softwre that can make working with nntp and mailing lists rational, but the honest truth is that for Windows I haven't come across anything that looks half decent. Most news software these days appears to be geared up for downloading binaries from nntp.
Setting up clients across machines and gatewaying subscriptions into different messaging systems is I'm sure highly effective for all you mailing list lovers but you must admit that to a casual user of some software just looking for some simple to access support that a pretty significant barrier to entry.
I looked into Google Groups too. The wierd thing with that was I could see any way to get it to send me posts from an NNTP listing, all I could configure it to send me was digests or headers, and it isn't even sending them through.
> You seem very angry and opinionated. Have you considered using Git instead?
---
I'm grateful for the replies and the advice, although I'm saddened that some of you seem to have taken my tongue in cheek expressions of frustration rather personally. Collating a whole load of client side stuff on half a dozen machines is a non-starter but the Mercurial mailing list is at least available through Nabble or Google Groups so I can muddle through with that.
Is there not a better way to handle quotes as trying to reply to a load of guys with multiple layers of > and >> is not exactly readable, and even less so if they get wrap mangled? Plus without a preview mode I have no idea what this reply will end up looking like : /
Dennis Brakhane
<antoine.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
> To keep the mailing list deluge organized, I have mail filters in my mail
> client. One of these filters moves to a separate "Mercurial" folder anything
> which has merc...@selenic.com in To or Cc. Of course, if you exclusively
> use webmail to read all your email, this solution is not available to you.
It is, you just click on "Show Details" (on the right side of the "To"
line) and
then click "filter messages from this list". You now can define a
filter that for
example tags each message as "mercurial" and also skips your inbox.
Then you can easily have a forum-like view of the mailing list by showing
only the messages with the "mercurial" label. I use it this way and it is
rather painless and comparable to a forum.
Neutrino .
For example I have this message from you and checking the details it appears to have been mailed directly to Tony Mechelynck while cc'ing myself directly _and_ the Mercurial mailing list. Which of course defeats the filter.
Anyone know why this is?
Peter Bourgon
> For example I have this message from you and checking the details it appears
> to have been mailed directly to Tony Mechelynck while cc'ing myself directly
> _and_ the Mercurial mailing list. Which of course defeats the filter.
This doesn't defeat or confuse the filter for me. This is totally
normal mailing list behavior.
> Well that's odd because that's exactly what I have set up. The problem I'm
> finding though is that the filter doesn't work because the 'To' field fr
> replies does not contain the mailing list address as I expect it to.
Use the special Gmail mailing-list-filter feature, discussed
previously, rather than relying on the mailing list address
necessarily being in the To: field (which is not guaranteed).
Peter Bourgon
Also, you're breaking things for everyone else by setting made-up
email addresses (mercurial_general, presumably redirect.null) as your
Reply-To's. Don't do that.
Neutrino .
I'm not changing anything wrt Reply-To at all so I don't know what I'm doing wrong there. I'm just clicking reply in Google Groups and leaving reply to the mailing list ticked, and unticking cc to the last person who posted, since I presume they won't need each reply twice. Is that wrong?
Thanks for the patience, and sorry for being such a dillweed, but compared to just registering on a forum and reading what everyone's go to say this all seems hellishly overcomplicated.
Martin Geisler
> I still don't agree with the small minority of email lists that INSIST
> that reply only works to the person who sent the email ... mercurial
> being one of them ... but I ALWAYS strip the other entries in the
> mailto list leaving JUST the mail list address!
This is bad for new contributors. The idea is that people don't have to
subscribe to the Mercurial mailinglists in order to post on them. So if
you remove their address from your reply, they might not see it.
--
Martin Geisler
aragost Trifork
Professional Mercurial support
http://mercurial.aragost.com/kick-start/
Mike Meyer
"Neutrino ." <redire...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >IIUC, it is list policy that all replies on this list MUST be made using
> "Reply to All"
> I don't follow this. Surely we all want to only reply to the mailing list
> itself? Who else would we reply to?
The mercurial list is an open help list. People who aren't subscribed
can ask questions on it. The only way to insure that they get your
answers is to use reply-to-all.
> >"Quit using gmail, and get a real mail client."
> You mean download everything to a local machine and use client side software
> to sort it out? All six machines that I use in different places?
Nope. There were fixes to that before there was a web. You set your
client side software up to use the IMAP server the mail is stored
on. GMail's help system has detailed instructions on how to do that,
including specifics for many popular mail readers.
> I'm perfectly willing to try any recommendations for managing that
> but I have looked into it and not found anything that a) works, b)
> doesn't create awful duplication across machines.
The only duplication is in the settings, and possibly in the clients
local caches. Which is pretty much exactly the duplication you get
from a web forum. Reading mail works pretty much like a web forum -
the client fetches mail from the server in order to show it to you.
Mail readers tend to work better because their are standards for
fetching individual messages and information about them, and the
standards and software have been in development for decades so most
common operations have been optimized at some point or another.
Personally, I use claws-mail on systems that support X clients (Unix,
GNU/Linux & MacOS), and K-9 mail on Android. The mail lives on an imap
server in the cloud, and I can read it from any of the machines I use.
I only have to worry about sync when I use a mail client I haven't
configured to check mail automatically.
> Setting up clients across machines and gatewaying subscriptions into
> different messaging systems is I'm sure highly effective for all you mailing
> list lovers but you must admit that to a casual user of some software just
> looking for some simple to access support that a pretty significant barrier
> to entry.
Except that there's pretty much no difference in difficulty between
using a mail list for support and using a web forum for support. Both
may - or may not - allow you to read the archives via the web without
an account (subscription). Both may - or may not - allow you to post
comments without an account (subscription). The description of many
open mail lists include a mailto: link to post to the list, just like
the post link on a forum. Getting an account (subscription) is a
similar process on either one, usually done from a web page, though a
mail list may use a mailto: link to send the proper subscription
email.
Both do require that you have a client set up to access either the web
or the mail address you use, but that's a one-time thing. You'd
probably think I was silly if I flamed web forums because they
required me to get a properly configured web browser in order to use
them. But that's essentially what you're doing in complaining about
mail lists being hard to use because you have to get a mail client.
> I looked into Google Groups too. The wierd thing with that was I could see
> any way to get it to send me posts from an NNTP listing, all I could
> configure it to send me was digests or headers, and it isn't even sending
> them through.
Why are you trying to access a google groups via NNTP? Why not just
use the web forum interface. That's what you want, isn't it?
<mike
--
Mike Meyer <m...@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/
Independent Software developer/SCM consultant, email for more information.
O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org
Na'Tosha Bard
I think I've finally got the email filter working. The thing is the "filter messages from this list" wasn't present on the earlier messages I received from the mailing list. It only just appeared on the last couple of messages. I think this may have been because I previously subscribed to the mailing list directly and it's now appearing on mails since I resubscribed via Google Groups.
I'm not changing anything wrt Reply-To at all so I don't know what I'm doing wrong there. I'm just clicking reply in Google Groups and leaving reply to the mailing list ticked, and unticking cc to the last person who posted, since I presume they won't need each reply twice. Is that wrong?
Why are you using Google Groups at all? I use Gmail and just use the "matches list" filter. Or you can set up filters to include emails that have "merc...@selenic.com" in the "to" or "cc" fields.
In any case, trying to cicrumvent the system of the list does cause problems for others -- like Martin points out if you reply to a mail that someone not subscribed to the list sent, then they will not get the reply -- as far as I know, this is the main reason why the policy is to reply to the sender and the list. We do not want new users to have to subscribe to the list to get help.
Thanks for the patience, and sorry for being such a dillweed, but compared to just registering on a forum and reading what everyone's go to say this all seems hellishly overcomplicated.
Preferences are just that -- preferences. They change from person to person and the person running the list gets to decide the policy. Plenty of people hate forums and find mailing lists substantially more convenient.
Cheers,
Na'Tosha
--
Neutrino .
> can ask questions on it. The only way to insure that they get your
> answers is to use reply-to-all.
---
I appreciate the effort you are going to with your replies Mike, you are working very hard to suggest that using a mailing list is as simple as using a forum, but with respect it's not entirely convincing.
The notion that setting up mail clients on multiple machines to access an IMAP server and configuring the way they access the mail is as easy as just logging onto a a web forum might be true for you, but I assure you that is not everyones experience. On the one hand lots of effort (especially for someone not used to dealing with IMAP servers), on the other hand no effort at all.
You state that in both the case of the client mail systems and a web forum it's a one time operation. I don't find that it is really. I don't have to install a browser on a system even once, since they all have browsers already, and even if I do it's a one click install, which setting up and configuring a mail client most certainly is not.
However, despite our differences of opinion regarding which is most straightforward (which I doubt we will agree on :) ), does anyone have any recommentation for a good mail client for Windows that can also handle NNTP elegantly?
> Why are you trying to access a google groups via NNTP? Why not just
> use the web forum interface. That's what you want, isn't it?
> Why are you using Google Groups at all? I use Gmail and just use the
> "matches list" filter. Or you can set up filters to include emails that
> have "merc...@selenic.com" in the "to" or "cc" fields.
Na'Tosha Bard
I would kindly encourage you to abandon this google groups workaround thing because it is simply being an annoyance for everyone else. Honestly, this list does not even have much traffic, is it *really* a problem? You seem to have spent substantially more energy ranting about mailing lists than it takes to just click the "archive" button in Gmail. :-)
Also, we hang out in IRC if it's easier -- in #mercurial on freenode.
Neutrino
anything that's being done by me. I used the Nabble interface for this reply
so let's see if that's better.
> Honestly, this list does not even have much traffic, is it *really* a
> problem? You seem to have spent
> substantially more energy ranting about mailing lists than it takes to
> just click the "archive" button in Gmail. > :-)
That's a great idea until you consider the prospect of doing that for each
of the 200+ messages a day that my inbox is getting spammed with by other
folks who also like to use mailing lists too.
--
View this message in context: http://mercurial.808500.n3.nabble.com/Help-How-to-use-a-mailing-list-effectively-tp3135413p3141152.html
Sent from the General mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Judson Wilson
>
> The notion that setting up mail clients on multiple machines to access
> an IMAP server and configuring the way they access the mail is as easy
> as just logging onto a a web forum might be true for you, but I assure
> you that is not everyones experience. On the one hand lots of effort
> (especially for someone not used to dealing with IMAP servers), on the
> other hand no effort at all.
>
> You state that in both the case of the client mail systems and a web
> forum it's a one time operation. I don't find that it is really. I
> don't have to install a browser on a system even once, since they all
> have browsers already, and even if I do it's a one click install,
> which setting up and configuring a mail client most certainly is not.
>
Your point of reference makes it sound like the first thing a person is
going to do when they start using a computer is to start using 5
computers, from scratch, with no email solution. Generally by the time
you got to this email list, you already have an email solution that
works with the number of computers you typically use. I also hope you
have filtering abilities, this is slightly above novice level computer
wizardry. If you can do all these things, then really all it comes down
to is setting up a new filter - a one- time 5 minute task.
Ben Fritz
On Jul 5, 8:49 am, "Na'Tosha Bard" <nato...@unity3d.com> wrote:
>
> In any case, your reply-to mail address is set to
> mercuria...@googlegroups.com, which means everyone who replies to it
> is getting this mail back from google groups saying the group doesn't exist
> or we don't have permission to reply to the list. This discourages anyone
> who's replied to your question/comment once from doing it again.
>
> I would kindly encourage you to abandon this google groups workaround thing
> because it is simply being an annoyance for everyone else.
Hmmm, I'm set up to get digest emails because I don't like dealing
with the deluge of email I get otherwise (even with filters). I always
cringe when I reply to the digest and modify the subject to respond to
emails, knowing I am probably messing up some mail client's threading
behavior. I was pretty happy to learn there's a google groups
interface to the list (well, to a mirror of the list).
Does responding via google groups (as I am doing now) screw up the
list even more? I'm not sure of the best way to handle this.
Na'Tosha Bard
Does responding via google groups (as I am doing now) screw up the
list even more? I'm not sure of the best way to handle this.
Yours shows up like normal -- the reply-to email address appears to be your personal one (fritzophrenic at gmail).
Stephen Rasku
However, despite our differences of opinion regarding which is most straightforward (which I doubt we will agree on :) ), does anyone have any recommentation for a good mail client for Windows that can also handle NNTP elegantly?