On the Debian Mailinglist "Code of Conduct"

There's something which has been bothering me for a while. I haven't talked about it much since I don't consider it all that important after all and since I know I'm probably in a minority position, but whatever.

Personally, I think the "do not Cc" policy in the Code of Conduct of Debian mailinglists is a big mistake. It serves no useful purpose (other than giving some people a reason to complain). If you want to make sure that people do not mail you unless you absolutely ask for it, then you should get their mail clients to support some sort of header to enforce that behaviour; and you should also make sure you set that header in your own mails. Most people on the Debian mailinglists use free software, after all, so doing this should be possible. Personally, I find it rather offensive that people can call Cc'ing you spamming, and get away with it. I refuse to even bother to keep track of who wants a Cc and who doesn't, and I refuse to use different keystrokes for 'reply to list' and 'reply to sender'. There's "reply" ("r", in mutt), which should go to the sender of the mail only; and there's "reply to all" ("g", in mutt), which should go to everyone who could read the original mail (either through direct, private mail or through list mail). Everything else requires special attention anyway, so it's pointless to try it. At least in my opinion.

Oh well.