[FFmpeg-user] Yes or No? About the processing pipeline.

[Rob Hallam]

On Fri, 20 Jun 2025 at 18:17, Mark Filipak
<markfilipak.imdb-at-gmail.com at ffmpeg.org> wrote:
>
> Uh, Z, can we just drop this.
>
> I asked a question. Another user who shall remain nameless sent me a message. To be charitable about
> the incident, he probably didn't know how to use 'cc'. Anyway, I commented privately to him about
> FOSS. Then he put my private message on ffmpeg-user. To be charitable about the incident, he
> probably thought he helping. He hopefully has learned an etiquette lesson.

I appreciate the charity.

(for the rest who didn't catch it last time around: it's me, I'm that user)

I would do well to leave well alone and let sleeping dogs lie, but
while the broad strokes follow the pattern correctly, there's a few
minor details which to my mind happened differently:

 - this misunderstanding came up in the context of the 'rewriting
fieldmatch' state machine discussion [0], rather than this particular
thread
 - I made some observations about how the discussion on this list
would likely evolve to frame a question about what Mark wanted to
achieve by rewriting fieldmatch using an FSM [1] (which I thought was
an interesting notion). I asked this question publicly to try and
guide expectations from other regulars on this list
 - I received a short reply from Mark (my email client categorised and
folded in that reply with the rest of the list messages)
 - When I went to respond I was warned that the recipient differed
from the rest, and assumed I had received a direct reply erroneously,
so I replied to the list and CC'd Mark (perhaps redundantly), managing
to top-post too [2]. I mentioned I had redirected the reply to the
list in this message in a postscript
 - I received another reply that I also assumed (incorrectly it
transpires) was made in the context and replied to it on-list [3]
- Mark pointed out that I had taken "a private conversation" and made
it public [4], which is mostly true except the private part was
one-sided as my replies on that topic went to the list*
- I tried to give my reasoning, offered my apology and asked if he
would like me to take any further action taken [5]

*I say, "on that topic" as Mark emailed me to say that I don't need to
CC him as he got the replies from the list, and then to express his
discontent at my actions which he specifically flagged as off-list as
I requested; my replies to those were indeed private and not to the
list.

I am still happy to take further action to rectify the situation if
needed. If not, we can let things be.

Lastly, not directed at Mark but as a general principle I reply to
public discussions publicly. It keeps everyone on the same page, it
stops the need for multiple people to ask the same questions, it
guides the discussion, and if an answer pops up then future users can
benefit from it [6]. I am not sure how many times I've 'gone off-list'
in my years here, but it has not happened recently and is generally so
rare that I cannot recall a specific instance.

That's me said my bit.

Cheers,
Rob

[0]: https://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2025-June/059480.html
[1]: https://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2025-June/059504.html
[2]: https://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2025-June/059507.html
[3]: https://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2025-June/059508.html
[4]: https://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2025-June/059509.html
[5]: https://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2025-June/059510.html
[6]: https://xkcd.com/979/

Kudos to those who predicted the last reference.