[MPlayer-users] LIST NETIQUETTE

[D Richard Felker III]

OK, I'm a bit ideg. I try to be helpful on this list, answer
questions, teach new users about encoding, etc. And lately there have
been a lot of users emailing me in private with followup questions,
rather than mailing the list. I don't know if this is because they
think they're more likely to get a response if they mail me directly,
or if it's because they're embarassed to ask on the list, or what...
But regardless, it's really annoying, and I won't be responding to any
questions in off-list email. There are two reasons off-list mail is
bad:

1. It's rude. I have lots of important personal email in my inbox
   already. I don't need mplayer mail there too. List email gets
   auto-filed to my list mailboxes, where I can read the threads and
   manage it easily. Non-list mail appears in my main mailbox
   cluttered with everything else I need to respond to.

2. It's unhelpful. If you have a further question about a topic,
   chances are someone else does too. They WANT to see the followup to
   your question/discussion so they can learn from it. Replying
   off-list deprives other people from being able to learn from the
   mail archives and makes it so people like me have to answer the
   same questions again and again because there's no "a" to RTFa
   (a=archive).

So please. RESPECT THE REPLY-TO HEADER! Which says to reply to the
list. The mailing list is configured that way for a reason. I will not
be responding to off-list questions about mplayer.

Rich