Help!! How to use a mailing list 'effectively'

[Neutrino .]

>> 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.

It's not my own posts I'm getting back, it's everyone elses I'm getting 
twice! If I check the details for all the posts from you guys in my inbox I 
see them them posted both to the mailing list and also cc'ed to me 
personally, which I think is why I'm getting everything twice.

>is "redirect.null at gmail.com" really your email address?

It's just an email address I created to handle mailing list input since I 
didn't want to divulge my personal email address to the entire world.

>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?

>>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.

The thing is that I'm a huge fan of collaberative development and like to 
get involved and stay abreast of discussion regarding software tools I like. 
But a mailing list doesn't even support the basic needs of collaberation so 
it's extremely frustrating. 

>"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? 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 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? 

Hehe, that's a good one.

---

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 : /



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