bug#389: can not send e-mail to bug-gnu-emacs without it being assigned a bug number

[Joe Wells]

It is no longer possible to send e-mail to bug-gnu-emacs without it
being assigned a bug number.

It appears that if e-mail to bug-gnu-emacs contains “bug#XYZ” in the
subject, it is added to the bug log for bug number XYZ, while
otherwise a fresh bug number is allocated and the e-mail is added to
the bug log for the new bug report.

It appears that bug-gnu-emacs (a.k.a. the gnu.emacs.bug newsgroup) has
been taken over completely by the bug tracking system.  The
bug-gnu-emacs mailing list can no longer be used for meta-level
discussions about bug handling.

Is this a feature or a bug?

Should it still be possible for bug-gnu-emacs to be used as an
ordinary mailing list (and newsgroup)?

I don't think the new way is necessarily bad, but it seems to have
happened without much community discussion.

Please discuss this.

-- 
Joe


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Heriot-Watt University is a Scottish charity
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