2.1 What are appropriate messages for the various Emacs mailing lists?

There are various Emacs mailing lists, described at the Emacs Savannah page.

The main ones are: help-gnu-emacs, bug-gnu-emacs, and emacs-devel.

Messages advocating “non-free” software are considered unacceptable on any of the GNU mailing lists, except for the gnu-misc-discuss mailing list. “Non-free” software includes any software for which the end user can’t freely modify the source code and exchange enhancements. Please remove GNU mailing lists from the recipients when posting a reply that recommends such software.

Some of the GNU mailing lists are gatewayed to newsgroups (although the connection is occasionally unreliable). For example, sending an email to The bug-gnu-emacs list has the effect of posting on the newsgroup news:gnu.emacs.help).

Finally, we recommend reading the GNU Kind Communications Guidelines before posting to any GNU lists or newsgroups.