Feel free to ping, and the “etiquette bit is something someone made up, not something that came down from Mt. Sinai.
True, though the fella wasn’t in the wrong. Getting put on a ping list without permission and then finding a crapton of pings pop up in your new posts before you’ve had a chance to reply can be an unwelcome sight. =8-0>
Anyway, nobody’s getting pinged to the list without their permission. ;-D