Re: [Mailman-Developers] Reply-To munging considered *carefully*
Michael B. Trausch writes:
My main, central, and driving point is a desire to create a system that is both idiot friendly and expert friendly, and my desire is to have all known common (end-user) and uncommon (technical user) use cases be handled in a manner that is consistent and portable.
That's what we want, too, Brother Michael. The difference between you and us is that we believe in the RFC process, we believe in decentralization, and we believe that if we design a better way to do it in that context, software developers will adopt it and users will get the benefits merely by upgrading their favorite software (or changing, if another implementation becomes more attractive in the process).
On Oct 15, 2009, at 10:43 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
My main, central, and driving point is a desire to create a system
that is both idiot friendly and expert friendly, and my desire is to
have all known common (end-user) and uncommon (technical user) use cases be handled in a manner that is consistent and portable.That's what we want, too, Brother Michael. The difference between you and us is that we believe in the RFC process, we believe in decentralization, and we believe that if we design a better way to do it in that context, software developers will adopt it and users will get the benefits merely by upgrading their favorite software (or changing, if another implementation becomes more attractive in the process).
Can I get an "Amen"?!
-Barry
I've read back through this thread, and forgive me if this has been discussed before, but have you considered giving subscribers the option of deciding for themselves whether their replies should go to the list or to the poster?
In other words, add the option:
Where are replies to list messages directed? (*) Poster ( ) This list
... to the subscriber's settings, let the list administrator set the default behavior, and add the option:
Allow subscribers to chose where their replies to list messages are directed? (*) Yes ( ) No
... to the list administrator's settings. It seems like whatever the default behavior is set to it always irks 5% of any list's subscribers. This would allow that 5% to fix the problem for themselves, leaving only 2% to continue to grumble that there's really only one correct way to do things and everyone should be doing it that way.
-- Earl Ruby http://earlruby.org/
Earl Ruby writes:
I've read back through this thread, and forgive me if this has been discussed before, but have you considered giving subscribers the option of deciding for themselves whether their replies should go to the list or to the poster?
No, I hadn't considered it, and upon consideration I would add it to the RFC only with a gun to my head (or equivalents such as demands from multiple list management software developers).
The functionality you propose is *already available* to posters by setting Reply-To, and that method should be encouraged for posters who care because the poster already has the *per-message* knowledge of what is appropriate.
I'm aware that many posters are in love with their Message-User-Agent- That-Sucks[tm] and don't have that functionality available to them by default. That is not a problem I can solve, and I'm not going to try to solve it in the RFC. A better way to solve it is to help Michael Trausch develop his all-things-to-all-men-and-even-women-and-children mail-cum-news-cum-webforum thingy, and hope it takes over the world.
My advice, obviously, is that I don't think it will work as well as the existing software, but it wouldn't be the first time I've been very wrong, and I hope to live long enough to make many more mistakes. :-) If he's right, it would be a good thing to have, and I think that's the place to look before adding more functionality to the RFC.
Mailman could in theory offer it anyway, but I suspect that without an RFC sanction Barry and Mark would shy away from it.
On Thu, Jan 07, 2010 at 03:56:50PM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
Earl Ruby writes:
I've read back through this thread, and forgive me if this has been discussed before, but have you considered giving subscribers the option of deciding for themselves whether their replies should go to the list or to the poster?
No, I hadn't considered it, and upon consideration I would add it to the RFC only with a gun to my head (or equivalents such as demands from multiple list management software developers).
The functionality you propose is *already available* to posters by setting Reply-To, and that method should be encouraged for posters who care because the poster already has the *per-message* knowledge of what is appropriate.
+1.
Or, indeed, setting (reply) hooks (or equivalents) in the mail-directory for lists mails -- where clients support that -- if people are so inclined.
(I remember making Thunderbird or Outlook do that when I used one, or both of them, in $DAYJOB-x, so that sort of behaviour *is* possible.)
I'm of the view that if mail's good enough to go to the list, the reply ought to go there, too, with the exception of annoucement-only type lists.
-- ``Government incompetence [is] one of the UK's most important safeguards against totalitarianism.'' (John Lettice)
On Jan 07, 2010, at 03:56 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
My advice, obviously, is that I don't think it will work as well as the existing software, but it wouldn't be the first time I've been very wrong, and I hope to live long enough to make many more mistakes. :-) If he's right, it would be a good thing to have, and I think that's the place to look before adding more functionality to the RFC.
Mailman could in theory offer it anyway, but I suspect that without an RFC sanction Barry and Mark would shy away from it.
Indeed. TBH, I don't think adding more knobs to Mailman here is going to make life any better for users.
-Barry
participants (7)
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Adam McGreggor -
Barry Warsaw -
Barry Warsaw -
Bernd Siggy Brentrup -
Earl Ruby -
Stephen J. Turnbull -
Stephen J. Turnbull