Re: [Mailman-Developers] feature request: new option for reply_goes_to_list
On Wed, 11 Sep 2002 21:58:29 +0200 Simone Piunno <pioppo@ferrara.linux.it> wrote:
On Sun, Sep 08, 2002 at 06:19:21PM -0700, Marc MERLIN wrote:
(yeah, I know that reply-to munging is considered harmful but I consider more important to keep discussions inside the lists and anyway this has
I'm just amazed at how many times I've read this complete nonsense.
Marc, I see you are the only one fighting my request and I have 3 people saying it's ok for them.
No, for most of us know this religious debate of old, are tired of it, understand it far better than we're interested in, and just don't bother.
By forcing a reply to list upon them, you are removing that choice
again, I'm neither removing nor forcing anything.
Given a list which munges Reply-To in any manner, how do I:
a) Move a thread on to a different list?
b) Ensure that all replies default to me only and not the list (so that I may summarise later)?
c) Trivially (default command) reply to author only?
d) Remove myself from followups to a thread?
--
J C Lawrence
---------(*) Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
claw@kanga.nu He lived as a devil, eh?
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/ Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
On Wednesday, September 11, 2002, at 09:26 PM, J C Lawrence wrote:
Marc, I see you are the only one fighting my request and I have 3 people saying it's ok for them.
No, for most of us know this religious debate of old, are tired of it, understand it far better than we're interested in, and just don't bother.
If you insist on counting noses, I guess I'll add mine. I avoid reply-to arguments because I've found people don't want to discuss it, they want to browbeat everyone until the other side gives up in disgust and gives them what they want. That's not a discussion, that's a lecture. At best.
-- Chuq Von Rospach, Architech chuqui@plaidworks.com -- http://www.chuqui.com/
The first rule of holes: If you are in one, stop digging.
Simone Piunno <pioppo@ferrara.linux.it> wrote:
(yeah, I know that reply-to munging is considered harmful but I consider more important to keep discussions inside the lists and anyway this has
Sounds like you've never seen a list blow up in a mail loop because of some broken "vacation" autoresponder robot which sends automated responses to the Reply-To: address.
I'm just amazed at how many times I've read this complete nonsense.
Marc, I see you are the only one fighting my request and I have 3 people saying it's ok for them.
J C Lawrence <claw@kanga.nu> replied:
No, for most of us know this religious debate of old, are tired of it, understand it far better than we're interested in
Yes.
Given a list which munges Reply-To in any manner, how do I:
a) Move a thread on to a different list?
b) Ensure that all replies default to me only and not the list (so that I may summarise later)?
c) Trivially (default command) reply to author only?
d) Remove myself from followups to a thread?
e) Cross-post a discussion across two mailing lists? (Sometimes that is the right thing to do.)
f) Ensure that my backup email address gets copied on a thread? (E.g. Because my primary email address which is subscribed to the list is temporarily broken or something.)
Greetings, Norbert.
-- Founder & Steering Committee member of http://gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/ Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet (near Zurich, Switzerland) Tel +41 1 972 20 59 Fax +41 1 972 20 69 http://norbert.ch List hosting with GNU Mailman on your own domain name http://cisto.com
On Wed, Sep 11, 2002 at 02:12:05PM -0700, Marc MERLIN wrote:
Thanks to the multiple reply-to feature we're preventing nothing.
Sorry, not true. When you set a reply-to to any value, you are preventing the user to chose between reply to list/all or just replying to the original sender.
bogus argument: when you don't set a reply-to you are preventing the user to choose between reply to originasender/all or just replying to the list.
you can't have everything on single button, so you are always preventing the alternative use the from button, whatever it was.
Reply-To is typically not conditional (except for good MUAs like mine that can be told to ignore it altogether)
sorry, can you rephrase?
On Wed, Sep 11, 2002 at 09:26:58PM -0700, J C Lawrence wrote:
Given a list which munges Reply-To in any manner, how do I:
a) Move a thread on to a different list?
people will move if you ask and they want (they are free to choose, you are not free to force them). With multiple reply-to you can start cross-posting and the reply to the reply to your message could be on the 2nd list only. This is again a matter of policy and you could like this kind of things but another admin could even want to completely forbid'em. Anyway, I grant you that this case is messed up by reply-to-list.
b) Ensure that all replies default to me only and not the list (so that I may summarise later)?
Agreed
c) Trivially (default command) reply to author only?
bogus, see the answer to Marc.
d) Remove myself from followups to a thread?
just avoid using reply-to... by default they will reply to the list.
On Thu, Sep 12, 2002 at 11:52:38AM +0200, Norbert Bollow wrote:
Sounds like you've never seen a list blow up in a mail loop because of some broken "vacation" autoresponder robot which sends automated responses to the Reply-To: address.
no, I've never seen a loop caused by this, but I've seen several loops. If you are really concerned by loops you could use the max-per-day feature already in place for -owner autoresponder.
e) Cross-post a discussion across two mailing lists? (Sometimes that is the right thing to do.)
sorry, not sure I understand....
- I send the message "To: a,b" and "Reply-To: a,b"
- Reply-To: is left untouched by Mailman (even if set with reply-to-list)
- People will reply to "a,b" by default, not carrying on the Reply-To: (regardless of its value, so configuration doesn't matter) where is the problem?
f) Ensure that my backup email address gets copied on a thread? (E.g. Because my primary email address which is subscribed to the list is temporarily broken or something.)
again, you can only affect the 1st reply... replies to replies to your message won't see your reply-to: thanks to multiple reply-to having another address copied in the 1st reply is not a problem.
Summary:
Reply-to-munging with multiple address prevents those 2 cases:
a) Move a thread on to a different list?
b) Ensure that all replies default to me only and not the list (so that I may summarise later)?
but on the usability side, the very common reply-to-list case is made more difficult for the user (he can't 1-click-reply to the list only [1]: he has to reply to all and then remove the unwanted addresses).
Admins have then a tradeoff: "what has more value for my users?"
This is a matter of policy and there are certainly lists where most users would answer
"I prefer my freedom to do things like moving threads and summarizing and don't care for usability"
and there are also many lists where they'd asnwer
"I prefer usability and I'll never use those 2 exotic cases where pristine reply-to is required".
Policy decisions should be left to the admin.
[1] practically noone uses mutt and the nice L key feature. I'm the only one :)
-- Adde parvum parvo magnus acervus erit. Simone Piunno, FerraraLUG - http://members.ferrara.linux.it/pioppo
Simone Piunno wrote:
On Wed, Sep 11, 2002 at 02:12:05PM -0700, Marc MERLIN wrote:
Thanks to the multiple reply-to feature we're preventing nothing.
Sorry, not true. When you set a reply-to to any value, you are preventing the user to chose between reply to list/all or just replying to the original sender.
bogus argument: when you don't set a reply-to you are preventing the user to choose between reply to originasender/all or just replying to the list.
Wrong. Every mailreader I've ever used has a two-option (at least) choice: reply to sender ("From:") or reply to all (From: and Cc:).
If Reply-To: is set, "reply to sender" uses that instead; you can't reply to "From:" without editing the address.
you can't have everything on single button, so you are always preventing the alternative use the from button, whatever it was.
This doesn't make any sense.
"DM" == Dan Mick <dan.mick@sun.com> writes:
DM> Wrong. Every mailreader I've ever used has a two-option (at
DM> least) choice: reply to sender ("From:") or reply to all
DM> (From: and Cc:).I must admit to leading a MUA cloistered life. I wonder if the problem is that there are widely used mail readers that /don't/ make a very clear distinction between reply-to-sender and reply-to-all? I'm thinking like MSN or AOL or Outlook or Outlook Express. Certainly the minority MUAs I use (VM/XEmacs, Mozilla/Netscape, MacOSX Mail) all have two very clearly marked buttons for the two functions. I think even my mom or dad could handle it.
-Barry
On Fri, Sep 13, 2002 at 12:30:31AM +0200, Simone Piunno wrote:
Reply-To is typically not conditional (except for good MUAs like mine that can be told to ignore it altogether)
sorry, can you rephrase?
If you set a reply-to, you are forcing most mail clients to reply to the list when the user is trying to reply to the sender only. A small list of mail client (like mutt) can be told to ignore reply-to or to ask whether it should be honored.
practically noone uses mutt and the nice L key feature. I'm the only one :)
Note too that because of this, I don't see your answer until way later because I'm not Cced and your mail just sits in my spool, along with the other 1000+ list mail messages I have. (not that I overly care either way, but that's why I don't typically use list reply to)
Marc
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R. Microsoft is to operating systems & security .... .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/ | Finger marc_f@merlins.org for PGP key
"NB" == Norbert Bollow <nb@cisto.com> writes:
NB> Sounds like you've never seen a list blow up in a mail loop
NB> because of some broken "vacation" autoresponder robot which
NB> sends automated responses to the Reply-To: address.Note that if the vacation program is only slightly broken, then it will have a Precedence header that Mailman can do something with. MM2.1 will not autorespond to any message that has a Precedence: {bulk,list,junk} header.
If the vacation program is /really/ broken, then there's a governor on the autoreply system as a fallback. But I wouldn't mind if someone suggested that folks using such broken vacation programs get disabled or removed automatically <wink>.
-Barry
participants (7)
-
barry＠python.org -
Chuq Von Rospach -
Dan Mick -
J C Lawrence -
Marc MERLIN -
Norbert Bollow -
Simone Piunno