OFFTOPIC Re: [Mailman-Users] Archive URL in postings (2.1b3)

[J C Lawrence]

On Thu, 31 Oct 2002 10:35:01 -0600 
John Buttery <john at io.com> wrote:
> * J C Lawrence <claw at kanga.nu> [2002-10-29 19:51:03 -0800]:
>> John Buttery <john at io.com> wrote:

> Thinking that the address in the To: field is an address that the
> sender originally targeted directly may not be universal, but I think
> it's pretty close.  *shrug*

I find that most people (unofficial survey, extensive conversations,
total population probably >30, <100) pay that much attention to the
headers on list-related posts, and when they do, more or less consider
all the addresses in the headers to be the "intended destination"
without distinguishing which header is which.  Private email is a
>little< different in that people do seem to start to distinguish among
the headers, but not a whole lot.

>> One has a List-ID header, one doesn't.
>> 
>> One has an In-Reply-To that references my prior post, one doesn't.

> You're right about this, I hadn't fully thought things out before I
> said that.  However, it doesn't solve the problem of not knowing
> whether one of these list postings is the first of two duplicates, or
> just a normal posting.  

Err, the one without the List-ID is the direct mail and the one with is
the one via the list.

> Someone just posted something about the In-Reply-To: header that may
> or may not refute that part, but it's moot because your point stands
> on the List-ID: header alone.

<nods>

> True, and I take that statement back for the same reasons as above.
> :p And, of course, I was not encouraging people to post private emails
> on-list, which is a MASSIVE etiquette breach...I was just trying to
> point out a situation in which "information loss" would happen.

No worries.

Part of the background logic on all this is that the To: and Cc: headers
are actually meaningless.  Sure, most people don't know that, but I
would expect that the members of this list are very comfortable with the
fact that the To: and Cc: headers need have absolutely no relation to
the original or current message envelope.  As such they start out being
weak suggestions, not statements.  If you really want to know, and you
trust the Received: headers (which are themselves not totally
trustworthy, but that's another matter) look for destination envelope
comments in the Received: headers.

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-- 
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.