[Mailman-Users] B4 changed the To: line?

[Chuq Von Rospach]

On Wednesday, October 30, 2002, at 08:26  AM, Don Cooley wrote:

>  What sees
> to be forgotten is that our lists serve PEOPLE and people who, by and
> large, have little experience with lists.  What seems to be clear to 
> the
> experts here can be absolutely confusing to the members of our lists.
> (I have 3800 members on various prostate cancer lists so it tends to be
> old men.)

excuse me for being offended, but...

What gives you the right to claim that because you don't like our 
decisions, the folks involved in these decisions haven't considered the 
needs of the user? And what gives you the authority to speak for "the 
users" whatever in the hell that is? your 3800 members?

if we're speaking from the size of our user-bases, the sites I run are 
larger than yours by about a factor of 25x. I've been running and 
building stuff like this for 20 years now.

Why do you think you're suddenly more qualified than myself, or JC, or 
Barry, or the folks who's spent the last year or so sweating out these 
details trying to get 2.0 to 2.1? I find your attitude really arrogant 
here, Don.

Disagree with us? fine. want to persuade us? great. In case you haven't 
noticed, we've been sitting here listening and thinking over what 
people have been saying. But to pull out this "I am the mystical 
master, and I'm channelling the REAL OPINIONS of the USERS, and you 
ivory tower creeps just don't get it" -- I'm offended. you just really 
screwed the chances of you convincing me of your position with this 
crap.

> When I send an email I assume it goes out the way I sent it.

good for you. wanna know what the TYPICAL user wants? He wants things 
to work the way they expect it. one reason the headers got re-arranged 
is because when people do things like Bcc: the list, or re-arrange to 
and Cc and stuff, or start throwing reply-tos on things, or anything 
other than the 'default' behaviors, stuff doesn't act as expected for 
these typical users, and they don't have a chance to understand why. By 
regularlizing the headers, one reason to do it was to FIX THINGS FOR 
THE USERS -- by making sure that when they take an action, it does what 
THEY expect it to do, not what people who muck around with headers like 
you try to force them to do.

In other words, we're protecting the typical user from the non-typical 
user, whether they're doign something fancy because they like it, or 
because they're a jerk and trying to play games with the people on the 
list. By standardizing how the headers are sent out, the list server 
creates a standard, consistent interaction with users, and gets rid of 
the random chaos that shows up today when folks play with the headers.

don't try to pull this "i really know the users" crap on me. I've spent 
more time talking to users about how lists ought to run in my career 
than most people on this list will ever spend on ANYTHING having to do 
with e-mail. You don't have a clue what users really want, and I don't 
appreciate the way you're trying to foist off your personal agenda 
through these "users".

Thank you for deciding what the right answer is BEFORE studying the 
issue, and then not listening to any data that doesn't fit your idea of 
how things ought to be. Fortunately, the mailman developers aren't like 
that.

Now I'm going to go shut up and get real work done, before I say 
something really inflammatory.

Feel free to take a return shot at me. you've earned one, and I'm 
dropping it after this rant. we now return the list to it's normal 
operations... (sorry, barry...)


-- 
Chuq Von Rospach, Architech
chuqui at plaidworks.com -- http://www.plaidworks.com/chuqui/blog/

The first rule of holes: If you are in one, stop digging.


-- 
Chuq Von Rospach, Architech
chuqui at plaidworks.com -- http://www.plaidworks.com/chuqui/blog/

Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties
are largely ceremonial.