[Tutor] Re: Reply to list... Re: Re: you may regret that comment Magnus!!

[Magnus Lycka]

At 20:27 2003-02-03 +0100, Michael Janssen wrote:
>Is the world that worse outside? Pine simply ask you wether it should use
>Reply-To and it's your simple task to decide. Do other MUA make the
>decision for you and carry you directly to the reply-to address when
>given? That's bad. Perhaps GUI MUAs want to avoid the click box with the
>question.

If Reply-To is set, it really means that replies should go to
that address, and not to the From address. That's the only point
of that header. It's not really intended as an option. To assume
that the responder should regularly make an optimal choice on when
to ignore the Reply-To header is probably not a good idea. I'd say
that this is a fix in pine because it's more slow and error prone
to edit addresses there than it is in let's say Eudora.

For instance in Eudora 5.2, it's enough for me to press M in the
Cc: field, and your email address pops up. I also get a drop
down box with all mail addresses that begin with M (or m) that
have occured recently. If I press Reply (or Ctrl-R) instead of
Reply-To-All, I'll just have to do Shift-Tab, Shift-Tab, T, and
tutor@python.org will appear in Cc:. If I have a more current
address starting with t, I'll have to press down-arrow once or
twice followed by enter. It's not a big effort compared to typing
letters... Copy - paste is fast as well.

I like pine, not least because it was the best mailer to use when
I checked mail from my old Nokia Communicator. It's the mailer I'll
use with a ssh/telnet/text console session on a unix machine. (Telnet
was the only really good program in that phone...) I much prefer a GUI
mailer today if I can use one though. Switching folders, browsing and
copying text from different sources etc is much faster here, despite
many years of pine use.

Anyway, regardless of what tool we use, we just have to remember
one simple rule.

   Read through the mail thoroughly before sending it. This applies
   to To:, Cc: and Subject: fields as well as to the mail body.

To do that is a way to show that we care for, and appreciate,
the other people on the list. If we don't feel like that, I
don't think we should be here. I think all people on the list
*do* feel like that, but it's easy to forget ones behaviour
sometimes, particularly when we are in a hurry.

Doing these things are much less work than the efforts we
put into describing problems and thinking out answers, so
it's certainly a reasonable thing to ask from the people on
the list.

No one is perfect, and we all make mistakes now and then.
That's ok, but I think we should all *try* to remember to hold
back when we are about to send an email by reflex. Then it's
time that we ask ourselves a few questions:

Am I really done? No typos or other mistakes? Have I read
through the whole mail properly? Is it understandable from
the perspective of the reader? Not above or below her? Am
I overly wordy? (Yes usually, but I try...)

Are the To/Cc headers correctly set?

Does the Subject header describe the essence of my question?
(If it's not a reply.)

If it _is_ a reply: Is my quoting reasonable, enough to
read my response without having the original mail on
screen, but without redundant quotations?

Etc...

Perhaps the [Send] button should have a "Are you sure" dialog
with [No] as default choice? ;)

I wonder how many people lost jobs or friends because they
mailed something that they soon after realized they shouldn't
have sent...

Here is one point to pine, and zero points to the GUI mailers.
Pine asks "Send message?", even if default is wrong ;). I think
all GUI mailers send at once as you let go of the mouse button
on the [Send] button. Actually, you can press the button, and
then think a bit before you let go... If you change your mind
you just more the mouse away from the button before you release
the button. Whatever ritual fits you best...


-- 
Magnus Lycka, Thinkware AB
Alvans vag 99, SE-907 50 UMEA, SWEDEN
phone: int+46 70 582 80 65, fax: int+46 70 612 80 65
http://www.thinkware.se/  mailto:magnus@thinkware.se