Date   : Tue, 31 Jul 2001 02:13:11 +0100
From   : jgh@... (Jonathan Graham Harston)
Subject: Re: List Admin (Was: VIKING COLLECTION DISC)

Mike Tomlinson <mike@...> wrote:
> In article <20010714134506.K12450@...>, James
> Fidell <james@...> writes
> 
> >Is this some sort of Microsoft-ism?  I've never used a Windows e-mail
> >client, so I've no idea.
> 
> Must be.  Turnpike handles it properly and asks if you want to post to
> the list or send a private email.
 
No, it's a reality-ism.
 
If the incoming message only has one indication of where it came from,
then regardless of what names you assign to the actions, there can only be
one action that issues a message back to it's source.  Put another way,
all the methods of responding to the message can only do the same action,
as there is only one indication of where it came from.
 
So, if the incoming message only has a From: header, then regardless of
what you call the actions, any response can only go back to one place.
 
If the incoming message has more than one indication of where it can from,
eg a From: header and a Reply-To: header, then, whatever name you assign
to the actions, there can be more than one destination of a response.
 
(Remember, this is a mail list, not a newgroup, so there's no Newsgroups:
header.)
 
Nowadays, most people appear to blindly hit "reply" in some manner or
other without thinking, so it makes a sort of sense for a mailing lists to
provide a Reply-To: header that specifies the most appropriate destination
for a response to a mailing list message to go to.  For the BBC mailing
list this would be to the mailing list itself.
 
With a From: header and a Reply-To: header, there really should be two
actions: "Reply to author" and "Reply to all/group/list/etc."  There
shouldn't be any function simply labelled "Reply".
 
Unfortunately, whatever the actions are labelled, people get used to using
one and tend to stop thinking about using the other.  Maybe if the actions
were labelled "Private reply (to author)" and "Public reply (to all)"
users would understand what the actions did, but unfortunately, we hit the
"must keep labels brief" brick wall.
 
-- 
J.G.Harston (JGH BBC PD Library) 70 Camm Street, Walkley, SHEFFIELD S6 3TR
jgh@...                - Running on BBCs & Masters with SJ MDFS FileServer
Z80+6502/CoPro+Tubes/Econet+SJ - - - - - - - http://www.mdfs.net/User/JGH/
 Never, ever, EVER, *EVER*, *E*V*E*R* use an apostrophe to make a plural