Date : Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:39:47 +0100
From : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: Who the message is from...
Kevin Bracey wrote:
> I've just joined the list today,
An (ex)Acornite! Hi, welcome!
> and it looks perfectly configured to me. So admins - please don't
mess with it!
Ooooh, you can tell he's new. :-)
[snip explanation]
> This sort of thing comes up periodically on mailing lists from people
> who are having troubles with their e-mail client, but all the
> alternatives to this correct configuration are worse.
Now, for another point of view. Technical issues and header lines aside,
the *LOGICAL* behaviour is to click REPLY to REPLY TO THE MAILING LIST.
Any variance from that is odd and bizarre and objectively demotes the
intent of the list. I mean, what is the sense behind "Here's your
messages, but we'll make it real easy for you to NOT reply to the list".
It's a mailing list, right? Like a little private forum. Not a 1-to-1
dating service!
> Your suggestion, in particular, would make it hard to send private
replies,
As opposed to the current where it is hard to send to the mailing list?
That's good how?
As for private replies, that is what signatures are for. Don't bother
quoting my lack of an email address, given current setup I don't think
there is any point quoting it.
> and probably cause embarrassing cock-ups.
Ooooh, I think the risk of responding to a private message publically is
much greater. What if the following happened:
[Pub ] Mr. X (to list) : Blah blah blah, yack yack.
[Priv] Mr. Y (to Mr. A): Oh god, X is SUCH a pr*ck, he knows nothing.
[Pub ] Mr. A (to list) : Absolutely!
A's fault is not knowing Y sent the message privately, thus exposing
something to X which was probably best kept secret. At least X and Y
will now be at odds with each other because of A's unintentional mistake.
> A good e-mail client like Messenger Pro will present a mailing list
> pretty much exactly as a Usenet newsgroup, and it functions like one.
But, then, with Usenet clicking Reply replies to the group. Not privately.
> But that relies on the list not mucking around with From and Reply-To
> headers.
What is wrong with:
From: Rick <rs@...>
Reply-To: <bbc-micro@...>
It also exposes both group and private addresses, though whether the
email client will permit you to pick is a matter of implementation.
If this isn't viable, then what's the point of Reply-To? Read RFC822,
and I will quote, specifically:
--8<--------
A somewhat different use may be of some help to "text message
teleconferencing" groups equipped with automatic distribution
services: include the address of that service in the "Reply-
To" field of all messages submitted to the teleconference;
then participants can "reply" to conference submissions to
guarantee the correct distribution of any submission of their
own.
--8<--------
Sounds like what we need, does it not?
> Here's a web page on the topic of mailing list configuration:
> http://woozle.org/~neale/papers/reply-to-still-harmful.html
Interesting that the author of this document says "These standards are
not written flippantly, they are carefully crafted in such a way as to
ensure everything on the Internet works as smoothly as possible." [*],
yet seems to gloss over the fact that the earlier RFC, carefully
crafted, suggested this very purpose as an issue for the Reply-To. You
can refer to a newer RTC all you want, but there's a lot of code out
there that will be written to the older one. Oh, and its an RFC, NOT a
standard. There was an RFC pointing out the difference, but I last read
that in 2001... unless it too has been obsoleted. :-)
* - on a related note of standards bashing, I like how everybody in the
media is calling the use of non-latinised characters in web addresses
the biggest change the internet has seen in a long time. Sure, I guess
it helps accessibility to permit Chinese people to go online with their
ideographs instead of typing out stuff in an alien writing system, but I
do wonder what effect this will have on pretty much all the older
computers still in use. If www.rukia-kuchiki.jp decides to go to Kana,
how would that end up looking on, say, RISC OS?
But my classic all out favourite. IPv6. Yay! Let's devise a new system
that is so totally incompatible with the existing IP system that
practically NOBODY is going to be interested, even though the current
estimates of IP(v4) address exhaustion are better quoted in months as
using years gives very small numbers!
Best wishes,
Rick.
--
Rick Murray, eeePC901 & ADSL WiFI'd into it, all ETLAs!
BBC B: DNFS, 2 x 5.25" floppies, EPROM prog, Acorn TTX
E01S FileStore, A3000/A5000/RiscPC/various PCs/blahblah...
>> TO PRIVATE MAIL ME, REMOVE [BBC-Micro] FROM SUBJECT <<