[ADMIN] Plea for sanity (was:Re: [Zope] Re: full-text retrieval app)

[Ed Leafe]

On Thursday, February 6, 2003, at 07:08  PM, Anthony Baxter wrote:

>>>> Ed Leafe wrote
>> 	OK, if it's that easy, why did you "choose" to send two copies of 
>> your
>> message to me? Please explain why that makes sense.
>
> Learn to use procmail:
>   FORMAIL=/usr/bin/formail
>   #       Weed out duplicates (with dup-ed msgid's)
>   #
>   :0 Wh : msgid.lock
>   | $FORMAIL -D 32768 msgid.cache

	Oh, yes, that's much better than having you simply reply to the list. 
And I'm sure that my lists will be very popular when I tell everyone to 
get their mail admins to implement that. Especially those who use 
public mail servers, or web-based systems, or (gasp!) Windows-based 
systems.

> Because it's not just "adding a Reply-To". It's replacing one that's
> already there, and removing the previous one. If that was the only
> way to communicate your real email address (for whatever reason), then
> you're hosed.

	Really? Why should changing the "Reply-to" delete the "From" header? 
Every message I receive on lists that are set to reply to the list 
contain perfectly good From headers. And even if somehow the From 
header got magically excised, a reply to the list will still reach the 
original sender, unless, of course, they unsubscribe right after 
sending that post.

	And replacing the Reply-to makes perfect sense. I'm not subscribing to 
you, I'm subscribing to the list. When I post, I post to the list. I'm 
a consultant, and I reserve individual help for clients. I make 
exceptions for support lists, since I learn a lot from them and feel it 
is only right to pay back to others in the same spirit. A post to a 
list not only helps the person who asked the question, but some other 
lurkers who might run into the same problem, as well as some future 
users who find the post in the archive. A reply sent to an individual 
helps just that person.

> This subject comes up about once every 12 months on this list, that's
> all. It's never needed changing so far - and the arguments given are
> not in the slightest bit compelling. And no, that the topic comes up
> occasionally is not an argument for it changing. There's what, a couple
> of thousand people on the list? How many are posting that they'd like
> it changed? 3 or 4?

	Howabout a few every week who ask people to keep replies on the list? 
They obviously are not happy with the default behavior.

	And I think it is pretty disingenuous to act as though the number of 
people who *don't* reply must somehow prefer the status quo. Typically, 
it's only a few loudmouths like us who do all the discussing. Most 
people, whatever their opinion, keep silent.

	I think a more objective survey would be to look at the number of 
similar support lists, and see how many of them are set up to reply to 
the list, and how many aren't. I'm currently subscribed to 11 technical 
support lists, and this is the only one that does not default to 
sending replies to the list.

	I am also amused that you find the concept of setting the default to 
the most frequently desired action to be "not in the slightest bit 
compelling". IMO, that's *all* that is needed to change things; it 
would take a tremendously persuasive argument showing some other 
benefit to change the default to the *less* used option.

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  Ed Leafe
  http://leafe.com/
  http://opentech.leafe.com