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

[Chris McDonough]

Ed, I'd give up, were I you.  Though your arguments aren't groundless,
the list reply-to policy is almost certainly not going to change unless
you get a job with Zope Corporation and pick up the list admin duties,
as there are some good counter arguments and inertia reigns. ;-)

On Fri, 2003-02-07 at 10:48, Ed Leafe wrote:
> 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.
> 
>       ___/
>      /
>     __/
>    /
>   ____/
>   Ed Leafe
>   http://leafe.com/
>   http://opentech.leafe.com
> 
> 
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