Re: Mailing-list configuration
Nicolas George wrote:
> Now, finally, how do we achieve automation?
>
> The ideal solution would be to have a real header telling us what to do:
> "List-Reply-To: list" or "List-Reply-To: sender, list". Unfortunately, the
> people in charge of that messed it up, they invented these useless headers
> and the "list-reply-to" command instead, see conclusions #2 and #5.
Who are "the people in charge" here? The people who write the RFCs, or
the people who follow them?
Quick search seems to indicate that RFC5322 (Oct 2008)[1] is the current
RFC detailing the formatting and use of emails (note - email in general,
I did not find one specific to mailing lists, I don't doubt that there
is one, if not several). It does have an update (RFC6854, March 2013),
but that does not seem to be relevant in this case.
>
> But we can make it work anyway by abusing the Reply-To header.
>
> Note: this is really abusing the header; the header was not originally
> made for that and does not allow to express all the policies we could
> think of. But it works. For most mailing-lists, setting the Reply-To
> header correctly has exactly the wanted consequences. That is not
> entirely satisfactory, but it works.
I'm not entirely sure it's an "abuse", given § 3.6.2 of RFC5322:
| [...] The originator fields also provide the information required
| when replying to a message. When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it
| indicates the address(es) to which the author of the message suggests
| that replies be sent. In the absence of the "Reply-To:" field,
| replies SHOULD by default be sent to the mailbox(es) specified in the
| "From:" field unless otherwise specified by the person composing the
| reply.
[1] https://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5322.txt
> [snip]
The rest of this is opinion based on what I've seen in this thread, feel
free to skip over if if you like. Admittedly I'm coming to the party
late, and have probably missed more than a few mails (as this list tends
to break threads for some reason).
I can see both sides of the argument here, and really, it's an issue
that both sides will likely need to end up making some changes to their
workflow for.
That being said, it seems that the majority of the friction is between
the idea that the MUA should do everything (i.e. choose 'reply to list'
as a default if it thinks there's a list) vs. the idea that the user put
a minor amount of effort into fixing their MUA to ensure it's sending to
the list in a manner that will ensure they get what they want,
regardless of the other end.
The second option seems (from an outside perspective) to be the "better"
approach, as MUAs are not always all that good (see: webclients, etc.),
and it (more or less) ensures that you get the responses absolutely as
you want.
In addition, I feel that both parties in the original problem
(apparently Lisi and Nicolas -- please correct me if I'm wrong) each
have some fault in the matter. Mainly, this seems to stem from each of
you assuming that the other's MUA behaves similarly to your own, and
then perhaps having sent one (or several) mails that were viewed by the
other as inflammatory; even if you didn't necessarily mean it that way.
As I read the mails in this thread (and others throughout the list), my
impression of you two is that you're both knowledgable, and tend to know
the material you're commenting on well. However, your main difference
seems to be that Lisi is comparatively "newer" than Nicolas, and as such
may not have been subject to the same initial first forays into the 'net
that Nicolas has been. I could be entirely wrong though :).
What I have found - mainly in the last year to 18 months or so - is that
there is much of 'etiquitte' that has seemingly been "lost" among
people of the internet community at large. What I mean is, back when
"the internet" was a place you could only get to via a university,
rather than paying $15 per month at home on a $200 Chromebook, it was
pretty "easy" for newcomers to be introduced to the standing etiquitte.
It's not like we get an "Internet Etiquitte" packet with our welcome
packet from the ISP.
--
|_|O|_| Registered Linux user #585947
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O|
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