On Fri, Aug 08, 2003 at 10:18:47AM +0100, Andrew Savory wrote:
On Thu, 7 Aug 2003, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:Not a committer, but -1 for the following reasons:
-1 me too!
I am using Mutt, which ahs no problems with mailing lists and i have now the problems which you described below ..
I think that was two -1's with many +1's in the list ...
# It violates the principle of minimal munging.
Sorry, don't know what that is.
# It provides no benefit to the user of a reasonable mailer.\
Talking on a list (by default) is talking to the entire group. The Reply button uses the Reply-To, so the default option is the correct one.
By contrast, sending a mail to an individual is still very easy; use 'Reply All' (or whatever) and delete the mailing list address.
# It limits a subscriber's freedom to choose how he or she will direct a
response.
It's still possible to send it only to the originator, using the technique described above or cut'n'paste for the address. Failing that, typing the address manually is also a possibility, so it doesn't limit freedom. It just changes the default.
# It actually reduces functionality for the user of a reasonable mailer.
Reasonable mailers have cut'n'paste and Reply All as described above.
# It removes important information, which can make it impossible to get
back to the message sender.
It doesn't remove any information; you can still do Reply All where necessary.
# It penalizes the person with a reasonable mailer in order to coddle those running brain-dead software.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. My mailer may not be brain dead, but it certainly works in the way I expect it to.
# It violates the principle of least work because complicates the procedure for replying to messages.
Replying to a discussion group should go to the list, not the individual person. After all, you're subscribed to the list, aren't you?
# It violates the principle of least surprise because it changes the way a
mailer works.
Reply-To is specifically defined for replying to a list. Mailers use it, because that's the way they work. Granted, that when a user hasn't come across it before then they may not be expecting it, but just because it is unexpected doesn't mean that it's changed it :-)
# It violates the principle of least damage, and it encourages a failure
mode that can be extremely embarrassing -- or worse.
Surely, only for messages that don't belong on a group discussion anyway?
# Your subscribers don't want you to do it. Or, at least the ones who have
bothered to read the docs for their mailer don't want you to do it.
Personally I got the impression that there were more 'yays' than 'nays' in the group. Don't know if that was the case, but I only recalled seeing two individual's -1 votes.
http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html
A good description of some of these disadvantages (largely cut and pasted into the original message).
I suspect that there are some mailing lists where the preferable mode is to reply to individuals (for example, the *.forsale.* newsgroups spring to mind). But a mailing list which is actually a discussion list should be in the open, and the default behaviour should be to discuss ideas in the open.
Hopefully, but putting together e-mails and discussing both pros and cons, and letting the others read through them, is the best way to achieve a consensus for a development group. Therefore I concur with the Reply-To feature.
If you want to bring up any of these issues and discuss them with the group, reply to this message and it will go through. If you want to bring up any issues with me personally, then use the Reply to All/Reply to Group feature and delete the geronimo-dev address.
Regards,
Alex.
