Benjamin Scott wrote:
>
> On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, Derek Martin wrote:
> > Some time in the not-too-distant past, this list's reply-to field got
> > filled in with its own address.
>
> Yes, it was done at the request of <mumble> list members. The rationale was
> something like, "This is an open discussion list, so it only makes sense to
> make the default be to keep discussing things."
That may be so, but the vocal majority appears to rather dislike it at
the moment.
> I maintain that software (mis)configuration is no excuse for not checking
> the destination address of outgoing mail before you invoke the "Send"
> function. Regardless of how a mailing list operates, you should think before
> you post. :-)
Sure, in principal I agree with you 100%, but I receive often over 400
e-mails a day, and I reply to close to half of those. Aside from my
e-mail methodology being extremely habitual and practiced as a result,
manually entering addresses for people I rarely correspond with (such as
list members who post very infrequently) and therefore don't have in my
address book is very time consuming, perhaps unnecessarily so.
Plus, as has been pointed out rather often as of late, many people seem
to find it inconvenient. Besides which, there are a fair amount of new
users popping in and out here, many of which may not ever have seen or
heard of the reply-to header and would never expect that when they reply
to a post from a buddy, that it would instead end up addressed to a ton
of other people. They might even reveal embarassing details of some
recent caper they engaged in. As a result, they might be reluctant to
post to the list in the future... (You want rationalization? I can
rationalize with the best of 'em, baby!)
> > I know I'm not the only one who would like to see this reply-to behavior
> > go away...
>
> ... and there will be doubtless those who want it to stay. *sigh*
So far, Ken Koar is the only one who has indicated so. There have been
maybe ten people comment that they would like it to go...
>
> > I also think it would help improve the S/N ratio somewhat.
>
> Oh boy. Another long meta-topic thread started in the name of preserving
> the signal-to-noise ratio. ;-)
Far from it. I merely mention that it would reduce the noise, even if
only by a small margin, and that doing so is a side benefit. In general,
you are correct when you say that such threads add to the noise, but as
a community, there will always be times when we need to discuss things
that are not strictly within the community charter. While this may
constitute noise, it is atleast partly relevant to the group as a whole,
if not the subject of the list, specifically. Accidental replies to the
list which were intended for a specific recipient are pure noise,
relevant to no one other than the poster and the intended recipient,
except maybe by accident.
> On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, Bill Freeman wrote:
> > 2. It would be more convenient for me because sender's e-mail addresses
> > are often much longer than "[EMAIL PROTECTED]".
>
> Any decent mail program will offer you the option of using or ignoring the
> "Reply-To" header. :)
This is true, but often we are forced or compelled to use whatever is
made available to us (such as in the work environment), and often those
choices do not have such a feature, or if they do it's well buried below
obscure menu options and/or config file options that most people just
don't have the time or patience to wade through. Netscape and Outlook,
two very common e-mail clients, come to mind as examples of this. Eudora
too, I believe. Those are probably your top three clients. As much as
it sucks, Windows still rules the desktop.
> For example, in Pine, make sure "reply-always-uses-reply-to" is DISabled.
> This causes Pine to ask if you want to honor Reply-To headers (when present)
> for each message. Answer "No", and you are asked if you want to "Reply to all
> recipients". Answer "Yes" to that, and you get all the addresses in the
> header, which you can then edit as you please.
Yeah, pine rocks! But that's beside the point.
--
PGP/GPG Public key at http://cerberus.ne.mediaone.net/~derek/pubkey.txt
Derek D. Martin | Senior UNIX Systems/Network Administrator
Arris Interactive | A Nortel Company
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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