I have a solution to the munge or not to munge problem: user-definable reply-to munging. Use one address to subscribe if you want munging, and another address to subscribe if you do not want munging. This also neatly sidesteps the problem of setting a default.
The other way is on the confirmation, is to have one confirmation address for munging, the other for pristine. I think I like this better, so we only have to advertise one subscription address. We also sidestep the default issue. Is anyone interested in adding this to Mailman? ------------- We've been over this before. No new information. I doubt I will continue with this thread, after this. Or, I may if I am sufficiently motivated :) Mostly a rant, with a few good points (perhaps). You have been forewarned. Neil Schneider wrote: > John H. Robinson, IV said: > > Don't care about the failure case. That great, if nothing ever fails. However, the Real World shows us that things do fail, often spectacularly. This is why fail-safe failure cases are always desired. This is what reply-to munging lacks. > It's about user expectations. This gets into user training. > The majority of users expect to reply to the list, so munging is good. > Everything else below is just so much propoganda. You start of with a correct statement (The majority of users expect to reply to the list) then jump to a conclusion (so munging is good) without showing how not munging prevents users from replying to a list. Users can, and capable MUA's do make this easy. > > Ask yourself this, how many times have you seen private information > > gone to a public list? I've seen it many times. > > It's the user's fault, not the list. Don't blame the software for what > the user fails to do. It is about user expectation. The user expects it to go to the single recipient. It didn't because of the fail-dangerous condition of a munged list. So, do we munge to meet user expectation, or do we not munge to suit user expectation? Hmm. Conundrum. > > There is also the irretrievable lost information associated with > > Reply-To's, but since the AOLisation of the internet (a generation I > > am a part of, thank you) the Reply-To has more-or-less faded into > > obscurity. This is a very minor corner case, granted. It is still > > there. > > This has nothing to do with the "AOLisation" of the internet, and > everything about crotchity admins not wanting to change to users > expectations. Not at all. It is about the loss of information, and failure-safe modes of operation. > > Non munged lists do not suffer information loss, nor do they have > > catastrophic failure modes. > > Sending mail to the list intended for a member is not "catastrophic > failure". No, it is not. Sending mail to a list intended for a sole recipient is. This is the failure mode of a munged list. > > Munging makes bad things easy, and makes uncommon things impossible. > > Explain how this is better, please. Make sure you address the ``bad > > things being easy'' as good and ``uncommon things impossible'' as > > being good. > > You perception of uncommon is way off base. I'm on about 25 mailing > list, the majority munge headers. The majority also elected George Bush. Majorities are never wrong, are they? The uncommon case I was referring to is when a person wants a reply to an address other than a listed From: address. This is what the Reply-To header is for. I have seen it used for that, specifically in the case where one person is speaking for a group. The From: indicates the speaker, and the Reply-To: is set to the group email address. I will also note that the two part question, how ``bad things being easy'' and ``uncommon things impossible'' can be considered better, went unanswered. Personally, the majority of the mailing lists I am subscribed to fail to munge headers. The vast majority of the mungers fall into two groups: 1) yahoo groups, and 2) Mailman. > > To counter that Reply-To makes common things easy, a good MUA (mutt!) > > will differentiate between a group reply, an individual reply, and a > > list reply. Some may argue that an aggregate is the same as a unit, > > but > > I contend that those cannot tell the difference between an apple and a > > crate that has apples in it. > > Unfortunately for you, the majority of users use some version of > Outlook, so mutt is irrelevant to the majority case. What the majority of people use is not fortunate nor unfortunate to me. What they use has little to no effect upon me directly. Those lists that insist upon kowtowing to users of such inadequate software are making it my problem, however. This puts the blame squarely where it belongs: on those list admins that believe that munging is good. > > Once you have trained your muscles to use L for lists, you rarely > > make a mistake between replying to a person, or to a list. Private > > things are private, public things are public. This is a good thing. > > No such key combination in Outlook. :-) I would also be very surprised if Outlook did use mutt's keymappings. You may submit a feature request with MSFT for them to do that. I use mutt's keymapping as an example. If someone else's MUA uses different mechanism to achieve the same end, the muscle memory will accommodate said differences. -john -- KPLUG-List mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
