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Re: [Flightgear-devel] SourceForge Sourceforge policy against reply to munging
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From: Christian M. <mail@ChristianMayer.de> - 2001-10-03 09:29:46
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Hi, the header of this mail shows perfectly why Reply All isn't that bright as it seems. At least John and Alex get this mail twice (one direct and one via the mailinglist). Marc probably too. But perhaps I should start at the beginning: Marc MERLIN wrote: > > PS: discussions on reply to settings always end up in flamewars A flamewar is usually started by at least 2 positions that people have and don't want to change. The easiest way out of it is to give all of them what they want. In this case it's very easy: have the option in the admin setup - and stick to it! > and often > contain many comments from users who have never managed lists Currently I'm managing 5 lists and am subscribed to at least 15 mailinglists (wonder why they all use munging. Ah, sorry that's not right anymore, the sourceforge lists aren't) > and do not > know that much about mail headers and mail daemons in the first place. No, I haven't read the RFCs. But I'm using emails for over 6 years now. So I know at least the applied side of email although the theoretical side is a bit weak. > The URL given already contains almost all the arguments for and against, so > I have no plans answer mails arguing those points (this mail was only to > clear up the possible misunderstanding that Alex could have created) Nice. Really nice. But why does it look so much like propaganda? It's probably the history around here that tought us to react allergically to any propaganda we see. http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=6693&group_id=1: - using language/arguments that aim to be emotional: > ... effectively forcing users ... - showing non existant powers: > ... we want all the lists to behave consistently ... right, sourcefore can make all lists to behave consistently. What about the huge amount of lists on eGroups, Topica, priavtely hosted ones, ... No way mate! - trying to sound caring (being the good shepard) although creating a message that's only tyrannic: > ... can be confusing for users ... So instead of possibly confuse the poor dumb user you are FORCING everybody (including the poor dumb administrator) to work your way. - using language/arguments that aim to be emotional again and try to make those feel bad who prefere munging: > ... there are many people who are still misguided ... > ... someone even went as far as trying to counter ... Oh, that's a noughty boy!! > ... these arguments don't really hold water ... Of course not, you weren't showing a link to the answer, you were showing a link to an answer to that answer. No wonder it's not "holding water". But more to that later. The first link in your favour is "``Reply-To'' Munging Considered Harmful" at http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html: - Principle of Minimal Munging > you should not make any changes to an email header unless you > know precisely what you want to do, why you want to do it, and > what it will affect. Unless you can articulate a clear reason for > munging and understand the full consequences of the action, you > should not do it That's not hard. We want an easy way that everybody in the list sees the answer to another mail in the list. We want to do that because that's what people expect and that's how it started from the beginning on. We don't want any more messages lost just beacause people haven't noticed the change. It'll affect that everybody can use the list easily. And it'll also affect that everybody isn't getting the answers to his mails twice (one direct and one through the list) as it would happer by hitting Reply All. - It Adds Nothing No, it takes something away: the duplicated mails you get as an original author of a mail as soon as somebody responds via Reply All. That's a good thing! - It Makes Things Break / Can't Find My Way Back Home Just because your mailinglist software can't replace the Sender with the Reply-To (or you haven't switched that on) you'll loose the functionality of the Reply-To field. Right, because of someone elses limit everybody has to suffer. Especially as the amount of people who are using the Reply-To field is extremly small! - Principle of Least Work Good point! But don't stop thinking half way through! Case One: Case Two: Action Without Munging With Munging ============= ===================== ===================== Reply to Hit the "g" Probably hit the "r" everybody. key. key, but maybe the "g" AND delete the original key if there were other author from the To: recipients of the message. list. He wouldn't want the mail twice. Reply just Hit the "r" Look at the original to author. key. message header, copy, hit the "r" key, call up the header editing menu, paste. Now look at the probability for each case. The original author didn't do that, otherwise he couldn't have used that point in his favour. Most of the times you want to reply to the list. There are only a few OT things and perhaps too big attachments that wouldn't belong to the list. So with munging it's just one key, without it it would take extra work. - Principle of Least Surprise Ah, another point that works against you. Until now I haven't found a mailinglist that doesn't do mungling (you could switch it off, but I just haven't seen it in any real life list). So what does the user expect: Mungling. So give him what he expects. - Principle of Least Damage Writing a normal mail and clicking on the wrong entry in your adress book does the same. So you should allways check the To: fields before sending a mail that's not for everybody. And in that cas you should use encryption anyway. So again: just because of the own stupidity (not checking adress fiel and not using encryption) you want that everybody suffers. - 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. Hm, if that would have been the case all these mails wouldn't have been written, would they? And now to the answer that doesn't "hold water" at http://marc.merlins.org/netrants/listreplyto.txt: - I've yet to have a single person show me what harm not munging reply-to creates... As I wrote above: the original author get the answer twice (one directly and one via the list), unless the answering guy explicitly deletes the originial authors email adress from the To: fiels. And as people expect it to work with munging quite a lot of mails that are interesting for everybody (and are supposed to be for everybody) end up being lost as only the original author gets it. - Yep, the only one I know is onelist which tries to force as many traffic back to the list in order to spam you with more messages which each contain a small add they make money on. That's not an argument, that's an insult as you are trying to make Gregory Leblanc ridiculous. - *cough* bullshit *cough* Exactly the same as above. Hint: using words like that aren't very good when you try to make a competent impression. Oh, and redirection one thread to another list works very well wit munging. We've got quite a lot of experience around here with that and the Flightgear-devel, Flightgear-users and plib-devel (+ a few other) lists. - "It's What People Want" Yeah, there are misguided people out there, and they are often vocal. Users typically know nothing about mail standards or what header sender vs envelope sender means. I don't think their opinion is that relevant :-) Ok, more seriously, users do matter but if they're trained the wrong way when they start, some get very resistant to change, regardless of whether it's a good thing or not. Yeah, right. I can only hope you aren't a administrator in real life. There's one VERY important question an adminstrator should ask himself: For whom am I working? No, it's not the company. It's also not the computers. It's the people/users. So whatever you do should benefit the users. Everything else is irrelevant. When people want that - give it to them. An administrator should be administrator, because he can cope with responsibility (that's VERY hard) and doesn't need the power for his own ego. So when you don't think the opinion of the users is important you shouln't do any administration work (except for your own computers) And when you think you are moralically that superior start with helping people not to smoke, speed, drink, take drugs, .... These are important things as they kill people. Users that are resistant to change are quite unimportant in that context. Marc MERLIN wrote: > > PS: Further comments Cced to flighgear-devel will not be answered No need to. As we are most probably moving away from Sourceforge anyway - why bother? CU, Christian PS: Also sent to the PLIB list. -- The idea is to die young as late as possible. -- Ashley Montague Whoever that is/was; (c) by Douglas Adams would have been better... |