Re: [Matplotlib-users] Legend outside plot

[Christopher B. <Chr...@no...>]

Stefan van der Walt wrote:
> I don't think mailing lists should change the reply-to:
> 
> http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html

The principles in that article are sound, but the conclusions simply 
don't match my experience. I'm on a half a dozen or so lists. Some 
re-set the reply-to header, and some don't. I am very familiar with 
"reply" vs. "reply all" -- I use them selectively every day, for all my 
email.

I very frequently do NOT do what I intended with this list and others 
that don't set the reply-to header. I NEVER make a mistake or have a 
hard time with the lists that do. That's just me, but I'll address a 
couple points in that article:

"""
It Adds Nothing: "...another that replies to the author plus all of the 
list recipients..."
"""

Here's what the author is missing: "Reply All" replies to all, not just 
the group. That means I have just sent a message to the list and to the 
original author -- that author gets two copies of my message, which is 
only a minor annoyance. However, when someone responds to my response, 
now two people are on the "all" list. Then another response, and pretty 
soon I'm getting 5 copies of the same message -- now it's gone beyond 
just annoying. Add cross-posing, and it really gets ugly.

NOTE: With this particular note, reply-all only replied to the list -- 
what's different about how you send your mail?

"""
Principle of Least Surprise
"""

When I get a message from a list, I think of it being from the list, not 
from any particular author, so I am surprised when my reply goes only to 
that author. I have been bit by this many, many times.

"""
Principle of Least Damage

Consider the damage when things go awry. If you do not munge the 
Reply-To header and a list subscriber accidentally sends a response via 
private email instead of to the list, he or she has to follow up with a 
message that says, "Ooops! I meant to send that to the list. Could you 
please forward a copy for me." That's a hassle, and it happens from time 
to time.
"""

It happens a LOT, and it's not always obvious. The purpose of lists is 
to foster group communication and public archiving -- it should be 
optimized for that, not for private communication.

"""
What happens, however, when a person mistakenly broadcasts a private 
message to the entire list? I
"""
I very, very, rarely send truly private responses to list messages. It's 
not rare for me to send messages that are of little interest to the 
list, and I do send those privately, but there is no harm done if these 
get broadcast unintentionally.

"""
Guess what feature more and more people are asking for? A third reply 
command -- one that ignores any existing Reply-To header!
"""

Actually, what I would want, for lists that don't munge the reply-to, is 
a third option: one that sends the message only to the list, and not to 
"all" -- I think that's the same thing, actually, reply to only the 
sender, not the reply-to.

"""
One day I accidentally sent a private, personal reply out over one of my 
own damn lists.
"""

I don't know how many times I've seen "reply-all" accidentally used for 
a message that should have been just "reply". People do this at work 
every day, and while most of them are harmless annoyances, occasionally 
someone does send a truly personal message out that way -- oops! My 
personal solution is to get in the habit of using only "reply". That way 
I have to think about it when I want to send something out to everyone, 
not when I don't want to. If I was using "reply-all" with my list 
traffic, I'd be getting into a bad habit.

This all comes down to the key paradox of usability -- "intuitive" means 
that something works like one expects -- but different people expect 
different things, I clearly expect different things than the author of 
that article. However, here's my attempt to use logical reasoning:

Munging the reply-to header on a list makes it easier for what most 
people need to do most of the time: reply to the list, and only the list.

The ONLY significant consequence to munging the header is that someone 
MIGHT be more likely to accidentally sent out a truly personal note to 
the list. However, I argue that:

1) anyone should be very, very careful every time they send a truly 
personal email anyway -- email is a pretty risky medium for such messages.

2) Getting in the habit of hitting reply-all will make it just as likely 
to make the mistake of sending a personal note to the list, and more 
likely that you'll make that mistake with other, non-list email.


Wow, that turned out to be a long way to say:

+1 on re-setting the reply-to headers.

-Chris



-- 
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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Chr...@no...