From: Sean E. <sea...@gm...> - 2007-02-02 20:12:22
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Becaues democracy only works with informed voters: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/qralston/writing/tagging-harmful/ |
From: Mark D. <ma...@ki...> - 2007-02-02 21:06:15
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On Fri, 2 Feb 2007 13:48:17 -0500, Luke Schierer wrote > On Fri, Feb 02, 2007 at 12:24:30PM -0500, Mark Doliner wrote: > > Hi! We're debating whether we should keep the short little [gaim-commits] > > header thing at the beginning of the subject line in emails sent through this > > mailing list. > > > > Could every single person on this list please go to > > http://kingant.net/gaimpoll/ > > and vote for your preference? Thanks! > > > > -Mark > > > > You aren't showing running results!! > > luke Sorry, I wrote the thing in like 15 minutes. So far 16 people prefer the full header, 14 people prefer no header and 1 person prefers the short header. -Mark |
From: Ethan B. <ebl...@cs...> - 2007-02-02 21:19:42
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Mark Doliner spake unto us the following wisdom: > Sorry, I wrote the thing in like 15 minutes. So far 16 people prefer the= full > header, 14 people prefer no header and 1 person prefers the short header. I don't see how this is up for a vote. There is an obvious and technically correct solution to this, which is to elide such headers on all mailing lists, and allow those who want them to insert them. The URL that Sean posted explains this clearly. Ethan --=20 The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy for evils]. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. -- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764 |
From: Chris S. <gai...@no...> - 2007-02-03 12:56:36
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Luke Schierer wrote: > On Fri, Feb 02, 2007 at 04:19:39PM -0500, Ethan Blanton wrote: > >> Mark Doliner spake unto us the following wisdom: >> >>> Sorry, I wrote the thing in like 15 minutes. So far 16 people prefer the full >>> header, 14 people prefer no header and 1 person prefers the short header. >>> >> I don't see how this is up for a vote. There is an obvious and >> technically correct solution to this, which is to elide such headers >> on all mailing lists, and allow those who want them to insert them. >> The URL that Sean posted explains this clearly. >> >> Ethan >> >> > > In that its a common practice, even if a less than correct. In that the > argument you and Sean posted is wrong in at least one respect. > > There are any number of people who could and would contribute useful and > even correct patches to gaim, but who could be turned off by our holding > to this practice, even though correct. While yes this ignorance, > willful or otherwise, is less than ideal, it is also beyond our ability > to cure, at least to cure in every case. > > Some of us are more concerned with finding the most pragmatic solution > than with the technically most correct one. The poll would help > determine this. > > While I tend to be persuaded by the arguments that you and Sean have > found and advanced, I really don't care. I'm just as capable as using > procmail to remove the tags as it is possible to use procmail to add > them, if they did bother me, which they mostly don't. > > If it looks like we will turn off more people from helping with gaim > than our correctness would attract, then some of us would seriously > consider putting up with the minor incorrectness. > > luke > With tags I can do a sort visually and very quickly, which will actually be based on the time I have available at that second rather than the way I felt when I wrote the rules (I only ever write email rules out of spite). I can even use the tags in webmail interfaces with no rules at all, which is pretty damn useful given the amount of time I spend in internet cafes. If you've got the access and inclination to use a rules-based system, write a rule to dump the tags. Simple. I'm more interested in the changing the reply-to issue, since I noticed yesterday that our company mailing list script does just that, and still can't decide if that's the right approach. chris |
From: Mark D. <ma...@ki...> - 2007-02-03 19:22:42
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On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 12:56:17 +0000, Chris Stafford wrote > I'm more interested in the changing the reply-to issue, since I noticed > yesterday that our company mailing list script does just that, and still > can't decide if that's the right approach. Oh I think there's much more concensus that munging the reply-to header is bad. I'm pretty sure we won't be doing that. Well, except for the Gaim-commits mailing list, where we set reply-to to gaim-devel because Gaim-commits can only be posted to by our sourceforge accounts. -Mark |
From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2007-02-03 12:29:23
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On Fri, Feb 02, 2007 at 04:19:39PM -0500, Ethan Blanton wrote: > Mark Doliner spake unto us the following wisdom: > > Sorry, I wrote the thing in like 15 minutes. So far 16 people prefer the full > > header, 14 people prefer no header and 1 person prefers the short header. > > I don't see how this is up for a vote. There is an obvious and > technically correct solution to this, which is to elide such headers > on all mailing lists, and allow those who want them to insert them. > The URL that Sean posted explains this clearly. > > Ethan > In that its a common practice, even if a less than correct. In that the argument you and Sean posted is wrong in at least one respect. There are any number of people who could and would contribute useful and even correct patches to gaim, but who could be turned off by our holding to this practice, even though correct. While yes this ignorance, willful or otherwise, is less than ideal, it is also beyond our ability to cure, at least to cure in every case. Some of us are more concerned with finding the most pragmatic solution than with the technically most correct one. The poll would help determine this. While I tend to be persuaded by the arguments that you and Sean have found and advanced, I really don't care. I'm just as capable as using procmail to remove the tags as it is possible to use procmail to add them, if they did bother me, which they mostly don't. If it looks like we will turn off more people from helping with gaim than our correctness would attract, then some of us would seriously consider putting up with the minor incorrectness. luke |
From: Ethan B. <ebl...@cs...> - 2007-02-03 22:19:53
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Luke Schierer spake unto us the following wisdom: > In that its a common practice, even if a less than correct. In that the > argument you and Sean posted is wrong in at least one respect. "Common practice" is *never* a good argument, when there is calculable downside. Many things are frighteningly common which are truly bad ideas. I am sure you can come up with an entire list. In what respect is the argument wrong? I read this email looking for it, and didn't see anything. > There are any number of people who could and would contribute useful and > even correct patches to gaim, but who could be turned off by our holding > to this practice, even though correct. While yes this ignorance, > willful or otherwise, is less than ideal, it is also beyond our ability > to cure, at least to cure in every case. There exist people who would fail to contribute to Gaim simply because we decline to munge a subject header, on the grounds that any mailreader worth using can flag mailing lists in a more intelligent way? I find that hard to believe, for one, and I'm not sure I want to deal with such people, if they do exist, for two. > Some of us are more concerned with finding the most pragmatic solution > than with the technically most correct one. The poll would help > determine this. >=20 > While I tend to be persuaded by the arguments that you and Sean have > found and advanced, I really don't care. I'm just as capable as using > procmail to remove the tags as it is possible to use procmail to add > them, if they did bother me, which they mostly don't. The URL Sean posted addresses this. Yes, I can de-munge mailing lists in procmail; however, I shouldn't have to. Personally, I find them *very* irritating, although I would not have bothered to bring it up in the first place. My mail index lists 'gaim-devel' *twice* due to those headers ... 10 characters plus 10 characters plus a few for brackets and spacing rapidly adds up to a significant portion of an 80-column display. I fail to see why I should go out of my way to make my *good* software cope with brokenness because other people have *bad* software. I can see that logic, correctness, and reason have no place in this argument, so I will cede to whatever the result is. All I can say is, it's a good thing you people don't get much email. (Or, if you do, it's a good thing you have enough free time to deal with it in such obviously poor environments.) Ethan --=20 The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy for evils]. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. -- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764 |
From: Ethan B. <ebl...@cs...> - 2007-02-03 22:22:55
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Chris Stafford spake unto us the following wisdom: > With tags I can do a sort visually and very quickly, which will actually > be based on the time I have available at that second rather than the way > I felt when I wrote the rules (I only ever write email rules out of > spite). I can even use the tags in webmail interfaces with no rules at > all, which is pretty damn useful given the amount of time I spend in > internet cafes. If you've got the access and inclination to use a > rules-based system, write a rule to dump the tags. Simple. As a point of reference, note that many mailreaders (at least, mutt, which I use) can sort or limit mailboxes on the fly using simple patterns, so there is no "[writing] email rules" involved, here. The bottom line is that many people weighing in on this issue either use massively insufficient email software, or can't be bothered to learn to use the features their email software provides. Writing a rule to dump the tags is dealt with coherently in the link that Sean posted. Imagine the state of the world if *all* policies were decided based on the lazy and ignorant, and the attitude that the competent would figure out how to cope. Ethan --=20 The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy for evils]. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. -- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764 |
From: Richard L. <rl...@wi...> - 2007-02-03 22:38:42
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On Sat, 2007-02-03 at 17:22 -0500, Ethan Blanton wrote: > As a point of reference, note that many mailreaders (at least, mutt, > which I use) can sort or limit mailboxes on the fly using simple > patterns, so there is no "[writing] email rules" involved, here. The > bottom line is that many people weighing in on this issue either use > massively insufficient email software, or can't be bothered to learn > to use the features their email software provides. I'm with Ethan all the way here. I use a GUI client that's suboptimal in many ways, but it has no problems with filtering. I do have obviously broken webmail. With it, I think I currently filter on the subject tags, since they're there, but for other lists, I filter on the list address in the To: or CC: and call it good enough, even though it may fail to filter a message here or there. As soon as my provider gets better webmail (which is my problem, as I'm the sysadmin there in charge of that project), I'll be able to use correct filters and get a 100% success rate. And, even though I use the tags right now due to the horrible server-side filtering implementation, I find them annoying. Look at this thread, for example. We've got both [Gaim-devel] and [Gaim-commits]. What a waste of space! And in any case, I highly doubt that there are people who 1) develop Gaim, 2) subscribe to gaim-commits, 3) need to be subscribed to gaim-commits for development reasons, 4) have a bad mail reader, 5) refuse to switch mail readers or work around the loss of subject tags in some other way, and 6) would stop subscribing to gaim-commits because of that, AND 7) stop developing on Gaim because they're no longer subscribed to gaim-commits. Richard |
From: Colin B. <ti...@la...> - 2007-02-04 11:51:43
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On Feb 3, 2007, at 4:56 AM, Chris Stafford wrote: > With tags I can do a sort visually and very quickly, I agree 100% here. I sort a number of mailing lists into a single directory ("Other Code"), due to it being dumb about subfolders. Tags help me visually sort messages. Suggesting people write rules to add the tags is IMO ridiculous. It is the expected case -- the VAST majority of mailing lists include tags and not seeing them probably causes confusion. Seems to me that the status quo should not have to change to the whims of the vocal minority in this case. If you don't want the tags, strip 'em. -Colin |
From: Stephen E. <spe...@gm...> - 2007-02-04 16:51:01
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On 2/4/07, Colin Barrett <ti...@la...> wrote: > On Feb 3, 2007, at 4:56 AM, Chris Stafford wrote: > > > With tags I can do a sort visually and very quickly, > > I agree 100% here. I sort a number of mailing lists into a single > directory ("Other Code"), due to it being dumb about subfolders. Tags > help me visually sort messages. > > Suggesting people write rules to add the tags is IMO ridiculous. It is > the expected case -- the VAST majority of mailing lists include tags > and not seeing them probably causes confusion. Seems to me that the > status quo should not have to change to the whims of the vocal > minority in this case. If you don't want the tags, strip 'em. The whole point of the links posted earlier is that stripping tags is just useless work. If you want tags, why don't you add them yourself, instead of having the client software add the tags, just to have them stripped again later. Plus, stripping can never be done perfectly. I voted for tags. Then I read the links and got convinced otherwise. Really, it was just my own ignorance getting in the way. Stephen |
From: John B. <rek...@re...> - 2007-02-04 17:52:49
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Richard Laager wrote: > And, even though I use the tags right now due to the horrible > server-side filtering implementation, I find them annoying. Look at this > thread, for example. We've got both [Gaim-devel] and [Gaim-commits]. > What a waste of space! As I mention below, the tags aren't an issue I have an opinion on. I will, however, agree that replies from one list to another needlessly waste a lot of subject line space for no benefit at all. > And in any case, I highly doubt that there are people who 1) develop > Gaim, 2) subscribe to gaim-commits, 3) need to be subscribed to > gaim-commits for development reasons, 4) have a bad mail reader, 5) > refuse to switch mail readers or work around the loss of subject tags in > some other way, and 6) would stop subscribing to gaim-commits because of > that, AND 7) stop developing on Gaim because they're no longer > subscribed to gaim-commits. > > Richard If nothing else, I agree with this statement whole-heartedly. Personally I don't particularly care either way on the tags issue. I, too, use a GUI mail client (Icedove, to be specific), and currently I am filtering based on the tags. It is, however, trivial for me to modify my filters appropriately to deal with the subjects without tags. Modifying these filters would also prevent the occasional false positive I have seen in the past when someone replies to a gaim-commits message and it lands here on the development list. I should have done this ages ago, but I am inherently lazy and change working things only when I have to or when I am irritated by their ugliness. What I would advocate a change in, though, is something I'm sure I will be berated for--the default reply address. I don't particularly care if someone is on the list or not; if I want to use e-mail to converse with a specific person on a mailing list subject, I can do that directly. What I do care about, however, is that the mailing list receives my reply. The default behavior of replying to the sender is irritating at best, and I won't delve any deeper into my personal opinion than is strictly necessary here. The "Reply All" solution is suboptimal for two reasons--either 1) sender and list both receive copy, which in my case guarantees I needlessly receive two copies of the same message; or 2) manual intervention is required *every* time to ensure that only the list receives the reply, as I just did. John -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFxh1sBWJH/emdNtsRAhuVAJ92fZl/28SLw2sS60t2dq9ZqzZIrACfQpiI jr+5kVCbV7ThWlUk5BLwz4c= =WvEZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
From: Ethan B. <ebl...@cs...> - 2007-02-04 18:05:24
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John Bailey spake unto us the following wisdom: > What I would advocate a change in, though, is something I'm sure I will be > berated for--the default reply address. I don't particularly care if som= eone is > on the list or not; if I want to use e-mail to converse with a specific p= erson > on a mailing list subject, I can do that directly. What I do care about, > however, is that the mailing list receives my reply. The default behavio= r of > replying to the sender is irritating at best, and I won't delve any deepe= r into > my personal opinion than is strictly necessary here. The "Reply All" sol= ution > is suboptimal for two reasons--either 1) sender and list both receive cop= y, > which in my case guarantees I needlessly receive two copies of the same m= essage; > or 2) manual intervention is required *every* time to ensure that only th= e list > receives the reply, as I just did. 1) The sender should not receive two copies, as both copies of the message will have the same Message-Id. Many systems perform this de-duplication automatically, but for those which do not (it sounds like yours may not), you may find the following procmail recipe useful: :0hW: msgid.lock *^Message-Id: | formail -D 8192 msgid.cache 2) Many mail clients, when informed of the presence of a mailing list, offer a reply-to-list feature; for example, by default, this is bound to 'L' in mutt (if my fingers remember correctly). My mailreader offers reply-to-sender, reply-to-list, and reply-to-all as distinct features. The only time I need to edit To/Cc lines manually is when I wish to reply to some (computationally) arbitrary subset of the current recipients, or when a message is sent to more than one mailing list to which I am subscribed (requiring some disambiguation). You might look to see if your mailer also has some similar feature. The point of the reply-to document URL which has been floating around this thread is that the Reply-To: header breaks the above functionality; the reply-to header was created for a specific purpose, and as such cannot just be arbitrarily ignored by an email client. This means that, when abused by a mailing list, the above reply-to-sender feature which my mailreader supports is reduced to reply-to-list, removing one useful option from my tools. This, as the subject line debate, comes down to good tools -- those who have poor tools wish to force suboptimal behavior upon those who have better tools, because they do not understand the tradeoffs involved and are not concerned about others. Ethan --=20 The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy for evils]. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. -- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764 |
From: Richard L. <rl...@wi...> - 2007-02-04 18:50:03
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On Sun, 2007-02-04 at 13:05 -0500, Ethan Blanton wrote: > 1) The sender should not receive two copies, as both copies of the > message will have the same Message-Id. Many systems perform this > de-duplication automatically, but for those which do not (it sounds > like yours may not), you may find the following procmail recipe useful: I should also note that I've done this in a workaround sort of way with dumb mail clients for years. It takes a little more work, but that's a trade-off of using a bad mail client (which I use for other reasons). Also, Mailman offers the option to not send you a message via the list if you were also in the To: or CC: line. You should go turn this option on if you 1) don't want duplicates and 2) can't do it locally for some reason. This does have the disadvantage that I could list you in the To: or CC: but NOT actually list you as a RCPT with the SMTP server, so you wouldn't get the message at all. However, without someone being deliberately malicious, that's not going to happen, and everyone else on the list will see it (including the archives). I used to think Reply-To munging and Subject tagging were good ideas. They're not. Richard |
From: James L. <bjl...@lo...> - 2007-02-05 04:55:14
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Richard Laager wrote: > On Sun, 2007-02-04 at 13:05 -0500, Ethan Blanton wrote: > >> 1) The sender should not receive two copies, as both copies of the >> message will have the same Message-Id. Many systems perform this >> de-duplication automatically, but for those which do not (it sounds >> like yours may not), you may find the following procmail recipe useful: >> > > I should also note that I've done this in a workaround sort of way with > dumb mail clients for years. It takes a little more work, but that's a > trade-off of using a bad mail client (which I use for other reasons). > > Also, Mailman offers the option to not send you a message via the list > if you were also in the To: or CC: line. You should go turn this option > on if you 1) don't want duplicates and 2) can't do it locally for some > reason. This does have the disadvantage that I could list you in the To: > or CC: but NOT actually list you as a RCPT with the SMTP server, so you > wouldn't get the message at all. However, without someone being > deliberately malicious, that's not going to happen, and everyone else on > the list will see it (including the archives). > > I used to think Reply-To munging and Subject tagging were good ideas. > They're not. > > Richard I use ReplyToAll and then delete the non-list address or Reply and then change to the list address. I don't find it inconvenient. I am an ALOT of mailing lists and they do it both ways. |
From: Sean E. <sea...@gm...> - 2007-02-04 21:13:28
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On 2/4/07, Colin Barrett <ti...@la...> wrote: > Suggesting people write rules to add the tags is IMO ridiculous. It is > the expected case -- the VAST majority of mailing lists include tags > and not seeing them probably causes confusion. Seems to me that the > status quo should not have to change to the whims of the vocal > minority in this case. If you don't want the tags, strip 'em. You assume it's a minority who doesn't want their subjects messed with. In fact, isn't the whole purpose behind this thread to *see* which is the minority? Mark hasn't shared the results of his poll since Friday, but even then "[gaim-commits]" subjects were winning with only the *slightest* majority (literally just one person). Since then, a lot of strong arguments have been made against commits headers, so that number could have dropped to under 50%. Want to show us an update, Mark? The other glaring problem with your argument, as well as the whole *notion* of putting this up to a vote (I'm still a bit wtf'ed about that) is that it attempt to reduce the question to binary, whereas it seems clear to me from reading this thread that the inconvenience suffered by those who don't want their mail tagged, exceeds the convenience gained by those who do want it. This is something not accounted for in a yes or no vote. -s. |
From: Chris S. <gai...@no...> - 2007-02-04 21:24:44
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Sean Egan wrote: > On 2/4/07, Colin Barrett <ti...@la...> wrote: > >> Suggesting people write rules to add the tags is IMO ridiculous. It is >> the expected case -- the VAST majority of mailing lists include tags >> and not seeing them probably causes confusion. Seems to me that the >> status quo should not have to change to the whims of the vocal >> minority in this case. If you don't want the tags, strip 'em. >> > > You assume it's a minority who doesn't want their subjects messed > with. In fact, isn't the whole purpose behind this thread to *see* > which is the minority? Mark hasn't shared the results of his poll > since Friday, but even then "[gaim-commits]" subjects were winning > with only the *slightest* majority (literally just one person). Since > then, a lot of strong arguments have been made against commits > headers, so that number could have dropped to under 50%. > > Want to show us an update, Mark? > > The other glaring problem with your argument, as well as the whole > *notion* of putting this up to a vote (I'm still a bit wtf'ed about > that) is that it attempt to reduce the question to binary, whereas it > seems clear to me from reading this thread that the inconvenience > suffered by those who don't want their mail tagged, exceeds the > convenience gained by those who do want it. This is something not > accounted for in a yes or no vote. > And actually I've changed my mind - I wasn't paying attention to the fact that it was gaim-commits that was being discussed -- I'm not even subscribed :-) , but even if I was the extremely standard format of the message subjects and totally consistent sender makes tagging rather redundant. chris |
From: Mark D. <ma...@ki...> - 2007-02-05 00:25:39
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On Sun, 4 Feb 2007 13:13:27 -0800, Sean Egan wrote > Want to show us an update, Mark? Sure. When multiple votes came from the same IP address, the last vote was the one that counted. 5 votes for [commits] 30 votes for no header 36 votes for [Gaim-commits] I was expecting an overwhelming majority to vote for [Gaim-commits]. Like, 90%. But since that didn't happen, and I agree that not munging the header is technically more correct, we should remove that header sometime. My intention of having a poll wasn't exactly to let the masses decide if we should have a header or not. It was more because I was curious to know which way people preferred. I had a feeling that a huge majority would vote for the full header, and if that were the case then I think it would be absolutely ridiculous for us remove something that so many people want (even if they want it because they're ignorant). -Mark |
From: Sean E. <sea...@gm...> - 2007-02-02 20:13:56
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On 2/2/07, Sean Egan <sea...@gm...> wrote: > Becaues democracy only works with informed voters: > http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/qralston/writing/tagging-harmful/ That might make totally no sense to the people on this list, which brings up: http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html :) If you don't know what this is about, you can ignore it ;) -s. |
From: David B. <Dav...@he...> - 2007-02-04 16:06:45
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From: gai...@li... on behalf of Sean Egan On 2/2/07, Sean Egan <sea...@gm...> wrote: > Becaues democracy only works with informed voters: > http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/qralston/writing/tagging-harmful/ That might make totally no sense to the people on this list, which brings up: http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html :) If you don't know what this is about, you can ignore it ;) MY REPLY (stupid outlook....): =20 And if you know, you can ignore it even more ;-) =20 About the title, I alsothing that "Re: [Gaim-devel] [Gaim-commits] A = quick poll about Gaim mailing list" is ... stupid. =20 Regards, David |