About once every six months I come across a rant about whether reply-to munging
is considered harmful. Then all the same arguments will come out over and over
again and people will flame and ... it's all been done before, get over it.
One week it emerged simultaneously on three seperate mailing lists that I'm on
so I've collated some of the stuff I said and it means I can just point people
at this.
Laziness, impatience, hubris etc etc.
<rants>
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [foo] Lack of posts
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 16:08:43 +0000
From: Simon Wistow <simonw@digimob.com>
To: metasyntactic
Mark Collins wrote:
>
> Leon, set up automatic reply-tos :/
We've had this discussion with him before. In fact we've had this
discussion about having a discussion before. He now just leaves it up to
me to argue both his side and my side.
He will quote 'Reply To munging considered harmful' which can be found
at http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html. I will
point out to him this document is bollocks.
The main statements it makes are ...
o "It violates the principle of minimal munging."
Well, can't argue against that. Although I think the uses outweigh the
principle.
o "It provides no benefit to the user of a reasonable mailer."
What mailer? I use Netscape which makes it a pain in the arse. But
Netscape isn't a decent mailer you'll say. Ok. Pine. Pine has, IIRC a
Reply and a 'Reply To All' capability. I believe Mutt is the same? How
does non munging help here?
o "It limits a subscriber's freedom to choose how he or she will direct
a response."
Bollocks. Not even worth replying to it's so untrue.
o "It actually reduces functionality for the user of a reasonable mailer."
Again, bollocks. In what way does it do this?
o "It removes important information, which can make it impossible to get
back to the message sender."
Bollocks.
o "It penalizes the person with a reasonable mailer in order to coddle those
running brain-dead software."
What mailer? Put it this way. How many times are you replying to a list and you
actually want to reply to a person individually. 1 in 10? 1 in 50? So
non-munging helps in those cases. Whereas munging helps in the other 9 or 49
depending on how concillitory you're being.
o It violates the principle of least work because complicates the procedure
for replying to messages.
See above.
o It violates the principle of least surprise because it changes the way a
mailer works.
Not true. You are in genrral reply-ing to the list. Not to the individual
person.
o It violates the principle of least damage, and it encourages a failure
mode that can be extremely embarrassing -- or worse.
Hmmm. Fair enough I suppose. But I've more often replied to a mail and
then gone back to repost it to the list.
o 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.
Subjective you honour. The prosecution is leading.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: (void) words and memory
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 15:12:04 +0000
From: Simon Wistow <simonw@digimob.com>
To: xxx@xxx.org
"Randal L. Schwartz" wrote:
> It's not Eudora, it's the list, with the evil "reply-to" set, unless
> you're subscribed to void-pure.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.
What is with this week? This is the third mailing list this has come up
on in 2 days.
This is how the thread will go. People will quote 'Reply To munging considered
harmful' which can be found at http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html.
I will point out to him this document is bollocks. I used to have a standard
mail which I sent out to this but this (http://www.metasystema.net/essays/reply-to.mhtml)
covers most of it.
Then I'll be all concillatory and say - "what the fsck". Just give people a
choice. Which (void) does. So that's OK then.
There, flame war started and stopped all within one post. All sides are
covered. A reasonable compromise is achieved. Nobody is upset. Nobody
unsubs. Phew.
Let's go for Jelly and Icecream.
Simon
[having a bad day]
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: (ex-void) words and memory
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 18:09:00 +0000
From: Simon Wistow
To: Robert Jones
Robert Jones wrote:
> Bah, that document is bollocks.
No more so than the original.
> Of course, inconsistency is the worst possible solution to the
> problem, so the only fair way to handle the issue without possibly damaging
> mail sent by people is to not touch the Reply-To header. Argument solved.
But if a post comes to the list you want to reply to the list. Not to
the original person. A mailing list is like a Usenet group. People never
had any problem with munging of reply-to on Usenet so why do they have a
problem now?
Ack. Had this argument too many times over the last few days. I think
(void)'s got it right - let people have a choice.
Simon
</rants>