Haskell-cafe reply-to etiquette
When I joined the haskell-cafe mailing list, I was surprised to see
the "reply-to" header on each message was set to the sender of a given
message to the list, rather than the list itself. That seemed counter
to other mailing lists I had been subscribed to, but I didn't think
too much about it.
Well, the comment below prompted me to ask the question - do people
care? Personally, I like to respond to the "list", keeping discussions
open by default and reducing (potential) spam on someone's inbox. As
impersonal as email can be, it also seems a bit intrusive to write
someone directly who I don't have a prior relationship with except for
responding to some message they happened to post.
Thoughts?
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Claus Reinke
On Dec 27, 2007 3:36 PM, Justin Bailey
When I joined the haskell-cafe mailing list, I was surprised to see the "reply-to" header on each message was set to the sender of a given message to the list, rather than the list itself. That seemed counter to other mailing lists I had been subscribed to, but I didn't think too much about it.
http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html Cheers! --Tom Phoenix
* Justin Bailey wrote:
When I joined the haskell-cafe mailing list, I was surprised to see the "reply-to" header on each message was set to the sender of a given message to the list, rather than the list itself.
That's good practice.
That seemed counter to other mailing lists I had been subscribed to, but I didn't think too much about it.
Please search for "Reply-To considered harmful" and send this text to the admins of the other lists. The discussion is older than Google.
Justin Bailey wrote:
When I joined the haskell-cafe mailing list, I was surprised to see the "reply-to" header on each message was set to the sender of a given message to the list, rather than the list itself. That seemed counter to other mailing lists I had been subscribed to, but I didn't think too much about it.
In addition to agreeing with the article "Reply-To" Munging Considered Harmful, I want to remark that: A. This mailing list does not set the "Reply-To" header whatsoever. Not even to the author. When you hit "reply", the destination is taken from "From", not "Reply-To". Thus
I was surprised to see the "reply-to" header on each message was set to the sender
was inaccurate. B. This mailing list sets the "List-Post" header: List-Post: mailto:haskell-cafe@haskell.org Progressive mail clients honour this, e.g., Evolution. Thus you are given three buttons: reply -> "Reply-To" or "From" reply all -> all found addresses reply to list -> "List-Post" In my opinion this is the way to go. The semantics of "List-Post" is clear cut. The semantics of "Reply-To" is too overloaded to be relied on. I don't use Evolution - I am still at Thunderbird 1.5. It doesn't know the "List-Post" header. (But there may be plugins to add it.) But I do the little extra manual work of: reply all, then take out the author's address and just keep the list address. On the other hand, I completely don't mind receiving duplicates. In my opinion, if I choose to use dumb software, I should be the one making up for it, not ask the whole world to fudge semantics to please my dumb software. Lowest common denominators are evil.
"Albert Y. C. Lai"
B. This mailing list sets the "List-Post" header:
List-Post: mailto:haskell-cafe@haskell.org
Progressive mail clients honour this, e.g., Evolution. Thus you are given three buttons:
I'm rather tied to my MUA, and while I'm not complaining (and Gnus lets me conpensate for different practices on a list-by-list basis), it's really the list management software, mailman, that should allow individual subscribers to configure the headers. So for people unhappy with the current situation, you can either fix mailman, or, for extra credit, write a better replacement in Haskell :-) -k -- If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
Justin Bailey wrote:
When I joined the haskell-cafe mailing list, I was surprised to see the "reply-to" header on each message was set to the sender of a given message to the list, rather than the list itself. That seemed counter to other mailing lists I had been subscribed to, but I didn't think too much about it.
I agree with the other replies, only want to add that I found news.gmane.org an incredibly useful (and free) service for reading and posting to mailing lists like this one. YMMV. Cheers ben
participants (6)
-
Albert Y. C. Lai -
Ben Franksen -
Justin Bailey -
Ketil Malde -
Lutz Donnerhacke -
Tom Phoenix