[NCLUG] users only

Mike Loseke mike at verinet.com
Wed May 29 08:54:50 MDT 2002


Thus spake Matthew Wilcox:
> 
> On Wed, May 29, 2002 at 07:55:44AM -0600, Mike Loseke wrote:
> >  Personally, I find the current setting of not setting the Reply-to header
> > to the list to be the pain in the arse. Instead of hitting "reply" I have
> > to do "reply to all" which is an alien function to my hands after, good
> > lord, how many years on this list? I just see it causing more confusion and
> > missed posts because someone did a quick reply and it only went to the
> > single recipient.
> 
> no other list i'm on munges the reply-to header in this way.
> have you read http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html

 Yes, I have, and I must say, opinions are a wonderful thing. But basically
it's just 6 of one, half a dozen of another.

 I agree with the idea that list traffic should, by default, go to the
list. This is, afterall, a forum for open discussion. If this were an
announce list or moderated then I'd be of the opposite opinion, both from
a user and an administrator position. One of the drawbacks to having to do
a group reply is that the author gets two copies. Peachy. Unless you edit
the headers everytime.

 I've been on high-traffic lists in the past, on which there was a huge
amount of back and forth between many people. The number of messages in a
day would often exceed 400. If those lists were setup like this one is now,
you can imagine the backlash from people getting multiple messages of that
volume all day long? Reply to a thread once and you're doubled up for the
life of it.

 And yes, the author of the page you reference makes a good point about
the pros and cons of hitting 'r' or 'g' in elm (which I do in fact use and
have for the better part of 10 years), but in reality all it is is a HOWTO
on how to re-address a message when certain policies are in place and a
discussion of the pros and cons. I gladly trade off having to rewrite the
to: header every once in awhile (and have done so for years) should I wish
only the author to see the reply in order to just hit 'r' and send it to
the list without doubling up delivery to the sender (and their CC's).  I'd
rather be informed than "coddled" by the list to prevent me from
embarrassing myself. My self esteem is high enough that I can take the
hit.

-- 
   Mike Loseke    | A Buddhist monk walks up to a hotdog stand
 mike at verinet.com | and says:   "Make me one with everything."



More information about the NCLUG mailing list