So you want a reply-to revolution?

So you want a reply-to revolution?

[Jason Molenda]

I went to the Silicon Valley Linux Users Group last night to hear about
Bitkeeper (a cvs type program being written by Larry McVoy).  After the
talk, Nathan Myers cornered me and got very animated about the mailing
list set-up on sourceware+egcs where no Reply-To: header was set.

To summarize his rant, Nathan thinks that the Reply-To: should be set to
the list address, and if the sender specified their own Reply-To:, the
value of that header should be included in addition to the list addr.

His beef is that if he is Cc:'ed on something, he gets the Cc copy as
well as a copy through the list.  He says that this bothers him enough 
(``I get 40-50 mail notes because I sent just one note!'') that he won't
post any more.

Well, you all know how I can get.  My reaction was akin to, "Like I care."

Marc Rovner was there and started harping on how the Reply-To should be
set to the mailing list because people forget to Cc the list on replies
to things, so messages get lost.  He sees mailing lists as a bastardized
version of a newsgroup, and so all posts should go to the group by
default.  If people want to send a direct reply, they can do it by hand.

---

I personally hate lists that set the Reply-To to the list by default.
It annoys me to no end when I jot off a quick note and it goes to the
whole list.  I have two buttons in my mail reader, a "reply" key and a
"group reply" key.  I use them correctly.  As for the duplicate messages
that Nathan despises, my mail reader also features a "delete" key.

I realize my use of these keys may be abnormally sophisticated--I can
understand that some people may not have mastered the subtleties of the
"delete" key--but I prefer to assume that the list participants have a
modicum of intelligence and can use these three features of their mail
user agent correctly. [insert your own Cygwin users joke here]

I do hate getting duplicate mail notes when someone send a message to a
list and to me directly, but I don't see any way the list software can do
much about that (well, without setting a Reply-To anyway).  My MUA could
collapse messages with duplicate message-ids, I suppose, but I've never
heard of any that do that.  Maybe some clever procmail-isms could be used.

---

In any event, I'm in an especially benevolent czar, so I'm willing to
let list admins make up their own mind.  If you want, I can configure
any of your mailing lists so that the Reply-To: always points to the
mailing list.  

I can't easily implement the "reply-to set to list addr plus any original
reply-to that the sender specified" behavior.  I could do it by modifying
ezmlm, of course, but I have no interest in implementing this so you can
guess how fast it will get done.  So all you can get is the "Reply-To
set to list addr" setup.


So if you want a Reply-To affixed to the mail notes in your list, just
let me know and I'll make it so.

Jason // Sourceware Czar
         Free the Software!

PS-  The new sourceware box has arrived!  It is sitting down in sysadmin.
Shawn The Great says that he'll try to get the basic OS installed
this week.  We're still a ways off from migrating over, but it's slowly
moving along.

Re: So you want a reply-to revolution?

[Andrew Cagney]

The current behavour broken - you need to add an ``Errors-to:'' line
that points back at the mailing list ...

	Andrew :-)

Re: So you want a reply-to revolution?

[Jason Molenda]

On Thu, Aug 05, 1999 at 07:39:43PM +1000, Andrew Cagney wrote:
> The current behavour broken - you need to add an ``Errors-to:'' line
> that points back at the mailing list ...


I know you're joking, but in case anyone is curious, the vast majority
of all mailer errors are handled automatically by ezmlm (the mailing
list manager).  If someone's mail is undeliverable, ezmlm records what
mail notes were not delivered, and sends a probe message after 10 days.
After three probe messages (~25 days), the person is automatically
unsubscribed from the list.  If their address starts working again
before that, they get a nice little note from ezmlm telling them which
mail notes they missed and how to get a copy of them.

I set the Sender: address on all mailing lists to be
LISTNAME-owner@sourceware (to ease filtering more than anything).
Occasionally a weird mailer out there will send its bounce to this Sender:
addr, and it ends up in my mailbox.  Being the impatient monarch that
I am, I always unsubscribe any e-mail address that is bouncing to the
Sender address (me, for all mailing lists except's Jeff's EGCS lists)
immediately.  This does not happen very often.


Jason

Re: So you want a reply-to revolution?

[Jeffrey A Law]

  In message < 19990805015318.A19960@cygnus.com >you write:
  > I personally hate lists that set the Reply-To to the list by default.
  > It annoys me to no end when I jot off a quick note and it goes to the
  > whole list.  I have two buttons in my mail reader, a "reply" key and a
  > "group reply" key.  I use them correctly.  As for the duplicate messages
  > that Nathan despises, my mail reader also features a "delete" key.
I despise that kind of configuration too.  And I've yet to hear anyone ask
for that kind of configuration on any of the egcs/gcc lists.


  > I do hate getting duplicate mail notes when someone send a message to a
  > list and to me directly, but I don't see any way the list software can do
  > much about that (well, without setting a Reply-To anyway).  My MUA could
  > collapse messages with duplicate message-ids, I suppose, but I've never
  > heard of any that do that.  Maybe some clever procmail-isms could be used.
Only read mail once in a while and have your mail auto-sorted before you start
reading it.  The dups will be next to each other 99.9% of the time and you
blast through them without a second thought.

Given time & interest I could do it with a simple filter -- sort the messages
then do a single pass over the new messages with pair-wise comparison of
everything past the headers.

jeff

Re: So you want a reply-to revolution?

[Ian Lance Taylor]

   Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 01:53:18 -0700
   From: Jason Molenda <jsm@cygnus.com>

   I personally hate lists that set the Reply-To to the list by default.

Me too.  I'm sure everybody has seen Chip Rosenthal's rant about it,
but just in case:
    http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html

Ian

Re: So you want a reply-to revolution? (procmail is your friend)

[Chris Faylor]

On Thu, Aug 05, 1999 at 03:41:55AM -0600, Jeffrey A Law wrote:
>  In message < 19990805015318.A19960@cygnus.com >you write:
>  > I personally hate lists that set the Reply-To to the list by default.
>  > It annoys me to no end when I jot off a quick note and it goes to the
>  > whole list.  I have two buttons in my mail reader, a "reply" key and a
>  > "group reply" key.  I use them correctly.  As for the duplicate messages
>  > that Nathan despises, my mail reader also features a "delete" key.
>
>I despise that kind of configuration too.  And I've yet to hear anyone ask
>for that kind of configuration on any of the egcs/gcc lists.

Ditto.  I would rather stand the chance of replying individually when I
meant to reply to the group than replying to the group when I meant to
reply to an individual.  To me it's a no-brainer.

>  > I do hate getting duplicate mail notes when someone send a message to a
>  > list and to me directly, but I don't see any way the list software can do
>  > much about that (well, without setting a Reply-To anyway).  My MUA could
>  > collapse messages with duplicate message-ids, I suppose, but I've never
>  > heard of any that do that.  Maybe some clever procmail-isms could be used.
>Only read mail once in a while and have your mail auto-sorted before you start
>reading it.  The dups will be next to each other 99.9% of the time and you
>blast through them without a second thought.
>
>Given time & interest I could do it with a simple filter -- sort the messages
>then do a single pass over the new messages with pair-wise comparison of
>everything past the headers.

Procmail already has something like this which I use:


:0Whc: msgid.lock
| formail -D 8192 msgid.cache
:0a:
/home/cgf/mail/duplicates

It filters out the duplicates very nicely.

I also have been manually setting the Reply-To field when I want stuff to
return to the group.  Apparently some mail readers don't even recognize
this field as I still occasionally get personal replies to public email.

-chris

Re: So you want a reply-to revolution?

[Tom Tromey]

Jeff> Given time & interest I could do it with a simple filter -- sort
Jeff> the messages then do a single pass over the new messages with
Jeff> pair-wise comparison of everything past the headers.

These sorts of filters already exist.  They work by looking at the
message ID, which is the same in both copies.  IMNSHO Nathan should
just suck it up and install one.  GNUS has one built in.

In case it isn't obvious, iI hate the Reply-To hack.  I always send up
sending personal email to a mailing list.

Tom

Re: So you want a reply-to revolution?

[Andrew Cagney]

Excerpts from mail: 5-Aug-99 Re: So you want a reply-to .. Ian Lance
Taylor@airs.co (300*)

> Me too.  I'm sure everybody has seen Chip Rosenthal's rant about it,
> but just in case:
>     http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html

Not I!  I don't read as widely as I should ;-) Still, I now know why
``Mailing list Reply-to's are bad, n'kay'' was engraved on my brain all
those years ago.  Thanks!

Jason, something for the FAQ.

	Andrew

Re: So you want a reply-to revolution?

[Jason Molenda]

On Thu, Aug 05, 1999 at 11:30:54AM -0700, Marc David Rovner wrote:

> mutt has these three.  I tried to use the "reply to list" command to reply
> to this message.  It told me:  "Could not find any mailing lists in the
> message!"

You have to list it in your $HOME/.muttrc explicitly using the lists
command.  e.g.

lists overseers

I just tried it (and then used "L" for "Reply to list"), and it worked.

BTW the mutt doco also has a paragraph bemoaning the abuse of Reply-To
on mailing lists. :-)

Jason
Free the Software!

Re: So you want a reply-to revolution?

[Marc David Rovner]

> If mail user agents support the 2369 headers better, you could then have
> "reply", "group reply", and "reply to list" commands.

mutt has these three.  I tried to use the "reply to list" command to reply
to this message.  It told me:  "Could not find any mailing lists in the
message!"

								- mrovner

Re: So you want a reply-to revolution?

[Jason Molenda]

Hey, I was just thinking about this a bit more, and I realized that
RFC2369 headers could rush to our rescue.  These are the List-* headers
I keep harping on.

One of the headers it specifies is the List-Post: address.  It gives
you the address to send a mail note to the list.

If mail user agents support the 2369 headers better, you could then have
"reply", "group reply", and "reply to list" commands.

I like this solution a whole lot more than abusing the Reply-To header,
but it does require assistance by the MUA and it requires that the user
remember which type of reply to use.  Maybe some day.

Jason // Sourceware Czar
         Free the Software!