[PD] Copies of mails. Why?

[Stefan Tiedje]

Christian Klippel wrote:
> for that, this issue is a PEBKAC.

What is a PEBKAC?

> i can tell my mail client to reply to:
> r)eply to sender
> l)ist
> a)ll

everybody knows that after the first time the missing reply-to leads to 
confusion.

> depending just on which of these 3 keys i press. 
> instead of somesone fiddling with the list, the user should learn his e-mail 
> client and simply press the right key!

I am dumb per definition, I neither want to learn, nor remember three 
different keystrokes if they are not necessary. Reply is reply is reply. 
I still would always have the freedom of choice for the rare special 
cases. I need my thinking energy for writing music and list replys...
Its like with cars, if you like to switch gears manually, go for it, 
there is no need to force everybody to switch gears in times of 
automatic gears.

>>I agree that there might still be different oppinions possible, but the
>>evidence points to somewhere else...
> 
> the evidence points to standards that we should apply, and that is to not 
> tweak the reply to field.

The standard, which never has problems and threads like this one, in the 
majority of lists is simply a reply-to munged header. The missing 
reply-to does not work, the reply-to works.
The typical technocratic argument that those who have the correct tool 
and learned background do not have these problems, ignores simply the 
fact that in praxis it doesn't work.
The same confudion will come up again and again, the same discussion 
will be discussed again and again until finally the admins are pissed 
off and place a reply-to ?

> imagine:
> 
> one sets up a autoresponder, like "im in hollidays for 3 weeks now" and you 
> send a mail to the list.
> 
> with the original header, the sender will get that auto-reply.
> with a modified header, it may end up on the list instead.

This is the best argument for a reply-to: This guy will send his 
automatic responder all the time to each posting member of the list, 
each member of the list would have to deal with it as soon you write to 
the list! Again lots of useless traffic. (Maybe an event like this would 
convince the admin to munge the header ;-)

There are programms for list handling which would be able to recognize 
such a beast and automatically keep it away from the list (because it 
would create a loop with always the same content, its easy to 
recognize). This automatic would not be possible without the reply-to in 
the header.

> i would say, get used to use your email client correctly.
> just because you are used to simply r)eply to mails, that doesnt mean you can 
> not do a l)isr reply instead......

I am doing it by the way, but it remains uneccessarily inconvenient.

Stefan


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         Stefan Tiedje
         Klanggestalter
     Electronic Composition
               &
         Improvisation

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