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Re: [PLUG] Relaying, Bell Atlantic and list Reply-To header
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Chuck Peters wrote:
> I don't know how many of you heard about Verizon/Bell Atlantic ISP
> customers can no longer user the email address of thier choice. They are
> forced into using a Reply-To if they wish to use an outside domain for
> mail (and they use the Bell smtp relay servers). It was last week that I
> read the article, so I don't have the link handy, but it did say that
> 50,000 of the 950,000 customers are effected.
>
> Today I returned a call to a CCIL user/Bell customer about this issue and
> that reminded me about PLUG using this Reply-To on lists. If this CCIL
> user/Bell customer were on the list, his Reply-To would be rewritten by
> the list header rewrite. I don't know how many of you will have problems
> with this, but we may have a few list members that are Bell customers and
> use other email addresses.
>
> The PLUG list has "Reply-To: plug@lists.phillylinux.org", I would suggest
> that it be changed. Marc Merlin of SVLUG and VA Linux explains the issues
> very well at http://marc.merlins.org/netrants/reply-to-harmful.html.
>
> Here are a couple of paragraphs from Marc's page:
>
> <quote>
> Coddling the Brain-Dead, Penalizing the Conscientious
So you're suggesting we coddle the Verizon people, while penalizing
everyone else? If they had no reasonable choice but Verizon, I could
imagine doing this - but if people don't like it, they can get a hotmail
account or whatevr.
Some thoughts on this considered-harmful, which I pasted from my sent
mail archive, altered for this conversation.
Bill Jonas wrote:
<snip mention of considered-harmful>
> Just today, I found out about Mutt's ignore_list_reply_to setting, which I
> immediately set. God bless America.
I've read it before, and I disagree strongly. Briefly:
Minimal munging assumes that list admins are idiots.
This feature does add something: convinience - it optimizes for the
common case.
It doesn't break things - you have your ignore_list_reply_to, so nothing
is broken.
It doesn't actually remove choices.
"Can't Find My Way Back Home" is easily fixable - just move the old
reply-to to x-old-reply-to (or whatever)... Or don't deal with fucked
ISPs.
On an un-munged list, when I hit "reply to all" (and don't edit - if I
do edit, it's just as easy either way), I end up sending two messages:
one to the list, and one to the original sender. The original author
may then begin to reply to the personal message, only to realize that
she wants her message to go to the list - so she has to hunt down the
list address and go back and type it in. If the common case is off-list
replies (such as in a job-posting list), that won't happen too often.
But, in a discussion list, that's not the common case.
"Principle of Least Surprise" is based on what you expect - most lists
these days uses munged headers, so it's what I expect. I have never
made an error with munged headers, while I have made numerous mistakes
with unmunged headers.
The "Principle of Least Damage" assumes that you will be sending e-mail
about your sex life or other deeply private stuff - that doesn't happen
on PLUG-L.
Finally, it's bad because it discourages on-list replies. Lists that
use this policy, in my experience, are more likely to go dead,
discouraging newbies and regulars alike. In a list that's based around
planning events and common chatter, it's especially pointless.
--
-[Dave Turner Stalk me: (215)-545-2859]
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<zzorn-work-3> Interesting case: A goldfish swimming in a fishtank,
that is carried on the back of a dragon
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