On 11:19 AM 7/5/02, J C Lawrence wrote:
>> Both types of users justify their actions by saying that since the
>> software sets-up their reply this way, it must be OK. Well, I think
>> it's pretty damn lazy to send a reply to the list, and to every other
>> address that happens to be in the list headers, just because that's
>> how the software most easily lets you reply back to the discussion
>> list.
>
>This gets into how much you adapt to and accept bad software. For those
>that are annoyed by CC address accumulation the normal solution is for
>them to set Reply-To on their own posts to the list, thus auto-trimming
>and short circuiting the distribution list for all descendants of that
>message. The broken software problem is that most of the MUas in common
>use don't support easily setting Reply-To on a per list/folder basis let
>alone for individual messages.
EXACTLY.
Further, just because someone replied to one post in the thread doesn't
mean they want every subsequent reply in the thread cc'd to them. I've had
cc'd replies long after thread drift has taken a left turn away from what I
initially posted about.
>Note that there are others who not only like the duplicates, but
>actively demand them.
Personally, I find this baffling. I'm not on any other discussion group
where people request this feature. On my other technical discussion lists,
either the reply-to is set to the list, or if it's set to the individual
and people select to reply to the list they are very careful to ONLY reply
to the list and not to both the list and the author. I've never seen
anyone complain that they didn't get an extra "courtesy copy". In very
rare cases (usually due to email connectivity issues), people explicitly
request emailed replies.
>Again, this gets into questions of software capability and adaption to
>their arbitrary limits. You dislike the dupes. Then again you chose to
>use a MUA that doesn't support automatic removal of duplicates from the
>inbound message stream
That would be the case with the majority of MUAs in use.
>as well one that doesn't allow for easy ad-hoc
>setting of Reply-To on the messages you send.
That would be the case with the majority of MUAs in use.
> What's the correct target? Where is the actual fault?
The fault is expecting actual subscribers to have (and use) options that
real world experience has shown they do not usually have.
>How much do you adapt to the popularity of broken software and ignorant
>or negligent users?
Adapt or die. We have developed software to strip HTML from posts because
it's almost impossible to demand that users refrain from posting in
HTML. Lists that are surviving this change are almost all in one of the
following 3 categories:
Highly technical lists where this restriction can still be made on the
posters. Expect this to decline as more and more users are pushed behind
corporate firewalls and email servers that add HMTL and render the end user
useless to configure their posts in plain text.
Lists that strip HTML.
Lists that allow HTML.
>> 3) Finally, it really irks me when a thread drifts completely off the
>> prior topic and yet no one bothers to change the subject line. It
>> irks me even more when the discussion list in question is supposedly
>> full of people who should know better.
>
>Hehn. I'm afraid I gave up on Subject headers on Usenet even before
>September. Quite sad really for me to be so jaded and worn down so
>early.
News flash, this isn't Usenet.
jc
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