JC Dill followed up,
| Actually, my filter doesn't filter on the subject when it filters on "any
| header".
Good. That's a relief. I wish you'd said that to start.
| I select "reply to all" to get the list address in the reply message, and
| then delete all extraneous addresses (often including duplicates) as
| needed. A bothersome extra step, but I feel that netiquette is important.
Agreed, and I take that extra step as well. Everyone should. There are
situations where a direct copy is a courtesy: for example, a poster has asked
a question and needs a quick answer, but the list is moderated, or it runs at
low priority on a server with more important functions, or the previous poster
receives the list in digest mode. But even then there is no need to send a
direct copy to everyone else who has also posted to the thread.
| Nice try. I've never done that, not once in 8 years of email and thousands
| and thousands of messages.
That's because you're careful, both in how you handle your responding and in
how you set up your automated routines (such as excluding the subject from
the "any header" search). But I wouldn't like to see your method recommended
to those who would not be so diligent, who wouldn't stop to consider that the
folder for the list might include private messages as well as list posts and
directly mailed copies of list posts.
{I was once trapped by a similar mistake to the one I was describing. A list
had been abandoned by its manager; left on autopilot it was going into the
toilet. A member created a replacement under the same name on a different
server. I wanted mail from the two lists in the same folder, and the only
thing their headers had in common was the local part in From_. So I put in
a procmail recipe that checked the string between 'From ' and '@' and nothing
else.
Well, a short time later came the initial wave of vanity domains. One member
chose to subscribe (and post) to every list he was on as listname@his.domain.
I sent a private response to a post of his. He wrote back to me from the
same address, quoting some of my own text back to me. But I had not noticed
that he was using this new vanity address, so when his private reply to my
private message landed in my folder for the list, I thought he had posted it
and I ripped him a new one. He replied puzzled, acknowledging that what I
thought he had done would of course have been wrong but denying that he had
done it. When his second private message also went into my folder for the
list, I looked at his headers and saw what was going on. I apologized to him
for my error but left it clear how he had contributed to it. Then I changed
my procmail condition's regexp to OR the two list servers' domains instead of
ending with the at-sign.
I don't have, want, nor need a domain of my own, at least not the way my life
and the net are in 2002 [both may change over the next few years]; but I have
subdomains from three providers where I can create addresses with any syntac-
tically permitted local part I choose, but if I ever were to set up different
addresses for every list I'm on, for sure I would not use the list's name,
nor any string including the exact list name, as my address on the list. Ab-
breviate the list's name, pun it, encipher it, reverse it (unless it's a pal-
indrome), but don't copy it. Don't lay traps for people. And that's besides
the inherent arrogance of using the list's name for yourself as if you were
the list and your posts were official announcements about it.}
Back to JC:
| p.s. What does "beed" mean (in your modified subject line)?
Besides being "paaq" upside down, "beed" bees the preterite of "to be."
Follow-Ups:
References:
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