I'm not sure if we want to continue this on the list, but
I'll respond to open questions publically.
For somebody not on the list? Obviously he shouldn't receive list
messages unrelated to any that he might have submitted. If he wants
copies of any extended discussion (such as the example below) he'll
have to indicate so and rely on list members to cooperate with that
request.
That is a problem which an intelligent server as proposed can address
automatically.
I fail to see how that will work (i.e. automatically) for list
non-members.
Remember my assumptions: 1) the server has an internal forest of threads,
2) a new message submitted to the list is attached to the appropriate thread
when received by the list server.
With these two assumptions, and if the list administrator configures the
list server to do so, then
3) upon receipt of 2), the list server walks back through the parent
nodes of the thread, obtaining node ids. Each node id points to a
stored rfc2822 message, where the author for that comment is to be
found in the usual way. After walking the thread parent nodes, the
list server now has a set of parent message authors who might be
interested in this new message. Some of these authors may be
non-members, it doesn't matter.
4) the list server propagates the message obtained in 2) to each list
member, and also sends the message to the authors listed in 3).
That is the basic idea, contingent on solving 1) and 2).
basic function of a mailing list is to facilitate human group
communication by distributing messages to that group. The humans
involved need to indicate (to the other humans) their individual
preferences for responses [do they want responses to go only to
the list, do they want personal responses only, do they want both,
etc.].
But the list server can act as a proxy for these mundane tasks. If
the human can indicate his response preferences inside the message he
is sending, then surely the human can tell the server those response
preferences once, and the server can then insert these inside all the
messages being transmitted to the list.
You seem to be assuming that each author will want to indicate
the same response addresses for each message, which is not
necessarily the case.
True, but how often does an author change his response addresses
when posting messages to the same list over and over? Your return
path blilly(_at_)erols(_dot_)com hasn't changed on this list for months...
A more practical issue, imho, would be whether and how such an author
can, on the rare occasions where a different response preference is
wanted, indicate to the list server that his normal list preferences
should be overridden.
The point is that expecting mailing list software to do more
than expand distribution has authentication implications
above and beyond the issue of how recipients deal with (lack
of) authentication.
For list members, the extra services offered by the list server only
affect each member according to their configured preferences. The
list server is individually authorized to perform certain actions or
not.
In the system envisaged, a list member cannot send a message to the
list in such a way as to override other members' configured
preferences, unless say he harvests all email addresses and sends
messages directly, bypassing the list server. So this list member
doesn't gain escalated privileges compared with the current situation
with ordinary list expanders, and I therefore don't see an extra
authentication burden.
If as a list member, all I want is a single copy of each
message say, the server knows that and will only send a single copy
of any messages submitted to the list.
If as a list member, I want extra courtesy notification of all the
replies and subreplies to one of my messages say, then the server will
send me an extra copy of any messages which are attached to some
reply-thread descending from one of my messages, by the algorithm I
outlined above.
As a non-list-member, my preferences are decided by the list
administrator generically. For example, as a non-list-member, I don't
receive each message sent to the list by definition. But if the
administrator gave non-list-members the courtesy notification option,
then I get sent copies of all messages attached to some reply-thread
descending from one of my messages to the list, by the algorithm I
outlined above.
A recipient who wishes to prepare some sort of response needs to
decide whether to respond in accordance with any (possibly
message-specific) recommendation made by the original message author
and act accordingly, and that would not change with the hypothetical
"intelligent" remailer as I understand your description to date.
True. But a human responder cannot know a priori the preferences of
the original message author, unless this author's MUA was configured
to send messages in a way which is interpreted identically by the
responder's MUA, ie both comply to exactly the same standard.
E.g. if my MUA sets Reply-To: and expects responses to that address,
but the responder's MUA ignores Reply-To: for some reason, and only
uses From: say, then the responder may not reply correctly.
By contrast, with the list server as a middle man, my MUA sends mail
to the list address, and expects responses according to configured
list preferences. The message is propagated, responded to by responders
sending mail to the list server only, and the list server handles the
details of my preferences as required, without involving the responder's MUA.
Nothing stops me or my responder to bypass the list server and communicate
out-of-list in an ad-hoc manner.
--
Laird Breyer.