In <20041011132751(_dot_)5b5468e8(_dot_)moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu>
Keith Moore <moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu> writes:
So please answer me. HOW is the mail expander for 'foo' supposed to know
about the totally separate mailing list 'bar' to which the author
crossposted his message. And if it does not know about 'bar', how can it
possibly arrange for replies to be crossposted to both lists (by
appropriate setting of Reply-To/MFT/whatever)?
It can't. But that's also mostly irrelevant, for several reasons.
1. The vast majority of senders are not going to want to configure their
MUAs to know about mailing lists. (and if you say that they should be
automatically configured, be sure you understand the security implications)
The vast majority of senders do not regularly use mailing lists. But those
who do regularly use them (of which the subscribers to this list are
probably typical) would surely be happy to configure their MUAs,
especially if this would get rid of difficulties they were experiencing.
2. ... it's not clear what should happen when replying to multiple lists,
and there is a conflict between the lists' policies.
In that case, only the author is in a position to define a policy for for
that particular communication (and hopefully for the ensuing thread).
3. Blind acceptance of MFT when composing replies is a bad idea,
for the same reasons that blind acceptance of Reply-To is a bad idea.
Nobody is proposing "blind" acceptance. By all means let there be alerts
and warnings in RED; but most recipients will be happy to follow the
author's (or the list maintainer's) recommendation.
4. MFT doesn't fix the problem of duplicated messages anyway.
If by "duplicated messages" you mean unwanted personal replies in addition
to replies sent to the list, then MFT does indeed solve it. The author
merely puts the list(s) and nothing else in his MFT (and a smart MUA will
automate this). Or else, if the author is silent, the list-maintainer sets
such an MFT if that is list policy.
Now, supposing some author wants to raise a matter which is likely to be
relevant to both ietf-822(_at_)imc(_dot_)org and
IMAP(_at_)CAC(_dot_)Washington(_dot_)EDU(_dot_) So he
cross-posts to both lists, and ideally he would like all respondents on
both lists to reply to both lists. How can this be brought about?
a) have both list addresses appear in To or CC of the original message
b) recipients use "reply all" to reply to both lists.
No, that is the current situation, and is the cause of the mess we are in.
What I suspect you really want is to do this without having reply
authors see duplicate messages. The only way to solve that problem
is to have recipients' MUAs or message stores do duplicate detection.
No, MFT applied by the author can solve it. The problem with expecting
MUAs or message stores to solve it is that some users may have several
MUAs and several message stores and several layers of filtering to handle
their incoming mail. Moreover, direct replies and replies via the list
tend to arrive by different routes and at different times. Much simpler to
avoid sending the duplicates in the first place.
--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl(_at_)clerew(_dot_)man(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave,
CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
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