On 2004-10-01 22:26, Laird Breyer wrote:
Martin,
Thanks for the list of cases. I realize that when I wrote the comment
earlier, I formulated things clumsily, so I'd like to restate things
more precisely (hopefully) instead of replying to your points directly.
I can reply more directly in another comment if necessary.
Hi Laird,
thanks for the clarification. Unfortunately, I changed the subject since I
felt the topic was related to non-members.
Since I don't want to change the topic now again, let's live with this
topic above for some while. Maybe the discussion will be on non-members,
too :-/
Ok, general topic 'list replies', here we go...
The main issue I see is that some people like the following custom
1) always post messages only to the list address.
What is the culture clash? It appears that people who favour 1) do so
because they don't want to see duplicate messages in their MUA
systems. [I myself favour 1)] From what I understand, it appears to
me that people who favour 2) want to receive personal copies so that
they don't inadvertently miss a reply to one of their own posts.
So as a mental picture, we could say that people who favour 1) are
happy to browse mailing lists and monitor all threads equally at their
leisure. People who favour 2) aren't prepared to monitor all threads
in a mailing list, but want to know asap anything that affects them
directly, such as a direct reply to one of their posts. This is just
a mental model to fix ideas.
I don't see that much of a problem here. I agree that people want to use -
or abuse - lists the way you explain.
But apart from the user's clash of culture, which is based on a very
personal flavour, it should depend on the idea of a list as well.
What's the idea of a mailing list?
A) one way announcements - e.g. some kind of newsletter or market group
B) dicussion lists
Some lists are configured in order to keep the traffic los: List admins
felt it's a good idea to keep feedback off the list. Only if the user
actually wants to send somethin to the list, he will have to change this
for his reply manually. I feel that's good for certain newsletters and
ANNounce boards. It's even good for a question - answer list.
But I feel that a 'discussion' list lives not only from the first question
but from the answer to this question which may be good (in order so that
others can learn from it) or bad (so that others should react on it) or
may give new questions.
Thus I'm very comfortable about my most interesting dicussion lists, which
set a 'Reply-To' header of the list and a mail reader that does ask me on
reply whether I actually want to answer to the reply-to (prefered default)
or to the original sender. Problem: If the sender defined a Reply-To on
his own, this is replaced by the list. Thus if you want to answer to the
author directly, you can't.
The other option that you mentionned concerned that some people prefer to
view messages as soon as possible which are replies to their own message.
That's a reasonable question. But I feel the best idea here would be some
kind of better threading or filtering in order to detect those messages
which are replies to my own message - e.g. control of my own message-id
and filtering on the In-Reply-To or References.
Unfortunately, a good threading is broken on many lists:
I) most, but not all mail readers set References / In-Reply-To properly
II) digest members have almost no choice to reuse references
III) many members don't mind, since there own mail reader does not
know about threading
I) is a petty - and even worse since there's no hard standard how to mark
a reply. Thus I use some kind of awkward 'set reply_regexp'
which groups together at least which conforms to a set of
subject prefixes out of
Re: Re1: Re:2: Re^3: Re-4: RE[5]: AW: Antw: Antort: FW: FWD: WG: VS:
SV: Accepted: Zugesagt: (tbc.)
in order to group at least by subject
II) view digests show the original message number at all. There's a small
set of lists around that does try to guess the original message by
comparing quoted text and former messages. Some of the do delete those
undesired full quotes as well.
I guess some digested lists do work as well by adding a thread or
subthread number to the subject which is stripped and replaced by proper
references.
III) is the problem that only few list members know about the profit of
good threading.
That's one of the reason why newsgroups are much more efficient here: Both
subject manipulation (one Re: only) and References are within a much
tighter standard.
I believe the clash cannot be solved at the MUA/client ends of the
network, because it requires that each list member knows something
about each other list member.
Impossible - most members do not even know about passive lurkers on the
list.
What I'm suggesting is that the mailing list server should act as a
more intelligent multiplexer, which could interface with people who prefer
the 1) custom according to the 1) custom, and could interface with
the people who like 2) according to their own preferences, etc.
No, I feel
- the list server should work reasonable
- people should adopt reasonable tooling which does what they actually
want.
ok, I know, wishful thinking...
Simulating custom 1) for list members who like that custom:
* To send mail, a list member sends a single mail to the list address only.
* For each new mail posted to the list, the list server sends a single
copy to the said list member.
custom 1) can be handled more flexibly.
If the list does not set a Reply-To, you have to use e.g. the less known
List-Reply option or the easiest, best known way as a 'group reply'.
Thus the list server COULD handle that a member won't get a message twice.
Each member could tell the server that he either prefers duplicate
messages (directly + list) or one only (so that the list server won't send
a copy to him if he's in the To/Cc).
The sender still can inforce both e.g. by putting a recipient as Bcc.
Simulating custom 2) for list members who prefer that custom:
* To send mail, the list member sends a single mail to the list address only.
* For each new mail posted to the list, the list server sends a copy
to the said list member. Furthermore, the list server checks in the
list archive to see who posted the parent message, and if the parent is
identical to the said list member, then a second courtesy copy is sent
to this list member.
Hm - strange thing that I actually never wanted. But probably this
courtesy copy could act in most different styles, e.g. by sending a
digested overview of answered messages. Or by sending a SMS or any other
type of message on any other message channel.
However, this kind of service could be done not only by the list server,
but more powerful
- on the user's mail agent which does proper sorting/filtering or
- by some kind of dedicated service provider which will filter
incoming messages from the list and will provide further actions,
such as your courtesy copy.
This sort of system accomodates everybody at a high level, and the
cost is small (modifying list servers) compared with some alternatives
proposed (modifying everybody's MUA, or modifying everybody's
behaviour).
It depends on the kind of service that you want. At the moment you feel a
courtesy copy is good enough. But maybe someone else prefers a short note
on his pager or mobile phone. Maybe someone wants a short automated phone
call - or even a telegram or nice piece of paper on a silver platter ;-)
The question is, could such an approach solve most of the issues brought
up by various people in this discussion?
Simple answer: no :-)
Martin