ietf-822
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Understanding response protocols

2004-10-19 19:12:28

In <B48D5723-2112-11D9-A5DF-000A9571873E(_at_)guppylake(_dot_)com> Nathaniel 
Borenstein <nsb(_at_)guppylake(_dot_)com> writes:

However, I question whether MFT might not cause as many problems as it 
solves.  Consider:

      To: List(_at_)example(_dot_)com
      CC:  Bill(_at_)x(_dot_)com, Bob(_at_)y(_dot_)com, Jim(_at_)z(_dot_)com

This is something I have done in the past in order to bring into a list 
conversation a few people who are not on the mailing list.  Now, what 
should the list processor at example.com do with this?  As I understand 
it (please correct me if I'm wrong) current implementations would 
redistribute the message like this:

Well, the strict answer is anything it likes :-) .

But for a sensible thing for it to do (and let us assume it was a
discussion list like this one, and not an announce-list or a for-sale-list
which might be configured entirely differently), how about:

It observes that no MFT is present. So it adds
    Mail-Followup-To: List(_at_)example(_dot_)com
(that being standard list policy).

If it was a bit smarter than that, it might notice that Bill, Bob and Jim
were not known subscribers, so it might add them to the MFT. But some
people might regard that as being "too smart".

      Mail-Followup-To: List(_at_)example(_dot_)com
      To: List(_at_)example(_dot_)com
      CC:  Bill(_at_)x(_dot_)com, Bob(_at_)y(_dot_)com, Jim(_at_)z(_dot_)com

That is how I would expect you to have your MUA configured for normal
postings to the list (unless you were happy to accept whatever the list
maintainer did - see above). Your MUA, your choice.

Thus people whose UA's respected MFT would end up omitting Bill, Bob, 
and Jim from their replies, which was not my expectation as the sender.

Indeed, but this is not your normal way of posting to the list. You want
Bill, Bob and Jim to see this message, so you went to extra trouble to
include them in Cc, and you want them to see your replies, so you have to
take a bit more trouble by hand-crafting your MFT:

        Mail-Followup-To: List(_at_)example(_dot_)com,Bill(_at_)x(_dot_)com, 
Bob(_at_)y(_dot_)com, Jim(_at_)z(_dot_)com
        To: List(_at_)example(_dot_)com
        CC:  Bill(_at_)x(_dot_)com, Bob(_at_)y(_dot_)com, Jim(_at_)z(_dot_)com

and here the list-maintainer would note your MFT, and not override it with
his own.
 
 Is this really the desired behavior?  Or should all the non-list 
addresses except the sender in fact be copied into the followup header? 

It's your choice. Sometimes you might want to Cc your message to the list
and NOT have replies sent to the Cc address (e.g. the Cc was just to send
your message to your local message archive, or to your boss, to show him
that you had been busy).

Again, if your MUA was smart enough, and you often wanted to bring
non-list-members in on the discussions, you might configure it to always
include the Cc people in the MFT (but then, if one day you DID include
your boss in the Cc, you would have to manually remove him from the MFT).
It's your choice.

 One could argue that the MFT should include everyone that would 
normally be in "Reply to All" *except* those who are on the list -- 
after all, if the list processor is doing the rewriting, it's in a 
position to do that, right?

Yes, that is one of the possibilities, and has already been suggested as
one of the things a smart list-expander could do.

Essentially, MFT opens up many possibilities, both for the original author
and for the mail list expander.

And then, there is the separate issue of what the replying MUA is supposed
to do when it sees an MFT, and with that is associated the question of how
many buttons it needs to give the replier sufficient control. But
hopefully, it will somehow make it easy for the replier to just reply to
the MFT, since that is what it is expected most repliers will do most of the
time.

-- 
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.
PGP: 2C15F1A9      Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>