nmh-workers
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Re: [Nmh-workers] RFC 5322 group support

2013-12-04 07:52:26
    Date:        Tue, 03 Dec 2013 20:47:29 -0500
    From:        Ken Hornstein <kenh(_at_)pobox(_dot_)com>
    Message-ID:  
<201312040147(_dot_)rB41lT8B001072(_at_)hedwig(_dot_)cmf(_dot_)nrl(_dot_)navy(_dot_)mil>

  |   list functionality that exists now ... well, everything I've seen says
  |   to me that group syntax is basically useless except in the context of
  |   sending blind distribution lists.

No, nothing that conveys information is useless - sometimes it might be
duplicative and so unnecessary, but even that isn't useless.

The group syntax allows the user to indicate why a particular address was
included in the message destination list ... for example, suppose some
new feature for MH were being discussed (offered) that would affect the
way that nmh and exmh communicate (perhaps to better handle the exmh cache
file in the face of manipulation of the messages by nmh, or something).

I might choose (rather than sending to everyone on either the mh or
exmh mailing lists) to pick some subset of the actual developers for
each and send to them (perhaps adding a few other people with experience
in cache coherence or something).

By using the group syntax, I can tell the recipients why each of them
is receiving the message...

        To: mh-developers: Ken Hornstein <kenh(_at_)pobox(_dot_)com>, ... ;,
            exmh-developers: Valdis(_dot_)Kletnieks(_at_)vt(_dot_)edu, ...;,
            caching-experts: ...;

Then if you wanted to reply, and your reply was related to some
internal area of nmh implementation you might want to just reply to the
listed mh-developers and not send to others who wouldn't care about the
internal interface of some nmh library function.

Without the addresses at all (blind list usage) you could only reply to me.
Without the groups, you have to guess at which of the complete set of
addresses are mh people, and which are not - you probably could do that,
and get it right, but not everyone would recognise the appropriate
addresses.   The group syntax provides the extra info to allow that.

kre

ps: as indicated in the message I just sent a short while ago, this is not
a request for any changes in nmh - just an indication that the actual syntax
that the e-mail standards provide is not as useless as perhaps you have
been thinking.


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