On 06/08/11 18:28 (GMT+0100) William Gallafent apparently typed: > On Friday 11 August 2006 16:57, Felix Miata wrote:
>> "Demolished" is mere opinion, not fact. > OK, I'll expand. It is vital for any system that its > subsystems conform to its standards. Discussion list email isn't ordinary email. Standards can be inadequate. Vitality depends on the system and the circumstances. I submit that for discussion lists rfc 2822 is not vital because of its inadequate coverage of the distinctive characteristics of public discussion list email and the users of the many pre-2822 and poorly-supporting-2822 email clients who frequent them. >> That cite omits discussion of two key characteristics of >> public discussion lists: >> 1-Subscribers don't receive messages from authors, they >> receive messages from listservs. > Wrong. They receive messages _from_ authors _via_ > listservers (and relays). Without the listserv, I get nothing. I got it from the listserv, not from Patrick Shanahan or William Gallafent. Without the listserv, I didn't know Patrick Shanahan or William Gallafent existed. I didn't subscribe to Patrick Shanahan's or William Gallafent's personal opinion of opensuse-factory personal email fountain. Without the subscription and without the listserv, I get nothing. When I subscribe, I have no concern of the names or email address of other subscribers, including those who post to the list. What I get comes from the list, via authors who are no direct concern of mine, and to whom I normally have no interest in responding via email directly to as any consequence of anything they may write as a consequence of my and their subscriptions. > The originator of a message is > unique; there may be any number of systems which relay / > resend / transmit it between its original sending and its > final receipt. Regardless of those irrelevancies, without the list, I get nothing. It's indispensable to me getting anything at all from my subscription, and the relevant and most direct source of the email I do get as a consequence of that subscription. >> 2-The principle of least surprise dictates that public >> messages automatically receive public replies in the >> absence of special handling by those who wish their >> message to go someplace other than from whence it came. > Again, the message came _from_ its author, _via_ the list > server. I didn't get it from an author. I got it from a listserv, so I expect my reply to default to the listserv, so that everyone else who got the same thing I got from the same listserv gets their own personal copy of what I wrote in reply to what that listserv sent to my email box. If I choose to deviate from the norm and send a reply to some destination other than that from whence I received it, I, as well as anyone else, am capable of either typing in or copying and pasting or otherwise providing a suitable substitute destination. This is how it works on 3/4 of the 30+ discussion lists I subscribe to. That other 1/4 constitutes the exception to what the apparent majority finds works best, notwithstanding what any rfc has to say about how one-to-one email should work. -- "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Galatians 6:9 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/
