On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 14:22, Elliot Chance <elliotcha...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On 20/11/2010, at 11:52 PM, Magnus Hagander wrote: > >> On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 12:26, Elliot Chance <elliotcha...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> On 20/11/2010, at 9:52 PM, Magnus Hagander wrote: >>> >>>> On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 02:57, Elliot Chance <elliotcha...@gmail.com> >>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> On 20/11/2010, at 3:58 AM, Magnus Hagander wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Isn't that a secondary use case, though? It would be easy to solve this >>>>> >>>>> by providing a URL to the post in the forum that you can click; assuming >>>>> >>>>> the forum interface gives you the option to reply privately. >>>>> >>>>> That would pretty much make it impossible to use offline. >>>>> >>>>> That would be annoying, but I guess survivable. But how would that >>>>> work for a user that hasn't signed up for the forum? How does it >>>>> verify the sender? >>>>> >>>>> The forum uses the same confirmation as the mailing list where an email is >>>>> sent to the address and they have to click on a link to activate their >>>>> account - this very standard practice on forum software. >>>> >>>> Oh, I assumed that - you're missing my point. >>>> >>>> The point is this: >>>> Assume John Doe posts something to the list. I am reading this, and >>>> want to use "alvaros suggestion" for doing a direct response. So I >>>> click the link that was in the email. *I* am not registrered in the >>>> forums. How do I respond to his post in a safe way? >>> >>> You are registered in the forum already (it does this automatically), you >>> simply reply on the mailing list as you have always done. If you feel the >>> sudden urge to only reply via the forum then simply use the recover >>> password to login and reply from there. >> >> I can't do that, since all email is sent from the same address. How >> will the forum software know which person I was trying to respond to? > > One very annoying thing about Apple Mail with these lists is that when I hit > reply if I don't change the To address to the mailing list or manually add > the Cc then it doesn't even get sent to the mailing list. I wouldn't be > surprised if a lot of my posts have disappeared like that.
Use "Reply To All" when you want to send to the list. It's what everybody else has been doing for ages :-) If you want to read up on the bike-shedding that goes behind that preference, it is something that comes up regularly - just search the archives. > for...@postgresql.com.au is pointed to a black hole so that email disappears > but the mailing list gets another copy. When the mailing list gets its copy > it sends a copy to the forum (because the forum is just like a subscribed > user), the parser then dissects the headers to find out where the post > belongs. We already know this part works. So how does one respond to the user? >>> Using nomail still requires you to confirm your email address (I know >>> because i've tried it.) If there were a magic value you could pass then it >>> would defeat the purpose of having email confirmations and people would >>> just write scripts to cheat it - like I want to do. >> >> Uh, no. Not when you're accessing the interface with the proper >> password (one that has permissions to do admin actions on the list). >> The code in that example does not require confirmation for the >> subscriptions. It does, I think, send out the "welcome to the xyz >> list" mail, but that should also be easily scriptable away. > > Theres no way I'm relying on the fact that every person that signs up to the > forums will be informed enough to realise that the forum is more-or-less just > a front for the mailing list. If I signed up to a forum and got and email > saying "welcome to the mailing list" I would think "Um, I didn't sign up to > this" and unsubscribe. Now all my posts will be rejected by the mailing list > and my posts will goto thin air without me ever knowing. Like I said, "that should also be easily scriptable away". Yes, it will take more than zero seconds of work to look into how to do it. >> You are still not understanding the problem. Since I *don't have the >> users email address*, I can't send it the normal way. I have nowhere >> to send it. > > Explained above, your not sending it to the person your sending it back to > the mailing list. I know this works because I've been testing it with my own > address like a dummy mailing list. At the risk of sounding like a broken record.. I don't *WANT* to send it to the list, in this scenario. I want to send it to the *person*. >>> Forums and mailing lists have the same functionality they just do the same >>> things different ways. If you want to use the mailing list you have to use >>> it like a mailing list, if you want to use the forum then you have to use >>> it like a forum. >>> >>> If John Doe signs up to the forum he is expecting the forum to work like a >>> forum. When his answer is posted to the forum thread he will be notified. >>> If in rare cases someone needs to send him a private message or email they >>> can still do so through those features provided inside the forum software. >> >> So again, you're either not understanding the problem, or deliberately >> avoiding it. >> >> John Doe posts something to the forum. >> This gets mirrored to the mailinglist. From address is >> fo...@postgresql.com.au >> I read this >> I want to respond to John Doe. > > If you want to respond you use the Reply button. But that email goes to fo...@postgresql.com.au. Which you said above is a black hole. How do I get it to John? >> There is no way for me to reach John Doe at this point. I can reach >> the mailinglist. But I don't want to reach the mailinglist, I want to >> reach John Done. > > If you want to personally reach John Doe you can use either the PM or email > system in the forum - and you know how to reach him by his name. And perhaps > a URL at the bottom of the email. If you just want to reply to him then i've > explain that above. But I'm not *on* the forum, I'm using the mailinglist. The URL at the bottom is an acceptable solution, if you can make it work transparently. I just don't understand how you can do that - since I haven't signed up, I don't have a password.And you can't encode it in the URL, because it goes into public archives... So how would that URL *work*? >> How do I access the forums private message feature, since I'm not >> registered in the forum software? > > Again, you are registered, you have a password but you'l have to recover it > the first time to be able to login to the forum to send PMs/emails etc. So basically, I can't respond to posts made from the forum then, because having to go through such a cycle is certainly broken enough that I would never use it. Based on that, I'm back to saying that the email has to be generated from a valid email address, that can be used for return traffic. Whether it's the users original address or a forum-specific one is a different question, but a blackhole catch-all one just won't do. -- Magnus Hagander Me: http://www.hagander.net/ Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/ -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
