Re: Off-Forum Replies Happen!

On Mon, 15 Oct 2007, Mats Dufberg wrote:
> On Oct 15, 2007, 00:15 (-0400) Ross <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I find the Pine-info forum a bit strange in handling email addresses for
> > replies. It is very easy to accept the wrong reply option, "All - yes or
> > no", "Reply-To - yes or no", forget to manually correct the problem
> > during a reply, & go off forum. No matter which selection is made, reply
> > is not directly back to the Pine-info forum list.
> >
> > Most all forums I access always provide the correct forum reply-to
> > address, this forum drops it mainly for the original sender, offering
> > the Pine-info list address only as as cc:, or drops it all together if a
> > Reply-To address is accepted from the sender. Am I missing something?
> > Maybe this not a forum - just a list system?
>
> Your are sticking your head into an old debate how a mailing list should
> be configured. (Yes, this is a list. I do not have any opinion if it also
> is a "forum".)

Because my head tells me this is a problem that is causing trouble.

> One opinion is that a mailing list should transfer the mail to the list
> member unchanged from what the originator of the mail has written.
> According to that school, the list program should not insert a new
> "reply-to", or even override the "reply-to" that was originally there.
> (Your mail had a "reply-to" and there could only be one.)

What the originator has written is one thing, correct addressing is
another. Failure of the latter causes the system to fail.

> According to the other school, a list should insert a "reply-to" to ensure
> that all replies are going back to the list.

That makes more sense, all users must know they are trying to stay
on the list/forum.

> If a "reply-to" is inserted it is hard to reply just to the original
> sender, which means that private answers risk of being spread to the
> entire list. If no "reply-to" is inserted, then there is a risk that
> replies meant for the entire list is only sent to the original sender.

I don't understand the reasoning there, nothing hard nor risky about
it.

> For this list you actually have a choice. If you want to make sure that
> any answer to your mail is sent to the list, then you could insert a
> "reply-to" to the list in your mail to the list.

So I will do this by creating a Role & effectively rewrite the Pine
list/forum reply operation, & not mess up my normal Reply-To setup.
...

There, all done. Fooey, I just created a Role to solve my reply
problem, & replies to me. But unless other users do it too they will
get duplicates from me in some cases as I will Reply-To-All unless I
am offered a sender Reply-To. I guess Matt is setup. Of course if
somebody sends me a specific Reply-To other than the Pine
list/forum, it will go there - tough or fine - as they want it -
they call it.

> > Yet when I receive a message from the Pine-info forum list, the
> > email is not from the forum, it is from the sender that posted the
> > message.
>
> Changing that would be an even greater intrusion into the original mail.
> That is a no-no for the former shool.

A convoluted concept for a list/forum setup. Some intrusion of
original mail addressing must be expected for routing & reply via
the list/forum to stay in the loop. Otherwise how can it be expected
to work - obviously some of us discovered it don't!

More errors are being made due to the inability to reply normally to
the Pine list/forum.

> > Is this an old subject I missed?
>
> Yes, it has been going on for the last 15-20 years.

Never knew of it before, from all my other list/forum subscriptions.

Thanks everybody!

--
The Best to You & Yours,
RossARR
[email protected]
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