Subject: Please, no private mail to me (Dominik Vogt)

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 13:41:22 +0100

Hi folks,

in the last few days I received an increasing number of
mails addressed to me and only me. *Please* everyone
don't reply to threads on the list to me directly. I am
*NOT* 'the maintainer' of fvwm2 but merely one of them
and the others are interested in the information too.
Furthermore if you send me mails directly I don't get
them at home where I do the work. And since my allowed
mail volume there is very limited, please don't reply
to my private address. All I will do with such mail is
forwarding it to the list (= more work for me).
If you are unsure if you should post large patches, ask
on the list. In general for everything up to 50k you can
post to the list without thinking twice about it.

Jason, Dan, does anything on the web page suggest that
folks should send mail to me? If not, could we mention
that explicitly (at least for a while)?

Thanks

Dominik
-- 
Dominik Vogt, Hewlett-Packard GmbH, Dept. BVS
Herrenberger Str.130, 71034 Boeblingen, Germany
phone: 07031/14-4596, fax: 07031/14-3883, [email-masked]
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---

From: Pete Forman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 14:00:30 GMT

You need to set a "Reply-To:" field if you want replies to go to the
list rather than yourself.  This is documented in RFC 822 section
4.4.3.  I see that you have a "Mail-Followup-To:" but this is non-
standard.

Perhaps the majordomo could be configured to add a reply-to if none
has been set by the original poster.
-- 
Pete Forman
Western Geophysical
[email-masked]
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---

From: [email-masked] (Paul D. Smith)
Date: 16 Dec 1998 10:02:03 -0500

%% Pete Forman <[email-masked]> writes:

  pf> You need to set a "Reply-To:" field if you want replies to go to
  pf> the list rather than yourself.  This is documented in RFC 822
  pf> section 4.4.3.  I see that you have a "Mail-Followup-To:" but this
  pf> is non- standard.

No, you need to use the "followup" command in your mailer to send to all
recipients, instead of the "reply" command to send only to the author.
"Followup" will send to fvwm-workers, since it's on the CC line.

Certainly if Dominik never wanted to receive private replies he could
set his reply-to, but people sending patches, etc. should reply to the
list regardless.

  pf> Perhaps the majordomo could be configured to add a reply-to if none
  pf> has been set by the original poster.

No.  Or rather, majordomo can be configured that way, of course, but  it
is The Wrong Thing To Do.

  http://garcon.unicom.com/FAQ/reply-to-harmful.html

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Paul D. Smith <[email-masked]>         Network Management Development
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
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---

From: Pete Forman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 16:10:57 GMT

%% Paul D. Smith <[email-masked]> writes:
%% Pete Forman <[email-masked]> writes:

  pf> You need to set a "Reply-To:" field if you want replies to go to
  pf> the list rather than yourself.  This is documented in RFC 822
  pf> section 4.4.3.  I see that you have a "Mail-Followup-To:" but
  pf> this is non-standard.

  ps> No, you need to use the "followup" command in your mailer to
  ps> send to all recipients, instead of the "reply" command to send
  ps> only to the author.  "Followup" will send to fvwm-workers, since
  ps> it's on the CC line.

Followup sends two copies to the originator, one directly and one via
the list.  Most of my list activity is in USENET, so I'm used to
sending followup to the newsgroup only.  The originator should get a
direct copy only if they explicitly request it.

I suppose that the solution is for the mailer to recognize mailing
lists and remove the author from the followup recipients, unless
followup & reply has been explicitly called for.

  ps> Certainly if Dominik never wanted to receive private replies he
  ps> could set his reply-to, but people sending patches, etc. should
  ps> reply to the list regardless.

  pf> Perhaps the majordomo could be configured to add a reply-to if
  pf> none has been set by the original poster.

  ps> No.  Or rather, majordomo can be configured that way, of course,
  ps> but it is The Wrong Thing To Do.

  ps>   http://garcon.unicom.com/FAQ/reply-to-harmful.html

Point taken.

---

From: [email-masked] (Paul D. Smith)
Date: 16 Dec 1998 11:38:10 -0500

pf> Followup sends two copies to the originator, one directly and one
  pf> via the list.  Most of my list activity is in USENET, so I'm used
  pf> to sending followup to the newsgroup only.  The originator should
  pf> get a direct copy only if they explicitly request it.

Right, but this isn't USENET :)

I agree it would be nice to have the ability to follow up only to the
non-From addresses... I wonder if Gnus has that?  I'll have to look!

I typically just remove any addresses from the header that I don't want,
by hand.  It just takes a second in Emacs.

  pf> I suppose that the solution is for the mailer to recognize mailing
  pf> lists and remove the author from the followup recipients, unless
  pf> followup & reply has been explicitly called for.

Well, it would be nice if _majordomo_ was smart enough to canonicalize
the To and CC fields, including mailing list expansion, so everyone got
just one copy.  That would be the Right Thing, I think.

---

From: Jason L Tibbitts III <[email-masked]>
Date: 16 Dec 1998 12:09:39 -0600

[This is either horribly off-topic or meta-discussion; sorry]

>>>>> "PDS" == Paul D Smith <[email-masked]> writes:

PDS> Well, it would be nice if _majordomo_ was smart enough to canonicalize
PDS> the To and CC fields, including mailing list expansion, so everyone
PDS> got just one copy.  That would be the Right Thing, I think.

Perhaps if you'd explain exactly what you mean here, I (being the guy who
writes Majordomo these days) might be able to do something.

Problem 1: CC: and To: are originator headers; strictly compliant MLMs will
not alter them except by folding lines as permitted by rfc822 and altering
encoding as permitted by rfc204mumble.

Problem 2: Majordomo doesn't know who or what's on the other end of a CC.

Problem 3: Majordomo doesn't have any control over mail that is sent to the
addresses in the To: and CC: headers; by the time that it gets it, the mail
has already been delivered elsewhere.

Now, Majordomo2 allows a member to set a flag saying that if they're
already in the To: or CC: headers, they don't get an additional copy from
the list server.  Is this what you were thinking of, or is this sufficient?

My best guess at what you really want is to remove from the To: and CC:
headers any addresses that are already on the list.  I think this would
have limited impact because MUAs would still bloat the CC list on each
followup.  I'd be happy to be swayed by strong examples, though.

I think, though, that I will add a way to automatically add a header to
indicate that the person sending the message is a list member.  This is at
least somewhat useful in determining whether or not someone needs a CC.

 - J<

---

From: Michael M Han <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 10:22:51 -0800

I'm about to cause this thread to wander... I'd alter the Subject with
a "was: " but it's already pretty long... Anyway, every once in a
while a message comes both to fvwm-workers and fvwm... Could we agree
to reply only in fvwm, if the discussion is still relevant there?
Receiving duplicates is a nuisance. To the most relevant question,
what about workers not on the regular fvwm list, are there any? If so,
I'll just be quiet. On this topic, at least.
_________
mike ([email-masked])
Hamsters cannot fly
 - The collected wisdom of Bart Simpson
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---

From: Danek Duvall <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 10:56:42 -0800

> [This is either horribly off-topic or meta-discussion; sorry]

[Still is ...]

> least somewhat useful in determining whether or not someone needs a CC.

Doesn't Mail-Followup-To: sort of do that?  From the manual:

    Controls whether or not the Mail-Followup-To header field is generated
    when sending mail.  When set, Mutt will generate this field when you
    are replying to a known mailing ``lists''.

    The purpose of this field is to prevent you from receiving duplicate
    copies of replies to messages which you send by specifying that you
    will receive a copy of the message if it is addressed to the mailing
    list (and thus there is no need to also include your address in a group
    reply).

Whatever header you add, though, the MUA on the other end still needs to be
intelligent enough to understand what to do with it.  It doesn't matter if
Majordomo inserts it or if the original MUA does.

This came up on the mutt mailing list late last year (November / December
time frame).  Some things to look at:

    http://pobox.com/~djb/proto/replyto.html

and the IETF drafts (which might be more than that now, I don't know)

    draft-ietf-drums-mail-followup-to-00.txt
        Jacob Palme's draft on the proposed Mail-Followup-To header.

    draft-ietf-drums-replyto-personal-00.txt
        Eric Raymond's draft on Personal-Reply-To

which can be found at ds.internic.net.

HTH,
Danek

---

From: Jason L Tibbitts III <[email-masked]>
Date: 16 Dec 1998 16:05:01 -0600

>>>>> "DD" == Danek Duvall <[email-masked]> writes:

DD> Doesn't Mail-Followup-To: sort of do that?  From the manual:

Majordomo neither pays attention to nor generates this, though I hadn't
heard about it and will look into it.  Thanks.

The header I was talking about would be purely for informational use.  It
is generally useful to know if the person you're replying to is a list
member or not.

 - J<

---

From: Danek Duvall <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 14:21:05 -0800

> heard about it and will look into it.  Thanks.

No, but as long as you're going to generate some random header which tells
a recipient that the sender of the message belongs to the list, the Right
Thing To Do, as I understand it, is to use this header, since that's what
the original sender does when he wants to say he belongs to the list.

I don't know, however, if an MLM is allowed to generate this header for the
user.

> is generally useful to know if the person you're replying to is a list

Definitely.  If Mail-Followup-To: has the right semantics, then it'll work
automatically for people who have mailers that support it, and everyone
else will have to switch^H^H^H^H^H^Hlook for the header `by hand'.  Still,
there's nothing the MLM can do to enforce the rules.  It can help things
along, but ultimately it's an end-user issue.

Anyway, that's probably enough traffic on that issue.  I'll keep my mouth
for now and just let you deal with it.  ;-)

Danek "oops-my-last-two-pennies" Duvall

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 23:34:12 +0100

> I'll just be quiet. On this topic, at least.

Yes at least partly. As I have a draconic mailbox size limit
with my internet provider I've only subscribed the workers
list at home :(

Bye

Dominik
-- 
Dominik Vogt, [email-masked]
Reply-To: [email-masked]