[volunteers] (forw) [Mailman-owner] svlug-announce post from einfeldt@gmail.com requires approval

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Reiber (reiber at gmail.com):

> Thanks, Rick... and... please, try not to be miffed by what's going on
> right now;

No problem.

I regret being flippin' testy late last night, but that was in part
because I'd just been put in a no-win situation (Ed's requests), and in
part because I was just exhausted.


> Are there any nettiquette documents out there that you know of that would
> help others to gain a better perspective into this level of protocol? 

Apologies:  It might be fatigue, but I'm unclear on the question. 

> It seems quite odd to me that you were embarrassed; we're all human; 
> we all make mistakes... 

I was embarrassed because (1) Greater attention to what I was doing
would have prevented me from making that mistake.  (2) I briefly looked
like a jackass in front of several hundred people and wasted their time,
which I really strongly regretted.  (3) I did that despite being one of
the listadmins and therefore should have been more on top of things.


> If it's possible, could you summarize - in just a few lines - why
> Reply-To wouldn't help with that?

Alice[1] sends mail to Boblist.  Boblist munges (autoadds) a Reply-To 
header before remailing copies to subscribers, suggesting that the 
correct response address (on any replies) is Boblist2.

_Unfortunately_, the actual function of Reply-To as defined in the RFCs
is as a suggested substitute address for alternate reply-to-sender 
responses to _Alice_, not to Boblist.

Carol, a fellow-subscriber to Boblist, receives a copy (via Boblist) of
Alice's post.  She does reply-to-all.  Her reply interprets the Reply-To
as an alternate address for _Alice_ (the original mail's sender).
Therefore, her reply ends up being:

  To:  Boblist, Boblist2

This was clearly not the intention of the listadmin who decided to force
a Reply-To header onto all remailed postings -- but is in fact what
happens.

Alternatively, it's possible that Carol might have decided to use her
reply-to-sender function on her MUA, rather than the reply-to-all one.
Clarification:  The intended function of reply-to-sender functions
within MUAs is to send reply mail back to the sender address but not to
any other Cc or To addresses the sender (in this case Alice) might have 
specified.  (By contrast, the intended function of MUA reply-to-all
functions is to send replies to _all_ cited To or Cc addresses.)

So, Carol's reply-to-sender (because of the Reply-To) goes here:

  To: Boblist2

Again, the listadmin who configured Boblist to force a Reply-To header
onto all remailed postings clearly did not intend for Carol's would-be
private not to Carol to go, instead, to Boblist2, a public mailing list
-- but that is in fact what happens.

Incidentally, this second failure mode of Reply-To munging has
proximately caused divorces, people's firing from jobs, broken noses,
and other social mishaps, when people like Carol, sometimes to their
horror, suddenly notice that they posted private mail to a public
mailing list.

And that second failure mode is the main reason why we should not munge
Reply-To on SVLUG's mailing lists.

Commonly, the munging is done, and most often justified, by claims that
users cannot grasp the concept of two reply function that are -- _in fact_
-- provided by all MUAs; that they cannot be expected to ever master
anything but the command called "Reply" on the program -- which
inevitably is the one that implements reply-to-sender.  So, proponents 
claim, it's smart to "redirect replies back to the mailing list", i.e., 
subvert the intended function of reply-to-sender MUA commands to 
attempt to make them approximate what reply-to-all does.

In short, those listadmins subvert the header's intended purpose to
attempt to trick responder into doing (approximately) reply-to-all when
they use their reply-to-sender commands.  In so doing, they disclaim
responsibility for the broken noses, embarrassments, and other mishaps
they invariably cause by leading people into accidentally posting
private mail.


To illustrate the _legitimate_ use of Reply-To:  Suppose I am sending
mail from rick at linuxmafia.com, but I would like to indicate that any
replies to me should ideally go to rick at unixmercenary.net, instead.  I
do:

   From: rick at linuxmafia.com
   To: Carol
   Reply-To: rick at unixmercenary.net

If Carol does reply-to-sender, the desired outcome will occur:

   From: Carol
   To: rick at unixmercenary.net

(In this case, reply-to-all would produce the same effect, because there
was only one party in To or Cc.)


NOTE:  Public debates about Reply-To have for decades been considered
_extremely_ noxious.  If anyone now attempts same, I will simply cite
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=netiquette#replyto and
run screaming.  (There are big flippin' wads of areas where someone
could start arguing, and that includes traditional digressions into 
"But I'm getting two copies of my mail", which I am just not going to
bother running through _yet again_.  If anyone actually wants to read
that stuff, find any of the hundreds and hundreds of flamewars on that
subject that have been going on for twenty-six years.)


[1] I'm borrowing the classic cast of characters from cryptography texts
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_and_Bob#List_of_characters), except
changing "Bob" to "Boblist" to clarify that that is a mailing list
address.