reply-all should be discouraged

[Colin Law]

On 21 February 2010 10:18,  <cognitive.libertarian+ml at gmail.com> wrote:
> * Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU> [2010-02-20 18:23]:
>> >> > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>> >> > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>> >
>> > Please don't encourage use of "reply all".  Everyone who posts is
>> > inherently on the list, and gets the message.  We don't need a
>> > duplicate.
>>
>> Nope, everyone who posts is *NOT* inherently on the list, so they do
>> NOT inherently get the message.  There's this concept called
>> "moderation" where you can go through and manually allow messages
>> through to the list for those who were not subscribed..  We
>> encourage anyone and everyone to ask questions here, even if they
>> are not subscribed.
>
> That's fair enough, but it doesn't justify sending dupes to
> subscribers on a regular basis, without their request.  If someone
> needs a personal copy of responses because they don't have access to
> the list replies, they can request it specifically because it's an
> exceptional case.  That's the regular practice on mailing lists to
> reduce the problems imposed on subscribers.
>
> The proper way for someone to request personal copies simply to
> include the header "Mail-Followup-To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org, [their
> personal address]".

I wonder how many users of this list have the slightest idea how to do
this.  It is just not a practical suggestions.

>
>> > Reply-all is often used by those who have substandard mail clients
>> > that don't offer Reply-To-List, and it creates problems for those who
>> > have proper mail filtering (eg. procmail keying on List-Id).  Dupe
>> > filtering fails on the user end because nothing ensures that the list
>> > reply is the first in sequence, so half the time the list version gets
>> > canned.
>>
>> This is why you should do dup checking based on Message-Id, which
>> catches these dups just fine.
>
> It doesn't work, because the first message processed is often (but not
> always) the personal copy.  So the message containing the list headers
> usually gets trashed.
>
> Dupe checking is also problematic because not all Message-Ids are
> properly composed with unique hashes, which causes matches on two
> completely different messages.  This causes unique messages to get
> lost or discarded, which is a nasty side effect that compels most
> people to not use it at all.
>
>> > In this case, you did a reply-all and I received a personal copy
>> > from you in my personal inbox because the list headers were
>> > missing, so it was not properly filtered.
>>
>> This is also why you should base your filtering on To/Cc and not on
>> non-standardized headers.
>
> Filtering on TO and CC doesn't work, because the list address is not
> necessarily in those headers.  Anyone can put whatever they want in
> those headers.  It's also haphazard because the filter must then be
> aware of all the address aliases and ways to specify it.
>
> There are some lists out there running on unsophisticated home-grown
> MLM tools, where there are no list headers, and users are forced to
> crudely filter on TO and CC fields.  Everytime someone posts using BCC
> field on these lists, the message does not get filtered - and that's
> not just a problem on replies to ones own posts, but all posts from
> anyone using BCC.
>
> Using the List-Id field is reliable because no matter how a message
> makes it to the list, the list software will put this header on every
> message and compose the field the same.  This field is standard on all
> lists that use majordomo or mailman MLM software, and covered by
> RFC2919.  (see "Alternatives to the ^TO_ Macro" at
> http://tinyurl.com/ybrhlsj )
>
>> By forcing a Reply-To to the list you also make it MUCH HARDER to
>> allow someone to reply privately if they want to.  It's quite
>> annoying when I want to send a personal reply but I can't because
>> when I hit reply it forces it to go back to the list.
>
> I agree.  I am certainly not advocating putting a list address in the
> Reply-To field.  That would be an abuse of the purpose of that field,
> which exists solely to specify where private replies are to be
> directed, if different from the FROM field.  It is rightly a rarely
> used field, because most people want private replies to go to the FROM
> address.
>
>> *I* know better than the administrator as to whom I want to send my
>> messages.  Don't force me to send to the list when I don't want to.
>> Indeed, this is exactly why we encourage Reply-To-List usage.
>>
>> Personally, yes, I use Reply-All.
>
> Folks with broken or deficient mail clients use Reply-All for lack of
> a proper Reply-To-List feature.  It's not something that should be
> encouraged, because users with these kind of deficient MUAs tend not
> to have good filtering themselves, and are generally unaware of the
> issues caused by not cleaning up the header to just contain the list
> address.  Simply encouraging the use of Reply-All is in effect saying:
> it's okay to be lazy, and send copies everywhere, and let everyone
> else sort it out.
>
> If you only encourage Reply-To-List, users who don't have that feature
> will figure out that they need to Reply-All, and then clean up the
> header.  Otherwise they'll simply think it's proper to ignore
> Mail-Followup-To header, and that it's okay to send everyone
> unrequested personal copies.

Just how would users figure out that they need to Reply-All and then
clean up the header? How many users know how to 'clean up the header'.
 Many do not even know what the header is.  This is a financial
application users list not an IT list.

Colin