[OT] Reply-To munging (was: List header cancer)

[Bill McGonigle]

On Oct 24, 2007, at 09:15, Ben Scott wrote:

> On 10/23/07, Bill McGonigle <bill at bfccomputing.com> wrote:
>> The point is if sizeof(People) > 0, it's a problem.
>
>   Look, this debate has been had a brazilian times

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it  
means:

   http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=brazilian

Apologies to Jeff Kinz.  And maddog. :)

> , on this list and
> others.  For every point, the other side has a counter-point.  There's
> no overriding principle.

How does one make such a distinction about which criteria form the  
overriding opinion?  It's a matter of opinion and values, mostly.   
Some people maximize for efficiency, and elegance - others maximize  
for communication and flexibility.  Sometimes there's an overlap of  
those sets, sometimes not.

>   If there was, the debate wouldn't keep
> happening.  Please stop rehashing it here.

It's when an issue isn't black and white that a group will debate it  
the most!   Like the Hippocratic Oath, at some point a majority  
decides "this is the way things should be", but others always  
disagree.  Kavorkian has his sympathizers.  Again, applied values.

I'm beginning to understand why many lists switch over to forums -  
one man's lack of an obscure but useful RFC support is another man's  
MUA bug, and there doesn't seem to be an easy non-one-size-fits-all  
solution for mailing lists, as implemented in mailman, anyway.  At  
least most forums let you say, 'notify me of replies to my post'  
without annoying other forum members, and it's fairly easy to hack in  
new behaviors there, but generally hard to fix an MUA.  I'm  
historically on the 'mailing lists are superior' bandwagon, but this  
topic illuminates some reasons for considering the other way.

-Bill
-----
Bill McGonigle, Owner           Work: 603.448.4440
BFC Computing, LLC              Home: 603.448.1668
bill at bfccomputing.com           Cell: 603.252.2606
http://www.bfccomputing.com/    Page: 603.442.1833
Blog: http://blog.bfccomputing.com/
VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf