[MLB-WIRELESS] Tolerance & Gain

[Tony Langdon, VK3JED]

At 09:54 AM 16/01/2003 +1100, Craig Sanders wrote:

>actually, it's low tolerance for misleading/false/just-plain-wrong
>information being propagated.  to those who know how mail on the
>internet works, some of the proposed "fixes" to non-problems are as
>wrong as stating that "2 + 2 = 49.273".  not just slightly wrong, not
>just off-by-one, but completely wrong.  when you see people who are
>belligerently wrong AND, worse, spreading that incorrect information
>then there is an *obligation* to correct the mistake before it spreads
>too far and infects too many minds.

Let's just say that the fact the same tired debate goes on and on is an 
indication that there is something seriously broken in the system.  If it 
wasn't, there'd be a clear winner.  Quite frankly, as for the mailing list 
issue, I feel all options suck.  Maybe let's look at them one by one:

1.  List as it is (Reply-To: to sender).  Technically a "right" thing to 
do, but relies too heavily on manual intervention to keep a discussion 
group going.  Most commonly available intervention (Reply to All) works, 
but is not default (you know, click without engaging brain ;) ).  Also for 
most people, it generates redundant CC'd traffic that clutters mailboxes 
and could also cause some confusion.

2.  Reply-To munging.  The advantage is it does make the list behave more 
like a discussion group.  Trouble is it breaks other replies (reply 
direct), takes away the poster's ability to override the default reply 
address (they can't force private replies, or to an alternate address), and 
can cause mail loops, when combined with broken mail servers.

3.  Use of extra headers to control replies to the list.  Nice, in 
theory.  Trouble is there are too many brain dead MUAs around, and they're 
not gonna go away in a hurry. :-(  Changing MUAs is not always an option 
(think corporate users stuck with Outlook, etc).

In short, the situation sucks and MUA writers should have been made to 
address these issues years ago. :-( As for us users, we just have to work 
with what we've got.

Anyway, let's get back to wireless. :)

73 de Tony, VK3JED
http://vkradio.com


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