OFFTOPIC Re: [Mailman-Users] Archive URL in postings (2.1b3)

[Jay Sekora]

> > However I find the addition of my delivery address into the To line
> > highly irritating
> 
> Why? I'm curious.

Because it's simply a lie.  I got this mail with the headers:

From:    Chuq Von Rospach <chuqui at plaidworks.com>
To:      jay at ccs.neu.edu
cc:      Mailman mailing list management users <mailman-users at python.org>

What that means to me is that Chuq Von Rospach knows me, knows my email
address, deliberately decided to send this mail to me specifically,
and thinks that the subscribers of mailman-users at python.org might
be interested in looking over our shoulders as we have this personal
conversation.

I often put people and/or lists in the To: or Cc: headers, or Bcc: 
headers, depending on the content of the mail and how important I 
think it is to them.  I will trust lists less if they mess with what 
I put there.

I sometimes put actual content that is important to the message in 
those headers, such as:

To: People who attended my last party <jay at example.org>
Bcc: jay-party-list at example.org
Subject: Somebody left a jacket

I expect that people with civilized mailers are going to be able to 
see what I typed in the To: (and From: and Cc:) headers, and I consider 
that part of the message.

Back to filtering, I filter lots of my mailing lists into separate 
folders, but I only do so if my own address doesn't appear in the 
destination headers, because in that case I consider the message addressed 
to me as an individual as well as to the list, and I want it to end 
up in the place where mail-addressed-to-me-as-an-individual goes.

With this change that distinction is lost.  I can no longer tell (except
by seeing how many copies of a message I got, which may break in other
ways if a message is sent to multiple lists) whether I was singled out
as a particular more-interested recipient of a message, or if I got it
only because I'm subscribed to a list.

For lists I administer, I'll just turn this off when I migrate.

For lists I'm subscribed to but filter to folders and read in batch 
mode, I'll just change my filters to adapt.  That loses me the adavantage 
of treating messages that actually *did* list me individually as a 
recipient differently, and means that I might not see something that 
was sent to the list but Cc:'ed to me for some time, and might not 
get the chance to respond in a timely fashion.

For lists I'm subscribed to but *don't* filter to folders and normally 
read interspersed with the rest of my mail, I'd find the new behaviour 
sufficiently awful that I'd start filtering them (and be much less 
likely to read them in a timely fashion).

The end result (if Mailman-run lists were to routinely switch to this
behaviour) is that I'll be subscribed to fewer lists than I am now, and
that of the lists I stay subscribed to, I'll be a less active participant.

(On the other hand, I really want personalized footers and mailman-not-rfc822
"headers".)

If the new behaviour is optional and not the default, and you don't 
have to enable the (RFC822) header munging in order to turn on personalized 
delivery, then I see no problem with the new functionality being there. 
I can even imagine certain very special-purpose, broadcast-only lists 
where it might be desirable.  But it's certainly not a behaviour I 
would want on any list I was subscribed to.

Sorry if this message comes across as heated.  Maybe I've taken this 
discussion more personally because it was all addressed to me specifically. :-)
Mailman is fabulous, and the improvements in the new version are
generally great, and I'm looking forward to migrating to 2.1, and 
I think my users are going to love some of the new features.

But I sure am glad this particular change isn't going to be the default, 
(and I hope it doesn't prevent me from turning on personalized footers).

Cheers,

Jay