+1 (binding) to revert. Note that, had I replied in Mutt rather than my Webmail client, the default behavior would have been to just send my reply directly to Sheng rather than the ML.
When I'm replying to a mailing list, I expect "reply" to send my reply to the mailing list, and not the initial sender. Breaking that behavior is not optimal, IMHO. Yes, we can conditional ourselves to "Reply-All," but that goes against the grain to the other dozen or so mailing lists that I'm subscribed to. On Thu, Feb 7, 2013, at 06:00 PM, Sheng Yang wrote: > Hi all, > > I'd like to call for a vote for reverting back to the old mailing list > mechanism, which would add "Reply-To: mailing list" to every mail it > send out. > > And I need to declare that I would vote *-1* on this revert. > > Whatever you voted in the previous mail, I suggested to read the whole > mail before vote. > > Here are some backgrounds: > > 1. What's "Reply-To" header > > Defined by IETF RFC 5322(the latest version of "Internet Message > Format")[1], 3.6.2 Originator Fields: > > <quote> > When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it > indicates the address(es) to which the author of the message suggests > that replies be sent. > </quote> > > Which means, this option would override the default behavior of > replying mail, to send out mail to the specified mailing address > (mailing list address in this case) rather than original author of the > mail. > > 2. What's the old mailing list mechanism > > Long ago, many people familiar with other mailing list like LKML or > libvirt realized there is no way to use reply all to the author and > this mailing list as we did before on this mailing list. The mail only > goes for the mailing list address, not for the author. That's because > in the past, this mailing list(cloudstack-dev) added "Reply-To" field > to all the mail it sent out, which would override the original author > field when others reply the mail. So something like this would happen: > > Event: A wrote mail X, send to mailing list. > Result: X reached other subscribers of mailing list, with "From: A" > and "Reply-To: M" (mailing list). > Event: B replied the mail X. > Result: X reached other subscribers of mailing list, with "From: B" > and "Reply-To: M". There is no A mentioned in this mail's header. A > would have to check the mail from mailing list to know B replied. > > 3. What's the new mailing list mechanism(which is happening now). > > The "Reply-To" has been discard. So every mail come along would go > back to it's author as well as the mailing list. > > Event: A wrote mail X, send to mailing list. > Result: X reached other subscribers of mailing list, with "From: A" and > "CC: M". > Event: B replied the mail X. > Result: X reached other subscribers of mailing list, as well as A's > mail box directly, with "From: B" and "To/CC: A, M". A would see that > in his inbox directly. > > 4. What's the pro/con of the old approach(I won't vote for this, so > you know this may be bias). : > > Pros: > a. Enforcement: It would enforce every communication happened in the > mailing list. > b. Fix the broken mail client: You don't need to have a mail client > support "Reply-to-all" for involving the mailing list. > > Cons: > a. Violate RFC 5322. RFC 5322 said clearly that ONLY "author" can > suggest to use "Reply-To" for an alternative address of receiving the > reply. Mailing list server is NOT the author of the mail. > b. Inefficient: Everyone would setup a filter for mailing list would > need to dig the mailing list from time to time to see if there is a > response. > > And here is an very old article on explaining why "Reply-To" is bad > thing to do[2]. You can read if you're interested in. > > 5. What's pro/cons of the new approach: > > Pros: > a. Efficient: Author would receive the mail addressed to his mailbox, > so he would know that's a reply(from the mailing list) immedately. > b. Consistent: When you in the thread for multiple people, you won't > expect "Reply" single would reach all the people. That's why most > people always use "Reply-to-All" by default in their daily life. > c. Keep people in thread. Even if you're at a long weekend and don't > like to be bothered by mailing list but someone replied you on one > month old thread, you would know immediately. > d. More involving: People don't need to subscribe to the mailing list > to involve. Like Wido pointed out, most mailing list is doing this > because they encourage the anticipating, even temporarily. You don't > need to subscribe to the mailing list to involve in the community, but > you still can choose to do so if you think it's good enough for > subscribing. > > Cons: > New comer's mistake: It happened when one just begin the community > life. Someday he hit "Reply" rather than "Reply-to-all" by mistake. > Then mail didn't go to the mailing list. > > 6. My opinion: > > a. Inefficient is unacceptable. I don't want to spend any unnecessary > time to look through all the mails to find out what's my interested > in, especially when I am in a tiger team and had worked for more than > 12 hours a day. > > b. Man made mistakes, but they learned quickly after that. I've > learned that as well. In fact I suppose most people would use > "Reply-to-All" in the company or daily life, so I don't think it's > hard. Anyway, I set "Reply-to-All" by default in all my mail clients, > and I expected most of us have done the same. > > c. Some people said it would encourage offline discussion. I distaste > this thought most. It seems you shouldn't been given freedom to choose > because we didn't trust you can do the right thing. But it's the trust > which build the community, and it's the freedom all Open Source/Free > Software about. "Free as in freedom". Yes, this approach just make it > easier for people to discuss offline, but does it matter? If you don't > trust the people would able to do the right thing, I am afraid even if > you tried every method you have to enforce it, they won't help a bit. > Community is about people, not about the mailing list. Offline discuss > can always happen if people want. Community is an spontaneously > organization, not an prison, or Soviet Union. People have right to > choose. If you cannot believe they would do the right thing if you > give them choice, then this open source community is already done. The > Linux kernel mailing list or xen-devel or kvm-devel or libvirt or many > other famous mailing list, do it in this way, and none of them hurts > because of "encouraging offline discussion". > > I vote -1 on this change. > > [1]http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322 > [2]http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html > > --Sheng Best, jzb -- Joe Brockmeier j...@zonker.net Twitter: @jzb http://www.dissociatedpress.net/
