[ale] ALE reply-to changes needed??

[James P. Kinney III]

On Sat, 2003-04-12 at 20:30, James Sumners wrote:
> Here is your (un)requested flame-like email:
> 
> 
> 
> On 12 Apr 2003 20:09:31 -0400
> "James P. Kinney III" <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com> wrote:
> 
> > I want the simple choice of directly replying to the original poster
> > with the content of the original post intact. The original post did not
> > come from ALE. It came from an individual. 
> 
> Seems to me that the whole point of signing up for a mailing list is to
> participate in a community. If everyone just sends private mails by default then
> the community looses out on any relevant information that might have been sent
> in response to the original post.

Like a community, there are public discussion and less public
discussion. Sometimes a post brings up a side idea that gets taken off
list. Community participation is the principle idea of mailing lists
such as ALE. I would prefer to see the personal choice of how I
participate returned to me. I resent greatly any forcing of
participation other than civil and polite rules of conduct. 
> 
> > ...My Linux
> > system is SUPPOSED to make my life easier by letting me get things done
> > quicker.
> 
> Really? Where is that rule? Yes, it is possible to configure things much more
> than other operating systems which has the added benefit of making it possible
> to do things quicker. But, that does not inherently mean the operating system
> itself is written for that express purpose.

That is the reason I wiped NT off my drive for good 5 years ago. It has
worked quite well using my choice of OS. That is the entire point of
this discussion. I want my choice back.
> 
> > Since the list was migrated to the new server, the archives have been
> > storing the flotsam and jetsam sent to the entire list that used to be
> > taken offline immediately by using the reply instead of the reply-all.
> 
> Do I need to restate the community point?

I do see the need to store the trash pile in the archives. I have no
interest in acting as a moderator and certainly not as a censor to
determine what gets archived and what does not. But a community is not
all standing the squares having discussions. I have made some friends
that I see out in the real world from this list. This list is just a
public forum carried on by many individuals. Choice is good. It's why my
OS isn't a Microsoft product.
> 
> > Then there is the simple logic of the situation. I am supposed to have
> > two choices of reply. Choice one, reply to the person in the From field;
> > choice two, reply to the group as a whole. But as it stands right now, I
> > don't. Since both reply types have the same effect, it is broken.
> 
> I fully understand this point but it doesn't make sense to me in this
> situation. It is a little reminiscent of someone dropping by an IRC channel,
> asking a question, and then resolving an issue with private messages without
> indicating that the question is being answered. If the rest of us have no idea
> that a person is getting help then some may be wasting their time responding to
> the original post that was sent to a public list for a public response.

I have not seen that happen here. I've been on this list for years and
when a solution is found, it gets posted. I have seen problems that were
taken offline during the brain-strain phase of digging up a solution. I
have been a party to several of those. I have also always seen the final
resolution posted. That is part of the community spirit here. It works.
Every once in a while a newbie joins up, spews garbage, and gets yelled
at, offline, by other people to clean up the act, respect the others on
the list, etc. 

I would also like to point out that there are many on this list that are
donating their time and expertise to helping others find solutions to
their problems. For many, this solution-finding process is their
lively-hood. They are under no obligation to provide their consulting
services for free. To imply otherwise is insulting to the generosity of
those people who have donating countless thousands of dollars of their
time making this one of the greatest LUG around.
> 
> > Fix it.
> > 
> > I guess the crowd that LIKES it broken is more accustomed to using
> > broken software than I am. Hmmm. I wonder what they are using for a mail
> > client?
> > 
> 
> Certainly not Evolution.

Ximian Evolution version 1.2 is what I use at my main desktop. Remotely,
I use Mutt even though I dislike it. It works well enough through a
mindterm tunnel that it is worth the effort.
> 
> 
> Having said all of that, I couldn't really care less which option is chosen in
> the end. I happen to like the current setup because I have this strange
> fascination of pressing the 'reply' button when I want to reply to an email. It
> just doesn't cross my mind that there even is a 'reply all' button. I assume
> that I fall into a fairly large category of "lame" users who do such a thing.

Then an opportunity to learn something new has presented itself. Yes,
Evolution has a "Reply to all" button. In the pre-munging days, that was
how sending a reply to the entire group was done. Since it was stated
that there is indifference in the outcome of this debate, I implore all
those with a similar indifference to choose the non-munged Reply-to
field as is results in the restoration of a choice for reply methods for
each individual on the list.


-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics) <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7 

 This is a digitally signed message part