On Fri, 16 Jul 93 13:20:14 EDT Ravin Asar said:
>Keeping both around is necessary, so that all users can be told to
>send list-related administrivia to "listname-request", and people
>concerned with communicating with the actual owner of the list (like
>postmasters, system administrators, etc. can send to "owner-listname".
>This allows one to alias *all* "listname-request" to an MLM, if
>necessary, and yet keep each "owner-listname" pointing to the owner(s)
>of the lists.
 
OK, now what about "listname-OWNER", which is also in use?
Does that imply the same as "owner-listname"?
If so, would it be better to drop one, or to ADD "request-listname"
so that users won't need to remember whether "listname" comes first
or not, but only "listname" and the two words "request" (for list-
related administrivia) and "owner" (the HUMAN)?
 
 
>In pratice, MLM's might play with headers and do something like:
>  From: [log in to unmask]
>  Errors-To: [log in to unmask]
>  Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
 
Looks nice, but as to the issue of the person reading an item with
these headers, it doesn't "guarantee" for even a minute that this
item was posted on "[log in to unmask]", nor that if posted,
it was posted as-is.  Because a person sending this item to someone
else might've put that listname there.
Not only that, there are enough mailing lists out there which allow
the user to use the "Reply-To:" to refer replies back to themselves
instead of the mailing list.  In fact, some mailing lists are set up
so that the poster's address is ALWAYS put in the "Reply-To:" field.
So as identification of the mailing list ITSELF, we're still up the
creek without a paddle.
 
Another point of inconsistency is people who do the following:
   From:  [log in to unmask]
   To:    [log in to unmask]
   Cc:    [log in to unmask]
and the mailing list "listname" passes the item on to the
subscribers with those headers, MAYBE adding:
   Sender:  [log in to unmask]
Or switch the "To:" and "Cc:" for more fun...  :-)
 
Now tell me, is it in the above perfectly clear to the user that the
item did INDEED come from a mailing list?  And if so, which address
the user is to reply (or mail) to?  AND WHICH HEADER CONSISTENTLY
GAVE THAT INFORMATION??
 - Not from the "Sender:" line; that header-name has something to do
   with errors, according to RFC-822.
 - Not from the Cc:" field, because that header-name does NOT mean
   "the addr here is the submit-posting-to-list-address".
 - With the "To:" and "Cc:" switched, the same goes for the "To:".
Well, I guess the item didn't come from a mailing list then, but
straight from the "From:" addr.  IMHO a perfectly valid conclusion,
and totally wrong...
 
A comparable case:
I scan Netnews via a newsreader, saving what looks interesting to
a file. Interesting items from my mailbox are added to that file.
Then the file is downloaded for relaxed reading.
Now it turns out that the only way I can consistently determine
whether I got an item from Netnews or not is the ABSENCE of the
"To:" field in the ones posted to Netnews.  The PRESENCE in itself
of the "Newsgroups:" header cannot be used consistently for this
purpose.
But when the "To:" field ain't there, then the presence of the
"Newsgroups:" field plus its contents tell me it's a Netnews item,
and which group(s) to it was posted in.
So there is a very useful form of consistency here.
 
How now to apply this to mailing lists?  Which behaviour can all
MLMs agree on so that mailing-list postings can be distinguished
from other mail, and allow easy determination of the mailing list
and its posting address?
 
 
>and users would, of course, send administrivia to:
>  To: [log in to unmask]
>Evident, this is obviously what greater and wiser people had in mind
>when developing the conventions and standards.  (Being slow as I am,
>it's all finally come together for me now :-)
 
Did I just mess it up again for you, Ravin?  >:-)
 
Have the greater and wiser people you refer to indeed taken into
consideration the issue I'm referring to?
If "yes", then what is the definite answer?
If "no", then isn't it time that someone (I don't care who) thought
about it, came up with a workable solution, and got the whole email
world to use it as standard/convention/whatever?
I've seen exactly ONE posting giving "no" as the answer, and one
posting saying "no" to a related issue.  The other postings all veer
off to more or less important side issues (but side issues
nonetheless).
 
To me it seems the following issues are all interconnected and
interdependant matters.  Are there any other closely related issues?
 - Is the item from a list, and if so which posting addr?
 - [owner-|request-]listname[-owner|-request].
 - Consistent name format for administrative requests.
 - Consistent (sub)set of features to be supported by all MLMs?
 
 
Regards.
$$\