[Cialug] Mailing List Setup

[Nicolai]

On Wed, Mar 09, 2011 at 05:43:35AM -0600, Todd Walton wrote:
> Some of these options in Mailman are confusing.  For example, if you
> set "Hide the sender of a message, replacing it with the list
> address", but set "Where are replies to list messages directed?" to
> poster, how's that going to work?

If those two options are not mutually exclusive, then presumably
the list would set the From header as listname at server.tld and the
Reply-To header as the email author (original sender).  I don't
think that's a coherent setup.

So for example on this list, you'd get a message with a header like
this:

  From: cialug at cialug.org
  To: cialug at cialug.org
  Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 05:43:35 -0600 
  Subject: open source stuff
  Reply-To: Todd Walton <todd at example.org>

Just a guess though.

On a related note, there was an interesting article today on Slashdot
about how people still misuse "reply all."  It's surprising that
such problems persist after all these years.  I think the following
article, which was listed as a "top 10" article[1] from Hacker News
Daily, sheds some light on the issue:

http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3339907908/the-cognitive-style-of-unix

The gist is that most people are smart enough to figure things out if
you give them a chance.  But if you treat users as stupid, they'll need
more handholding and be unable to overcome setbacks and challenges.
(You can see the same phenomenon elsewhere, too.)

I think that these days, now that the damage is already done,
Reply-To is probably best for non-technical lists, but I don't think
it's appropriate for technical lists.  It's not a big deal to have
lots of "oops that was supposed to be private" messages but a little
of the magic is lost in all the handholding.  That's all. :-)

Nicolai

Footnote:
1. http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/