List-Post vs. Mail-Followup-To.

List-Post vs. Mail-Followup-To.

[Matthias Andree]

Hi,

there have been complaints on the bogofilter mailing list about my
sending Cc:'s for list replies (I've been using F for
Followup-and-quote).

It turned out that the list mail I replied to had List-Post headers, but
no Mail-Followup-To headers, and pressing F) for Followup sent to the
author and to the list.

I would have expected that List-Post has the same status as
Mail-Followup-To in mailing lists.

What is the opinion on this issue? Gnus bug? Misconfiguration on my end
(where do I need to look?)? PEBKAC -- my error, using Gnus in the wrong
way?

Thanks in advance.

-- 
Matthias Andree

Re: List-Post vs. Mail-Followup-To.

[Jesper Harder]

Matthias Andree <ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de> writes:

> It turned out that the list mail I replied to had List-Post headers,
> but no Mail-Followup-To headers, and pressing F) for Followup sent to
> the author and to the list.
>
> What is the opinion on this issue? Gnus bug? Misconfiguration on my
> end (where do I need to look?)? PEBKAC -- my error, using Gnus in the
> wrong way?

Does it work to press `A M' (gnus-mailing-list-insinuate) in the group?
I think it is supposed to set up the group parameters to obey List-Post.

Re: List-Post vs. Mail-Followup-To.

[Josh Huber]

Matthias Andree <ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de> writes:

> I would have expected that List-Post has the same status as
> Mail-Followup-To in mailing lists.

I hadn't heard of List-Post until now, but looking around it doesn't
look like it serves the same purpose as MFT.

Basically, it looks like list-post just tells the user how to submit
new messages to the list, whereas MFT is a *user-assigned* header,
which tells other *users* how to reply to their messages.  If people
on said list have a tendency to not want to be CC'd and they don't use
MFT, then I typically set the to-address group parameter for that
list.

On the other hand, a lot of lists I'm on (Debian lists mostly) have
people who properly set the MFT header to indicate if they want CCs or
not. (yes, people sometimes include themselves in the MFT list because
they don't like to weed through the mailing list messages to look for
replies...)

From the looks of it, list-post is mostly for administrative use, or
perhaps could be used when sending new messages to a list. (but not
replying!)

-- 
Josh Huber

Re: List-Post vs. Mail-Followup-To.

[Matthias Andree]

Josh Huber <huber@alum.wpi.edu> writes:

> Basically, it looks like list-post just tells the user how to submit
> new messages to the list, whereas MFT is a *user-assigned* header,
> which tells other *users* how to reply to their messages.  If people
> on said list have a tendency to not want to be CC'd and they don't use
> MFT, then I typically set the to-address group parameter for that
> list.

Eudora users are clueless. Ahem...

> On the other hand, a lot of lists I'm on (Debian lists mostly) have
> people who properly set the MFT header to indicate if they want CCs or
> not. (yes, people sometimes include themselves in the MFT list because
> they don't like to weed through the mailing list messages to look for
> replies...)
>
>>From the looks of it, list-post is mostly for administrative use, or
> perhaps could be used when sending new messages to a list. (but not
> replying!)

How about this:

1. if Mail-Followup-To: is present, use it.
2. if Mail-Followup-To: is missing (it's non-RFC'd), but List-Post, use it.
3. if neither is present, do what we do now.

-- 
Matthias Andree

Re: List-Post vs. Mail-Followup-To.

[Matthias Andree]

Jesper Harder <harder@myrealbox.com> writes:

> Matthias Andree <ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de> writes:
>
>> It turned out that the list mail I replied to had List-Post headers,
>> but no Mail-Followup-To headers, and pressing F) for Followup sent to
>> the author and to the list.
>>
>> What is the opinion on this issue? Gnus bug? Misconfiguration on my
>> end (where do I need to look?)? PEBKAC -- my error, using Gnus in the
>> wrong way?
>
> Does it work to press `A M' (gnus-mailing-list-insinuate) in the group?
> I think it is supposed to set up the group parameters to obey List-Post.

This indeed pulls the List-Post header in, but I wonder if it would have
some value to look at the List-Post header if 1. the post I'm replying
to has no Mail-Followup-To: header and 2. the group doesn't have to-list
configured.

-- 
Matthias Andree

Re: List-Post vs. Mail-Followup-To.

[Russ Allbery]

Matthias Andree <ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de> writes:

> This indeed pulls the List-Post header in, but I wonder if it would have
> some value to look at the List-Post header if 1. the post I'm replying
> to has no Mail-Followup-To: header and 2. the group doesn't have to-list
> configured.

List-Post only says "this is how you post to the mailing list."  It
doesn't say anything about whether to cc the author of a message to which
you're responding.  (Consider the case where the mailing list is actually
the recipient of mail to a role address, used to send that mail to various
admins who need to see it, where almost no one posting to the list is
actually on it.)

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

Re: List-Post vs. Mail-Followup-To.

[Josh Huber]

Matthias Andree <ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de> writes:

> Eudora users are clueless. Ahem...

:)

> 2. if Mail-Followup-To: is missing (it's non-RFC'd), but List-Post,
> use it.

I don't think that's a good idea.  I can see using
gnus-mailing-list-insinuate to snarf it into group parameters, but I'd
rather not automatically do anything based on this header.  I
understand that MFT is non-rfc, but I think it's a great solution to
the problem, and many agree with me. :)

Assuming you split this list traffic into a separate group, I'd just
place the list address in the to-address group param.

-- 
Josh Huber

Re: List-Post vs. Mail-Followup-To.

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Matthias Andree <ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de> writes:

> there have been complaints on the bogofilter mailing list about my
> sending Cc:'s for list replies (I've been using F for
> Followup-and-quote).

If people don't want that, they should be using Mail-Followup-To.

> I would have expected that List-Post has the same status as
> Mail-Followup-To in mailing lists.

The two headers have orthogonal functionality.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: List-Post vs. Mail-Followup-To.

[Matthias Andree]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Matthias Andree <ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de> writes:
>
>> there have been complaints on the bogofilter mailing list about my
>> sending Cc:'s for list replies (I've been using F for
>> Followup-and-quote).
>
> If people don't want that, they should be using Mail-Followup-To.

Tell that Eudora users (who meddle with threading all the time with
their broken References: headers).

>> I would have expected that List-Post has the same status as
>> Mail-Followup-To in mailing lists.
>
> The two headers have orthogonal functionality.

Are there any standardization efforts for Mail-Followup-To: and friends?
Those "Reply-To mungers" always pull back on this "it's not RFC, we
don't care, don't use elm and let us munge Reply-To" issue.

-- 
Matthias Andree

Re: List-Post vs. Mail-Followup-To.

[Frank Tegtmeyer]

Matthias Andree <ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de> writes:

> Are there any standardization efforts for Mail-Followup-To: and friends?

djb will not put any effort into RFCs anymore.

> Those "Reply-To mungers" always pull back on this "it's not RFC, we
> don't care, don't use elm and let us munge Reply-To" issue.

You could write an RFC. The reasoning for MFT could be taken literally
from djb's website.

Regards, Frank