Reply settings on this list have changed

users
#1

Hello,

this is to inform you that the reply settings on this list have changed (so-called "Reply to mangling" has been disabled).

So far, e-mails had set a reply-to the mailing list address. In other words, with any e-mail client, replies to e-mails on the list were automatically sent directly to the list.

In the past, this lead to two major problems:

1. Several times, people have sent direct replies to the public list, where deleting them is nearly impossible. I remember at least one case where confidential information has been sent out that caused lots of worries for the sender and his employer. This happened because people hit "reply" and thought it would reply to the sender only.

2. I have heard complaints in the past from people, stating that working with the non-developer lists of LibreOffice is a pain for them, because of reply-to mangling, resulting in a lack of communication. This also led to the fact that numerous tasks were done by the same people, who needed to spend more and more time, instead of sharing the work burden with others. While I do not fully believe this argument, there's just one way to find out...

Therefore, I have applied a change:

Replies to e-mails from the list now only go to the original sender. You either need to use the "reply to all" feature of your e-mail program, or - preferably - the "reply to list"/"reply to group" feature, which will direct replies directly to the list.

This is common practice on most mailing lists, and even the default setting for our mailing list software, so we did not re-invent the wheel here. Those seeking for details should have a look at http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html

I know we had numerous discussions on this topic in the past, but the outcome was that roughly 50% were for this change, and 50% refused it, so I am really sitting between two chairs here, for which I beg for your understanding. On the one hand, those complaining the lists are unusable with reply-to mangling, on the other hand, those complaining the lists are unusable without reply-to mangling. Unfortunately, combining those two, even on a per-recipient basis, is not possible, so they are mutually exclusive to each other.

In order to find out the real impact, I simply changed the setting, and again, I beg for your understanding.

Do not worry: The mailing lists are for the community, so it's the community deciding how they should work. What I'd like to ask all of you is to try out for a few days if that change is good for each list or not. Should we find out it is more harmful than it helps, I will immediately switch back to the old behaviour.

Sorry for this short notice, and I beg for your understanding that I'm somehow sitting between two chairs here.

Florian

#2

Just testing;
          and find this may be the silliest way of setting a list I've seen.

       If someone cannot take the minute time to check the 'to' 'cc' 'bcc'
then the 'subject' line, then are they smart enough to operate a machine
:wink:
          or to handle any secure documents :wink:

       Just curiously wondering - by the way, I assume you, Florian, will
receive 2 copies of this;
          when you tire of receiving duplicate messages, maybe you'll
return this list to resemble other lists :wink:

Hello,

#3

Well done!

This new way fails safe. A message intended to be public may get sent privately by mistake - a minor inconvenience that can easily be remedied by sending the message again correctly. The old method risked messages intended to be private being sent publicly - a unfortunate consequence that simply cannot be undone.

Interestingly, there's an argument that list processors have no business inserting a Reply-To header, which is instead the sole domain of the message's author. RFC 2822 appears to require this: 'When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it indicates the mailbox(es) to which the *author* of the message suggests that replies be sent" (my emphasis). The author of a message, of course, is not the list.

Brian Barker

#4

I quite like this idea of change as it now seems that less mistakes
should be made!

#5

I did not know that you could "make" the email client state "Reply List" instead of the text on the "Reply All" button. I run Thunderbird 14.0.

I have to get use to using the "Reply List" instead of "Reply" to post a message to the thread. It could be confusing to people, but does make it easier to send a message to the poster, off list. I use to copy the email address of the poster and then paste it to my "To:" section. This will be easier to do that, but hopefully not too many people will forget to use the "new" "Reply List" button instead of the "Reply" button.

#6

I did not know that you could "make" the email client state "Reply List" instead of the text on the "Reply All" button. I run Thunderbird 14.0.

I have to get use to using the "Reply List" instead of "Reply" to post a message to the thread. It could be confusing to people, but does make it easier to send a message to the poster, off list. I use to copy the email address of the poster and then paste it to my "To:" section. This will be easier to do that, but hopefully not too many people will forget to use the "new" "Reply List" button instead of the "Reply" button.

myself, I am not so clear why people are interested in sending private email to people on a public list. I did it yesterday but only because I had trouble posting to the list and was overeager to get my word ('hucksterism') in.

the default mode on a list of replying to the list made sense to me. not a big deal for me since I mostly lurk.

F.

#7

exactly, therefore to change the default, you're changing this list
to where folks will now be corresponding privately rather than allowing the
list to hear what's new and learn from others.

#8

I just posted a reply to a thread to the last poster instead of the thread by mistake. I am so use to pressing "Reply" and the next button being "Reply All", that I now have to remember to skip the "Reply" button and remember that the "Reply All" button has been replaced with "Reply List". This may cause some problems, if too many of our list users get the reply posting that were meant to go to the lists instead.

Christian L. just sent me a notice that my posting went to him instead the "How can I know which one is a spam?" thread in the Website list.

I nearly sent this posting to "anne-ology" instead of the User list. This is going to be a problem, maybe.

#9

exactly.

       Let's take a poll - (1) to return this list to being an actual list
                                     or
                                 (2) to change this from a list to private
communications between only select ones, depriving the group of learning
the ins & outs of LO.

#10

To me it seems fairly straightforward. I use Opera mail and it is great
for mailing lists as it groups all replies to one thread in a
conversation view. it also has a *Reply to list and a *Reply all
functionality. It only seems logical to me to hit "reply to list" as
that is what it is. anyway as the cliche goes I was "jus sayin"

Regards
Anthony

#11

I'm subscribed to quite a few lists by now, and some of them has had
this ”new” behaviour for quite some time. I was kind of hoping THEY
would change…

Kind regards

Johnny Rosenberg
ジョニー・ローゼンバーグ

#12

Exactly - and this is why I totally am not in favour of replying to the person rather than the list

Our British Car list used to reply to the list and if someone asked a question everyone saw the answers and ensuing dialogue. Someone complained about reply to list and the reply to was changed - the result is that we seldom see the responses to questions and folks receiving the info end up having to remember to forward all of the responses to the list so others can share

Not a good idea to reply to sender on these help lists

Preston

anne-ology wrote:

#13

To me it seems fairly straightforward. I use Opera mail and it is great
for mailing lists as it groups all replies to one thread in a
conversation view. it also has a *Reply to list and a *Reply all
functionality. It only seems logical to me to hit "reply to list" as
that is what it is. anyway as the cliche goes I was "jus sayin"

Regards
Anthony

When you say Opera mail, do you mean the Opera web mail or the Opera
M2 email client?

Kind regards

Johnny Rosenberg
ジョニー・ローゼンバーグ

#14

Opera Webmail. I move around to much on computers to use a dedicated
mail client. http://mail.opera.com

#15

Opera Webmail. I move around to much on computers to use a dedicated
mail client. http://mail.opera.com

I actually have an Opera Mail address, but I didn't use it for years
now; maybe it's erased by now. So it could be a good idea to use Opera
Mail for email lists, then… How much space is there for each user
these days?

Kind regards

Johnny Rosenberg
ジョニー・ローゼンバーグ

#16

It has changed to become "@myopera.com" now. and as it is still in beta
phase you only have 1gb of space which is still heaps for emails! They
plan to increase it in the near future. (best thing with this is there
is no adverts to annoy me or nor is there googles stupid tracking
policy!)

#17

Greetings,
I hope this gets to the right place. I used "Reply All" in Thunderbird. The header looks correct, but people are going to get duplicate messages.
Here is another side-effect of this change:
Florian,
Right! Yesterday, your changes broke my email filter which puts libreoffice user group messages in a specific folder. But then I changed the filter from looking at "Reply-To:" to "To:" and thought that would suffice. Now, this morning I got 7 libreoffice messages in my correct folder via my filter change, and 4 messages direct from members in my main inbox, which my filter did not catch. Your change may make it easy for you, but it is a nightmare for me. There is no way I can create filters for all users who use their address.

My vote is to return the list to the way it behaved before you made this change. This is "Anne-ology"'s Poll option #1.

I might also add, that the mis-addressed private message issue did happen to me many years ago, when I sent what I thought was a private joke message and discovered to my chagrin after sending it, that Netscape also added a newsgroup address to the header without my blessing. You can imagine the impact of that. It was not funny and I am still, after over 20 years, seeing that association come up now and then. Since then, I verify where my email client is sending my messages before sending them. Anyone who does not do so, is taking a chance and should not persecute others for their mistakes.
Girvin Herr

webmaster-Kracked_P_P wrote:

#18

I prefer the list, or even better a forum. I won't be bothered editing the to/cc fields on a reply so it will be reply-all and every poster I reply to will get a private copy. I suspect in time this will become the norm.

Steve

#19

It will just take some time to get use to NOT using the "Reply" button for replying to these threads. Before the change was made, I never saw a "Reply List" as the text for the button that normally is for "Reply All".

I have been using "Reply" since Spring of last year, so it will take time for me to get use to doing it a different way.

Things change all the time. In the past year, Thunderbird went from 3.x.x to 14.x.x on the Ubuntu 10.04 repository. Sometimes Change is good, while other times it is not. I do not like "change for change sake" like MS is doing with Win8 so your desktop looks like your tablet. Not for me that.

But with this "major" change on how to reply to the list emails, or which button to use, people will need to be aware that there might be a lot of "mistakes" sending the reply to the email to the last poster and not to the list itself. I already did that one and nearly twice today. So it most likely will happen with others as well. I use Thunderbird, so I do not know what it looks like with Outlook or other mail clients, or even web-browser based emails like some of the accounts for GMail, Hotmail, YahooMail, NetZeorMail, etc., etc., will show in their web page[s] for accessing your emails instead via an email-client.

#20

I see the Reply List next to Reply in Thunderbird.