[sf-perl] Admin: Duplicate copies of messages

Josh Berkus josh at agliodbs.com
Fri Dec 16 14:35:06 PST 2005


Vicki,

> Depending upon the configuration of your email server and client, you
> may or may not actually see both pieces of mail in your inbox. Some
> clients can delete "identical" messages.

Yeah, mine does.  It's nice that way.

> It is NOT the list message from vlb at cfcl.com to sanfrancisco-pm at pm.org.
> Headers on the latter look like this:
> >List-Id: San Francisco Perl Mongers User Group <sanfrancisco-pm.pm.org>
> >List-Unsubscribe:
> > <http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm>,
> > <mailto:sanfrancisco-pm-request at pm.org?subject=unsubscribe>
> >List-Archive: <http://mail.pm.org/pipermail/sanfrancisco-pm>
> >List-Post: <mailto:sanfrancisco-pm at pm.org>
> >Sender: sanfrancisco-pm-bounces at pm.org

Cool, yeah, that seems to be working.  I was able to "reply direct" to this 
one and get the list.

> This confusion over which piece of mail is which and how it was sent is
> one of only many problems people have with email lists. It also plays as
> an excellent example of WHY it's a bad idea to "reply all" to an email
> list. Reply to all will send duplicates to at least one person (iff the
> sender is also a subscriber). As more individuals are added to the To:
> and Cc: lines, Reply all will send more and more duplicate mail.

Unfortunately, a lot of OSS project lists are set to "reply to sender".  
This means that many users get used to using "reply all" because that's 
the *only* way they can send to the list.   Very few e-mail clients 
support "reply to list" and even those that do (like Kmail) are finicky to 
configure and maintain.   So  people need to be relaxed about things.

Or you can just kick me off the next time I hit "reply all" and I'll quit 
SFPerl.  Your choice.

-- 
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco


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