[META-LIST] Now: perennial "reply-to-all" -- Was: Message to Stan - again

Stan Hoeppner
2010-08-16T08:36:36Z

Michael Monnerie put forth on 8/15/2010 1:52 PM:
> Sorry to bother all again, I just wanted to inform Stan that his filter
> still has a problem:
>
> <stan@hardwarefreak.com>: host greer.hardwarefreak.com[65.41.216.221]
> said: 554 5.7.1 <mailsrv1.zmi.at[212.69.164.54]>: Client host rejected:
> Access denied (in reply to RCPT TO command)
>
> Your .at filter seems removed, but another one still hits (me).

Apparently you're just in the wrong part of the world Michael. :) Ok, it
should be "fixed" now. BTW...

Why does "everyone" on this list "reply-to-all" when 99% of the time it is
totally unnecessary, redundant, and potentially ruffles a sender's feathers,
as in this case? TTBOMK in recent months the only time I saw that
"reply-to-all" was necessary was a thread which included the linux-kernel list
or someone who wasn't a member of the xfs list. I love you guys and all, and
I love XFS, but do I really need _two_ message copies each time someone
replies to a thread in which I participated? :) Do I need to be called out
in public for a "problem" with my spam filter when one of those two
_redundant_ messages gets blocked, even though the other made it through, and
always will? :)

I'm on 7 FOSS technical mailing lists, the others being debian-user, dovecot,
linux-ide, postfix-users, roundcube, and samba. Of these 7, only xfs and
linux-ide routinely suffer the "reply-to-all" syndrome. And of the others, on
some, the list OPs will actively scold people when they catch them performing
this perennial "reply-to-all" act. Wietse Venema (father of Postfix) in
particular gets perturbed by the "reply-to-all" behavior. Not surprising I
guess, with him living and breathing SMTP mail for the past ~15 years.

Most MUA's have a built in "reply-to-list" function these days and if not
someone usually offers a plug-in. I use it in TBird, first as a plug-in, and
now that the function is fully integrated. It works great. Never a problem.

I'm not trying to be a PITA for anyone here. I'm just trying to understand
the apparent _need_ to always "reply-to-all" given that it's unnecessary 99%
of the time and simply causes problems, some small, others more severe.

P.S. When someone feels slighted by the spam filter of a colleague, the first
thing you should do before making a public statement about it is to find a
local spammer and physically assault him for an hour or so. Then type your
email. If it weren't for the 10s of thousands of folks around the world like
the one you just pummeled, my draconian spam filter wouldn't exist. :)
Rightly place blame where it _belongs_.

--
Stan