[gnokii-users] Re: Do we really need a list name in subject?

[Terje Bless]

Brendan Pratt <address@hidden> wrote:

>>I'm sorry for off-topic but could someone explain why is list name
>>inserted into every posting to this list?
>
>And what is so wrong about the list name prefixing the subject line ?

Quite a few things actually.

There is nothing wrong with you prefering it so, of course! Tastes in this,
as in all other things, are obviously highly subjective. But there are
several good technical reasons, some of which may seem obscure but have
hostorically proved to be rather profound. To wit:


While I have a larger and better resolution monitor then most, my screen
realestate is still precious. Wasting that much horizontal space on
redundant information is counter-productive.

The less mailinglist managers, or any other parts of the mail transport for
that matter, mess with the message and it's headers in transit, the better.
History has proven time and again that this leads to mangled messages more
often then not.

The extra "information" in the subject field is distracting and takes
attention away from the actual subject of the message.

The subject field is defined to be free form text. Attempting to impose
structure on this field is like attempting sympathetic magic; electronic
voodo.

The _correct_ way to convey this information is described in RFC 2919 and
involves the use of a "List-ID" header field (which, you'll note, is
included in every message to this list).

Experience also shows, that the reason some people prefer to have the list
name inserted into the Subject field is simply due to actively harmfull
email software. Any software that makes you feel you need the list name
crammed into the Subject field is very likely to also be broken in several
other imaginative ways and should be avoided for those reasons (thereby
making the issue moot).


>Personally I prefer all list I subscribe to, have the list name prefixed
>like this.

That is, of course, your prerogative, but please do not subject the rest of
us, who /do/ use decent email software, to this. I am sure the
manufacturers of your email client will be most sympatethic to your request
for a feature to automatically insert the list name in the Subject field of
_local_ messages when displayed. :-)

IOW: Don't use Microsoft products for email. They're bad for you, and more
importantly, they're bad for the `net! :-)


Oh, and while we're at it; please read
<URL:http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html> and consider
disbanding the practice of mugning the Reply-To header field. It's not
standards compliant and it interferes with the operation of my email
client.



-- 
By definition there is __no_way__ any problem can be my fault.  Any problems
you think you can find in my code are all in your imagination. If you continue
with such derranged imaginings then I may be forced to perform corrective
brain surgery... with an axe.                              -- Stephen Harris