Organization: Washington University, St. Louis
Date:         Wed, 19 Aug 92 16:35:22 CST
From:         Bill Harvey <HARVEY@WUVMD.Wustl.Edu>
Subject:      Re: flexible "From:" fields
Newsgroups:   bit.listserv.mailbook

I wasn't very clear on where I was headed.  Sorry about that...

On Tue, 18 Aug 1992 13:37:05 +0200, Eric Thomas <ERIC@SEARN.BITNET> said:

>Regarding these  suggestions about what to  place or not to  place in the
>'Sender:'  field...

I don't think I was commenting on what "should" be in the Sender: field.
I only said that the BGs had a good point when they say that most LISTSERV
lists are not set up to conform to RFC822 because they put the address
of an automated process in the Sender: field.  No slur on LISTSERV; just
that's how most people set up their lists because of the implications it
has for MAIL.  (At least that's my impression...)

The part I probably wasn't clear on was that I was trying to recommend
a way that MAIL could cease to be a relevant factor by suggesting that
it should be more flexible about what it displayed in the From:/To:
fields on its main menu.  Maybe add a command or options so that those
fields could toggle between displays of From:, To:, Sender:,
Reply-To:, Xxx:, etc.  in the headers so that a user could display
his/her own personal preference.  (As a corollary to this idea
(assuming it were adopted), it would be convenient if there were a
certain RFC822 header field that was *guaranteed* to have the address
of the list in it.  Perhaps introduce a new header field like
X-From-List: or something like that.  That way, a user could display
that field using the new option/command and be sure that it would
contain the address of the list.  I don't know whether this is already
a feature of LISTSERV.)

I apologize if I didn't make all that clear in my original post.

>                    In  my  opinion  this type  of  discussion  is a  bit
>pointless, different  people want  different things

I'll agree completely.  If we try to worry about being all things to
all people, we'd probably go quietly insane (or maybe not so quietly).

>                                                     and not  everyone is
>using MAILBOOK or running VM.

True.  But since this is the MAILBOOK list, I figured I could stop worrying
about the rest of the world for a little while.  :-)

>                              Perhaps the  only thing one could get a 75%
>or  more agreement  on is  that mail  from a  list should  not look  like
>private mail from the poster to the person reading his mail.

Again, complete agreement.

>                                                             Personally I
>don't use  MAILBOOK, so  this is  a bit  immaterial, but  as a  matter of
>personal taste  I want mail from  a list to  look like it comes  FROM the
>list on the menu. Some want it to look like it goes TO the list,

Both of these would be do-able, if MAILBOOK allowed the user to specify
which header fields were displayed by the menu.

>While BSMTP  headers do use "Multiple  recipients blah blah" in  the name
>field, the RFC822 address is that of the list

True.  Perhaps an additional feature would be to chose, not only which
header field is displayed, but whether the name field or the RFC822 address
in the selected header is displayed.

>                                        In both cases, the information IS
>there, all you  need to do is  have MAILBOOK format it the  way you want.

Precisely.  That's all I was saying.  I probably added to the
confusion when I lost the distinction between MAIL and MAILBOOK.  In
MAIL, the initial menu displays the From: address based on the spool
file's name and dist fields.  Then the display changes to the contents
of the header fields after an item is read the first time.

Assuming this idea is adopted, I guess it'd be arguable whether these
options should take effect before or only after an item is read the
first time.  It would be nice to have them in effect before first
read.  (In fact, if you don't worry about making them effective before
first read, then the contents of the Sender: field becomes irrelevant
to the discussion, since, after first read, the Sender: field has no
bearing on what is currently displayed.)  But it would be unfortunate
to sacrifice very much performance to accomplish that.

>And remember that there are many people  who use VMS mail or whatever and
>have entirely different requirements.

We'll worry about them when MAILBOOK is ported to VMS.  :-)  Richard, what's
your release date for that?  :-)

Bill
>  Eric
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU