[TUHS] off-topic list

Grant Taylor gtaylor at tnetconsulting.net
Sun Jun 24 04:49:36 AEST 2018


On 06/23/2018 08:49 AM, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
> Hello.

Hi,

> Oh, I do not know: i have never used a graphical MUA, only pine, then 
> mutt, and now, while anytime before now and then anyway, BSD Mail.

I agree that text mode MUAs from before the turn of the century do have 
a LOT more functionality than most GUI MUAs that came after that point 
in time.

Thankfully we are free to use what ever MUA we want to.  :-)

> they i think misinterpreted RFC 2231 to only allow MIME paramaters to be 
> split in ten sections.

I've frequently found things that MUAs (and other applications) don't do 
properly.  That's when it becomes a learning game to see what subset of 
the defined standard was implemented incorrectly and deciding if I want 
to work around it or not.

> Graphical user interfaces are a difficult abstraction, or tedious to use. 
> I have to use a graphical browser, and it is always terrible to enable 
> Cookies for a site.

Cookies are their own problem as of late.  All the "We use 
cookies...<bla>...<bla>...<bla>...." warnings that we now seem to have 
to accept get really annoying.  I want a cookie, or more likely a 
header, that says "I accept (first party) cookies." as a signal to not 
pester me.

> For my thing i hope we will at some future day be so resilient that 
> users can let go the nmh mailer without loosing any freedom.

Why do you have to let go of one tool?  Why can't you use a suite of 
tools that collectively do what you want?

> I mean, user interfaces are really a pain, and i think this will not 
> go away until we come to that brain implant which i have no doubt will 
> arrive some day, and then things may happen with a think.  Things like 
> emacs or Acme i can understand, and the latter is even Unix like in the 
> way it works.

You can keep the brain implant.  I have a desire to not have one.

> Interesting that most old a.k.a. established Unix people give up that 
> Unix freedom of everything-is-a-file, that was there for email access via 
> nupas -- the way i have seen it in Plan9 (i never ran a research Unix), 
> at least -- in favour of a restrictive graphical user interface!

Why do you have to give up one tool to start using a different tool?

I personally use Thunderbird as my primary MUA but weekly use mutt 
against the same mailbox w/ data going back 10+ years.  I extensively 
use Procmail to file messages into the proper folders.  I recently wrote 
a script that checks (copies of) messages that are being written to 
folders to move a message with that Message-ID from the Inbox to the 
Trash.  (The point being to remove copies that I got via To: or CC: when 
I get a copy from the mailing list.)

It seems to be like I'm doing things that are far beyond what 
Thunderbird can do by leveraging other tools to do things for me.  I 
also have a handful devices checking the same mailbox.

> No, we use the same threading algorithm that Zawinski described ([1], 
> "the threading algorithm that was used in Netscape Mail and News 2.0 
> and 3.0").  I meant, in a threaded display, successive follow-up messages 
> which belong to the same thread will not reiterate the Subject:, because 
> it is the same one as before, and that is irritating.
> 
>    [1] http://www.jwz.org/doc/threading.html

I *LOVE* threaded views.  I've been using threaded view for longer than 
I can remember.  I can't fathom not using threaded view.

I believe I mistook your statement to mean that you wanted to thread 
based on Subject: header, not the In-Reply-To: or References: header.

>>> And you seem to be using DMARC, which irritates the list-reply mechanism
>>> of at least my MUA.
>> 
>> Yes I do use DMARC as well as DKIM and SPF (w/ -all).  I don't see how
>> me using that causes problems with "list-reply".
>> 
>> My working understanding is that "list-reply" should reply to the list's
>> posting address in the List-Post: header.
>> 
>> List-Post: <mailto:tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org>
>> 
>> What am I missing or not understanding?
> 
> That is not how it works for the MUAs i know.  It is an interesting idea. 
> And in fact it is used during the "mailing-list address-massage" 
> if possible.  But one must or should differentiate in between a 
> subscribed list and a non-subscribed list, for example.  This does 
> not work without additional configuration (e.g., we have `mlist' and 
> `mlsubscribe' commands to make known mailing-lists to the machine), 
> though List-Post: we use for automatic configuration (as via `mlist').
> 
> And all in all this is a complicated topic (there are Mail-Followup-To: 
> and Reply-To:, for example), and before you say "But what i want is a 
> list reply!", yes, of course you are right.  But.  For my thing i hope 
> i have found a sensible way through this, and initially also one that 
> does not deter users of console MUA number one (mutt).

How does my use of DMARC irritate the list-reply mechanism of your MUA?

DMARC is completely transparent to message contents.  Sure, DKIM adds 
headers with a signature.  But I don't see anything about DKIM's use 
that has any impact on how any MUA handles a message.

Or are you referring to the fact that some mailing lists modify the 
From: header to be DMARC compliant?

Please elaborate on what you mean by "DMARC irritate the list-reply 
mechanism of your MUA".



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die



More information about the TUHS mailing list