Re[2]: Yes, Let's do it! [GENERAL] [LIST-SPLIT]

[Brandon Ibach]

Quoting Jay R. Ashworth <jra "at" baylink.com>:
> If you create multiple, publicly accessible lists, then you'll end up
> with people posting to more than one of them, usually
> indiscriminately, and there's then no way for recipients to filter
> that out -- which was the whole point in the first place.
> 
   On the contrary, you can filter by the Message-ID, which will be
the same for all copies of the message, so that you only get one.  If
your software can't hack that, or if you want finer control, you could
filter by the Reply-To header, which would indicate which list
actually sent each copy.
   Further, it would not be difficult to modify the list software to
simply refuse cross-posted messages.  If it sees more than one list
address in the To and CC lines, it could either discard the message,
or bounce it back with an explanation that cross-posting is not
allowed.  Heck... I've hacked up Majordomo before, I'd even offer to
help make this work, if AT&T wanted.
   I can, actually, see one case where cross-posting would be
reasonable, which would be between the general list and *one* of the
specific lists, so the software would have to be written to allow
that.

> They're not functionally equivalent, and the functionality advantage
> leans towards tagging, with no crippling disadvantages.
> 
   Of course, there are never any disadvantages, once you've made up
your mind, right?  The crippling disadvantage of tagging is that the
users *must* tag every message in order for it to work.  And, of
course, the message you really want to avoid won't *get* tagged,
because they're coming from people who are new to the list and haven't
gotten in the habit of tagging.
   Further, the tags may very well be inconsistent.  Even a very
carefully designed filter won't catch every goofy variant of a tag.
However, if you say that you'll just filter everything out except for
those tagged with just the stuff you want, then why not just create a
separate list for that traffic?
   And on the cross-posting line, what's to keep someone from just
throwing in so many tags that everyone will see it anyway?

   In the end, separate lists and tagging are essentially the same.
They both allow the poster to target his message to a specific
interest group.  There are three major advantages to separate lists,
however.  It constrains the choices of target to a limited set
(overcoming sloppy tagging), it filters the messages *before* they are
sent out, rather than sending every message to everyone, wasting
bandwidth with all the messages that will just get discarded, and it
allows the server to impose some additional rules on the targeting,
such as not allowing the poster to target a big list of groups, which
is rarely justifiable.  Furthermore, separate lists are the *only*
solution for those who get message digests, as they can't filter
individual messages.

-Brandon :)

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