Re[4]: Yes, Let's do it! [GENERAL] [LIST-SPLIT]

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Thursday, March 16, 2000, at 3:41:52 PM, you wrote:
> 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.

You can filter by that; you've got procmail.

Right now, alas, I'm stuck with Windoze, and procmail, she doesn'a run
so good there.

>    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.

Certainly; all these things are possible, but _why_?

>    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.

If you _had_ more than one list.  :-)

>> 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.

That was sort of a cheap shot, Brandon.  No, I already pointed out
that that would only constitute a "crippling disadvantage" is there
were _no_ readers who did _not_ filter; this is exceedingly unlikely
to be the case.  Wez, certainly, would be unlikely to exclude any
traffic...

>                                                          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.

And if you filter, you won't see their postings, becuase they didn't
tag them... so you'll be avoiding them just fine, as far as I can see.
Did I miss something there?

>    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?

<sigh>  I'm pretty sure I answered that question already.

Ok; I officially agree with the the guy who said it was time for a
separate list for list-splitting discussions...

>    And on the cross-posting line, what's to keep someone from just
> throwing in so many tags that everyone will see it anyway?

Nothing... but at least there will only be one copy.  Anyone who gets
annoyed by someone playing that game can simply filter them by name.

>    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),

Forgive my sounding elitist, maybe I've been doing this too long:
sloppy taggers be damned.  If they want replies from picky filterers
because they're better equipped to reply, then can learn.  This lowest
common denominator shit just has to stop.

>                             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,

I'll give you half a point on this one.  Is _email_ class bandwidth
_really_ a problem in this day and age?  Citations please.

>                                                            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.

So, we make things easier for the posters at the expense of requiring
a lot of work for both the readers and the list administrators?  That
doesn't sound like an equitable trade to me.  It's mostly the posters
(question askers) that get the value, make 'em work for it.

>                        Furthermore, separate lists are the *only*
> solution for those who get message digests, as they can't filter
> individual messages.

I've already espoused my opinion of digests, I think.  :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra "at" baylink.com
Member of the Technical Staff     
The Suncoast Freenet
Tampa Bay, Florida     http://baylink.pitas.com                +1 888 806 1654



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