[ih] Email behavior (better subject ID...)

[Jack Haverty]

So that's what Reply-List does and why it sometimes appears as an option 
for a message!

I admit being a victim of the Confusion.   I often get multiple copies 
of mailing-list messages.  Some messages offer the "Reply-List" choice; 
others just show "Reply".

  After a bit of experimentation, it seems that what happens depends on 
how the original message arrived.  It appears that when mailing-list 
messages somehow get my email address into a CC or TO field, behavior of 
the reply options varies depending on whether I reply to the copy that 
came through the mailing list or the one that came direct.

E.g., "Reply" to a message that came direct goes to the mailing-list; 
"Reply" to the same message, but using the copy that was delivered by 
the list goes back to only the original sender (or maybe it's using the 
"Reply To" field).

So depending on which copy of a message I reply to, different people get 
my reply.   If I "Reply" to the copy I got direct, the mailing list 
doesn't get my reply at all - might explain a lot of "I never got your 
message" reports.

I've never seen anything like "List-Unsubscribe" offered in a menu.   I 
guess Thunderbird doesn't do anything with those other List-* fields.   
Or perhaps there's some options somewhere in the Preferences that 
changes the behavior or enables more commands.

Confusing...?  I wonder if the other email apps I use, on smartphones, 
tablets, or web app, exhibit the same behavior.

/Jack
PS - I have some historical comments on RFC 791 -- I'll send those 
separately.    To avoid confusion...


On 9/4/21 6:48 AM, Dave Crocker via Internet-history wrote:
> On 9/3/2021 3:04 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
>> I didn't know about those header fields until you pointed them out. 
>> The mail app I use (Thunderbird) doesn't appear to do anything with 
>> those fields, but I can see them only if I enable "Show All Headers". 
>
> I am responding to your email by using Thunderbird's Reply to List 
> command.  It's had that ability for so long, I don't remember whether 
> it is built in or I added an extension that does it.  The advantage of 
> using that command is that it drops off all of the individual addresses.
>
>
>
> On 9/3/2021 9:16 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
>> Regardless of their status, you just described exactly what I
>> observed: "Lots of mail programs recognize them and do something with
>> them "   The phrase "do something" doesn't sound like a definition of
>> a standard.
>
> Even in lower layers, there is information defined that does not 
> include specification of what to 'do' with it.  Rather, the 
> specification serves to standardize the syntax for finding the 
> information and the semantics of what it means.  It leaves the 'doing 
> something' as a consideration outside that specification.,
>
> Consider RFC 791 and "source address".
>
> There is no text in that specification that says what a receiver is to 
> do with it.
>
> (There's some text about sending-side and some text about maintaining 
> the field when doing source routing.)
>
> Sometimes, it's deemed reasonable to specify common syntax and 
> semantics and carriage of information, without specifying what the 
> current layer or higher-layers of a system will do with it.  This 
> allows multiple consumers and it allows experimentation.
>
> This distinction often causes confusion.  RFC 9078 defines labeling of 
> emojis in a message as having the semantic of a 'reaction' to a 
> previous message.  But how should user agents /use/ it?  The spec has 
> a tiny amount of discussion, but doesn't tell a recipient system what 
> something to do with it.  That's because there are lots of entirely 
> reasonable choices and there is no need to constrain them.
>
>
>
> d/