Subject: Re: Bouncing mail (fwd)

From: "Steven D. Majewski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 May 1993 12:03:53 -0400

I think an "old-growth" bounce option is an acceptable compromise. 

I would add that another of those legitimate and necessary uses of
bounce is in using e-mail in a business/office environment where 
there may often be secretaries and other intermediaries inserted 
into the message stream. Those intermediaries would very much like
to be able to remove themselves from that stream - i.e. that don't 
need to personally dispatch EVERY reply - and that requires that 
forwarded ( or 'bounced' ) message keep most of their original headers. 

One reason this may appear to be a 'misfeature' is the lack of 
standard terminology: "forward", "bounce", "remail" , etc. 
( AND lack of presentation/application level standards. ) 

This also, again, raises the problem of the e-mail user who, while not
technically proficient with computers, often needs to do something 
more complicated with email than the typical user. ( The previous 
example I brought up was setting up Sender/From/Reply-To headers 
correctly for secretary sent email - so the boss is the From: ,
the secretary is the Sender:, and both get replies. ) Pine is a 
GREAT naieve user mail program, but it tends to get in the way when
one has to do a bit more. Perhaps when the 'old-growth' mode gets 
filled out with a few more features ... ( or perhaps what that sort
of job really requires is a "programmable" mailer, where local 
policies and options can be set up easily. ) 

-Steve Majewski             (804-982-0831)              <[email-masked]>
-Univ. of Virginia Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics

------
On May 5,  7:28, Terry Gray wrote:
> 
> We originally omitted bounce from Pine for exactly the reasons Billy
> points out: bounce (or "remail") is *dangerous* and has caused
> considerable embarrassment over the years to unsuspecting recipients who
> inadvertently reply to the original poster.  This can be especially 
> nasty if the original poster is sending via a LISTSERV where the Reply-To: 
> is set to the entire list.  (I've even been bitten, and I *know* better!)
> 
> However, as Mike points out, bounce has a legitimate use, especially for 
> mailing list and news group moderation.
> 
> Our plan is to provide Bounce, but *only* in Old-Growth (power-user) mode. 
> 
> I hope this will be viewed as an acceptable compromise.
> 
> -teg
>

---

From: Rick Troth <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 May 93 11:56:25 CDT

>                                                ...   but in RiceMail,
>the person who does the bouncing can add text at the top of the message
>making it every more confusing   ...

        Huh?   It's just header editing.   I miss it in Pine.   :-(

        And about LISTSERV:  the  Reply-To  can be set to the list
or the sender,  ignoring or respecting any previous  Reply-To.
So you may find that if you simply insert a  "Reply-To: me@myhost"
in the header you won't embarrass your bouncee.

        Smart and flexible  Reply-To  handling is just one of the
features of a  list server  that I consider essential.   I wish we
could get MajorDomo, MAILSERV, and all the various LISTSERV variants
to converge.   There is an effort along this line.

Thanks to the new IBM, most ESA systems today
can be suspected of being stable. -- Barton Robinson

Stop BASIC before it stops you.   -- Dijkstra
Stop UNIX before it stops you.   -- Troth

Rick Troth <[email-masked]>, Rice University, Information Systems