Subject: Re: How to defeat posting prompt?

From: Rahul Dhesi <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 94 20:17:04 -0800

Thanks, I stand corrected, I was making an incorrect assumption 
about pine includes a Newsgroups: header in private email.

> The issue at hand has to do with messages *not* created by Pine.  In
> particular: under what circumstances users should have an opportunity to
> OPTIONALLY follow-up, via news, a message sent by some *other* program that
> happens to include a Newsgroups header. 

By 'a message' were you referring to private email?  If so:

Posting to Usenet in response to private email is never an appropriate
action -- at least not one that the mail user agent should include in
its menu.  If the sender of the original email had wanted a public
discussion he or she would have posted to Usenet instead of sending
private email.

In effect you are asking a question roughly like this:

    The issue at hand has to do with what to do if somebody
    whispers privately in my ear.  Should I optionally shout
    out my reply?

Only if one has no manners at all, I think.

I do not understand why this is even an issue.

Rahul

---

From: Mike Brudenell <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 1994 09:46:03 +0000 (GMT)

> I do not understand why this is even an issue.

You are correct in your "rough summary".

The problem/issue is that Pine decides whether somebody whispered to or 
shouted at you by means of the absence or presence of the "Newsgroups:" 
header line in the message.

If "Newsgroups:" is present it assumes you were shouted at and, when you 
start a reply, offers you the chance to shout back.  If "Newsgroups:" was 
absent then it assumes you were whispered to, and doesn't offer you the 
chance to shout back (although you can if you *really* want to by 
manually typing in a newsgroup name into the "Newsgroups: header field as 
usual).

The problem is that some *other* news readers allow you to "reply by 
mail" to a news article but, naughtily, include the "Newsgroups:" header 
line in that reply.  This means that if the recipient is using Pine it 
assumes the message was also posted to a newsgroup, and hence offers the 
chance to shout a reply back.

The current argument raging is whether Pine is "broken" because of 
interpreting the presence/absence of the "Newsgroups:" header can be 
interpreted as implying the message was posted to News.  Or whether the 
other news readers that *do* include the "Newsgroups:" header line in 
e-mail messages are "broken" and Pine's behavious is correct.

For my money I think Pine's behaviour is entirely reasonable, and that 
ideally the other "broken" news readers should be fixed.  However the 
realist side of me realises this will be difficult/impossible.

However in one sense it is little different from the uptake of MIME aware 
mail readers.  I am sure there will *always* be non-MIME aware mailers 
around, leading to complaints from people about these "broken" MIME 
mailers sending them files as these mysterious and unusable "attachments".

More power to Pine, is what I say.

Mike Brudenell
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Computing Service, University of York, Heslington, York, YO1 5DD, UK
Phone: +44-1904-433811  FAX: +44-1904-432767

---

From: [email-masked] (R. Stewart Ellis)
Date: 23 Nov 94 03:05:42 GMT

>I do not understand why this is even an issue.

AMEN!

-- 
  R.Stewart(Stew) Ellis, Assoc.Prof., (Off)313-762-9765   ___________________
  Humanities & Social Science,  GMI Eng.& Mgmt. Inst.    /   _____  ______ 
  Flint, MI 48504      [email-masked]               /        / /  /  / /
  Gopher,chimera,nn,tin,jove,modems, free code is best!/________/ /  /  / /