Subject: Re: your mail

From: Wei Yongming <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 11:35:16 EAT

To access message on a POP3 server, I defined a folder like this:
       {the hostname of pop3 server/pop3}my inbox name
but I get a message "invalid remote specification", what should I do?
This is Unix pine 3.90.

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From: "Aaron S. Hawley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 01:17:26 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)

my answer to this question is a question.  and that is, what version did
pop support comeout in pine

aaron

On Fri, 16 Oct 1998, Wei Yongming wrote:

> Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 11:35:16 EAT
> From: Wei Yongming <[email-masked]>
> To: Pine Discussion Forum <[email-masked]>
>

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From: Michael Talbot-Wilson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 15:48:06 +0930 (CST)

I have too often, recently, received mail with the subject "Re: your
mail" which turns out to have nothing to do with any mail I ever
sent.

It seems to be a fault of Pine, specifically, that it automatically
adds this subject to replies to cretins who send mail with no
subject. 

It might seem a good idea, when the reply goes to the said idiot and
no-one else, but it's a very bad approach in general, because the
reply might go to the many subscribers of a mailing list, for only
one of whom is the heading truthful.  

The others, if they saw a subject such as "Re:" or "Re: NO SUBJECT"
would know it was a response to mail they didn't read before because
it had no subject, and they would be able to make the same choice
concerning the response.

If the next version of Pine exhibits this broken behavior, I hope at
least that it will be configurable in Setup, and off by default.  I
had a quick look but could find no way to touch this - it seems
hard-wired.

--Mike

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From: "Ed Greshko" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 20:31:16 +0800

Mike,

To me, this seems like a rather small "style" issue.

> mail" which turns out to have nothing to do with any mail I ever

I get some of these too.  However, it seems (for me at least) easy to
determine if the message has anything to do with something I wrote.  If I am
not explicitly addressed in the To: field it is probably not in response to
"my" mail.  This is especially true when I also don't personally know the
sender.

> adds this subject to replies to cretins who send mail with no

Pine has had this behavior for as long as I can recall.

> one of whom is the heading truthful.

Should user agents which put at in the message text at the beginning of a
reply words like:

"On June 17, 1998 You said: "

also be taken to task?  I've seen those too.  (I've also been quick to
determine if "I" did, in fact, say what comes after that statement....  :-)
:-) )

> had a quick look but could find no way to touch this - it seems

Sorry, I think the term "broken" is a bit harsh.  Broken implies that a
feature or function doesn't behave in the advertised manner or that a
standard is violated such that it has a negative impact on other user
agents.

Knowing the developers of pine I am sure your suggestion is duly noted and
will be placed into consideration.

Regards,
Ed

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 15:18:43 +0200 (CEST)

On Fri, 16 Oct 1998, Ed Greshko wrote:

Hi all out there,

if possible, pine should be configurable to NOT allowing to send a message
without a subject. An even AI feature could be to check if the subject is
a short desc of the composed mail, perhaps pine 99.0 . :-)

But I think we should have to define an RFC to disallow Mail messages
without a subject. But I don't think that this could be made mandantory
for MUAs.

> To me, this seems like a rather small "style" issue.

And when user isn't allowed to send a message without a subject, one
wouldn't get the RE: your mail subject. 
 
> Pine has had this behavior for as long as I can recall.

So please if one of the ppl in the pine development team could think at
least of this as a configurable feature?

> will be placed into consideration.

	Best regards

	Andreas

-- 

Andreas R. Landhaeusser
Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR)
Bunsenstr. 10, D-37073 Goettingen, Germany, phone: +49 551 709 2379

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From: Michael Talbot-Wilson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 22:14:06 +0930 (CST)

> "my" mail.  This is especially true when I also don't personally know the

Ed, I don't understand.  The mail is addressed to me.  In the Pine
index I see the sender's name, and the subject "Re: Your mail".  I
can't see the To: field until I select the mail item for reading and
display the message. 

> "On June 17, 1998 You said: "

No.  The point is that you can stay in the index and skip or delete
mail that you don't have time to read.  You don't see "You said"
until you start to read it.

But you are defeated if the subject is "Re: Your mail".  You have to
read it.  At least until you can be sure that no-one can really have
sent you mail with that subject and get your fancy delivery agent to
black-hole all such mail - quite a bother.

However, if the Pine mailing list was configured to flag in the
subject all mail it forwarded, so that one saw "[pine] Re: Your
mail" or something, then I would know the nature of the mail and
would have no complaint.

> standard is violated such that it has a negative impact on other user

You are right, of course; "broken" was a mistake.  So were "cretin"
and "idiot".

Regards,
Mike

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From: "Robin S. Socha" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 16:05:51 +0200

> On Fri, 16 Oct 1998, Ed Greshko wrote:
[confusing "re: your mail"]
> Ed, I don't understand.  The mail is addressed to me.  In the Pine index I
> see the sender's name, and the subject "Re: Your mail".  I can't see the To:
> field until I select the mail item for reading and display the message. 

Then go get the sources, patch what you don't like, recompile and stop
whining. Now.

> No.  The point is that you can stay in the index and skip or delete mail
> that you don't have time to read.  

Yadda yadda yadda...

> You don't see "You said" until you start to read it.

That's because pine obviously sucks for you. Don't use it. Or write a patch. 
But please quit stating the obvious in a manner that makes me want to
projectile-vomit, will you? TIA.

> But you are defeated if the subject is "Re: Your mail".  You have to read
> it.  At least until you can be sure that no-one can really have sent you
> mail with that subject and get your fancy delivery agent to black-hole all
> such mail - quite a bother.

Honey, if you're not actually a lobotomized idiot, you're making a superb
attempt at simulating one. Here's why:

	o you haven't read the documentation and what's in it re this
	  particular "problem"
	o you're not using procmail or some other MDA (hint: mailing lists can
	  easily be identified...)
	o you don't know that there are... errr... more powerful alternatives
	  to pine that can easily do what you want

> However, if the Pine mailing list was configured to flag in the subject all
> mail it forwarded, so that one saw "[pine] Re: Your mail" or something, then
> I would know the nature of the mail and would have no complaint.

However, of pine allowed for shooting whining luuuusers, you'd be pretty dead
by now. The "[crap]" thing is braindead. Period. So is your not using a mail
filter. Maybe your whole sorry self is a mistake, dunno. Maybe it's just
Friday...

> You are right, of course; "broken" was a mistake.  So were "cretin" and
> "idiot".

They were not wrong, only addressing the wrong person. Mike. N'est-ce pas?

Robin

-- 
Robin S. Socha
<http://www.kens.com/robin/>

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From: Michael Talbot-Wilson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 23:52:31 +0930 (CST)

> 	o you're not using procmail or some other MDA (hint: mailing lists can

As a matter of fact, I am.

To follow on a bit from what I was saying before, it is extremely
easy for some list management software to set a subject line prefix. 
E.g. majordomo has the 'subject_prefix' variable which can be set in
the <list>.config file. 

I understand that u.washington has its own list software, though,
and it may not be quite so easy with that.

--Mike

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From: Darren Henderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 11:16:49 -0400 (EDT)

> easy for some list management software to set a subject line prefix. 

It also gets really ugly really fast imo. For the pine list you can filter
on the X-To header....

______________________________________________________________________
Darren Henderson                              [email-masked]

                   Help fight junk e-mail, visit http://www.cauce.org/

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From: Darren Henderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 11:41:20 -0400 (EDT)

> on the X-To header....
oops. or the X-Cc header depending on how it was sent apparently:)

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From: Michael Thomas Cope <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 10:31:01 -0700 (PDT)

> oops. or the X-Cc header depending on how it was sent apparently:)
Here's the rule I use for filtering messages from pine-info into a
pine-info mailbox.

:0:
* [email-masked]
pine-info

-- 
Michael Cope: Harvey Mudd College '00; Armand Hammer UWC '96
E-mail: [email-masked]