At 5:32 PM -0400 10/24/00, Jelmer Jellema is rumored to have typed:
I don't care why you would want this. I think it is good for you you try to figure it out instead of demanding something from the subscribers.
This is targeted to the other subscribers of the list; Mr. Jellema is rather well-known for taking the exact opposite side of pretty much anything I say, transmitting personal mail (sent privately) out-of-context to the mailing list without permission, and bombarding my mailbox with impolite and juvenile email to the extent of forcing me to block his rants on the sendmail level. I really don't expect him to pay any attention, and am honestly not concerned that he doesn't. I am concerned about clarifying my position to those more reasonable subscribers who are considering screwing around with this, in the hopes this nonsense can be avoided. For the record, I don't suggest anyone "demand" anything from their subscribers that shouldn't be expected in the first place. I mean, isn't it reasonable to ask people to understand their email client software? Is it too much to ask that someone actually check their manual for instructions on how to sort their email? Look, the only reason people ask for subject munging is because they _think_ that's the only way to sort their mail. They are (mostly) wrong; what's wrong with politely telling them that? To more clearly explain my position on munging (pretty much anything), from the point of view of a poster, I don't think a list owner has the _right_ to munge anything _I_ type, subject or body. (A listowner is welcomed to munge anything I _don't;_ other automated header fields like old Received: headers, etc. I would even go so far as to applaud a listowner who removed those annoying free-email signatures from the bottom of the body, since it isn't something the poster controls - so long as the listowner is anal enough in his/her recipies to make _sure_ they don't accidentally remove anything the poster writes.) You certainly wouldn't suggest changing anything in the body, now would you? Maybe replacing every instance of one political candadate's name with another, for example? What gives you (the emperical you, not the reader in particular) the right to change the subject for _no purpose?_ Again, since anyone with a reasonable client (ok, so Mail can't do this automatically...know anyone who uses Mail as their main email client?) can filter on just about _anything_ (I'm using an old 3.1 version of Eudora, and it can filter on the _body_ for goodness sake, let alone every conceivable header field!), why do we need to pander to people too lazy to spend a few moments reading the manual or help file that came with their software? (The same argument, I believe, applies to munging the Reply-To header; people don't know how to Reply-To-All, so they whine and complain that their replies don't go to the list, and demand we munge the Reply-To header. It's just nuts, since by RTFM they could easily figure out how painfully simple this is, and protect themselves from inadvertant personal messages going to thousands of people.) Look, if you want to munge your subject, knock yourself out. Heck, if you want to alter people's body text, you're welcomed to do so (I just won't subscribe to your list). Just realize that you are doing it _unnecessarily,_ and are going through a lot of work for _no purpose_ other than you have clueless subscribers who should be educated and not coddled. You aren't solving a problem, since none exists. Bottom line: If it ain't broke, don't fix it! And since this is all covered clearly in the FAQ anyway, going round and round about it is a complete waste of time.
[BTW: My mails don't seem to go to the list anymore. Don't know why]
Obviously incorrect. Charlie