Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) by CS.UTK.EDU with SMTP (cf v2.9s-UTK) id CAA02986; Sun, 29 Mar 1998 02:28:14 -0500 (EST) Received: by cs.cs.utk.edu (bulk_mailer v1.9); Sun, 29 Mar 1998 02:26:42 -0500 Received: by CS.UTK.EDU (cf v2.9s-UTK) id CAA02881; Sun, 29 Mar 1998 02:26:41 -0500 (EST) Received: from koobera.math.uic.edu (koobera.math.uic.edu [131.193.178.247]) by CS.UTK.EDU with SMTP (cf v2.9s-UTK) id CAA02869; Sun, 29 Mar 1998 02:26:37 -0500 (EST) Received: (qmail 1332 invoked by uid 666); 29 Mar 1998 07:42:41 -0000 Date: 29 Mar 1998 07:42:41 -0000 Message-ID: <19980329074241.1330.qmail@cr.yp.to> From: "D. J. Bernstein" To: drums@cs.utk.edu Subject: how mailing lists provide policy information to subscribers Mail-Followup-To: drums@cs.utk.edu References: <199803271741.MAA01982@lust.cs.utk.edu> Keith Moore writes: > However, I do think it's important to provide a way for lists to > express their reply preferences without stomping on author-supplied > header fields. A way already exists. It's called ``subscription confirmation.'' Encode your reply preferences in the header of a confirmation message. Then the MUA can record those preferences for future use. This achieves everything that munging is supposed to achieve, without any of the flaws. Isn't it amazing what a level of indirection can do? (Communicating with non-subscribers is more difficult. See my ``data flow for policy declarations'' message from 27 Dec 1997 10:21:21 -0000.) ---Dan Smaller, faster, safer than inetd+tcpd. http://pobox.com/~djb/ucspi-tcp.html