Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2020 09:57:29 -0500 From: Valeri Galtsev <galtsev@kicp.uchicago.edu> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: freebsd vs. netbsd Message-ID: <2e6c6baf-9d87-2a02-00c3-578c6630f97f@kicp.uchicago.edu> In-Reply-To: <20200611082443.0000187a@seibercom.net> References: <171506d5-19aa-359e-c21d-f07257c52ebd@freenetMail.de> <62d10000-e068-922e-23bd-f7a61e7a4e89@anatoli.ws> <ACE27C81-9437-41D6-BBD4-FA7A7B791428@kicp.uchicago.edu> <6a4f6a15-ec43-03f6-1a41-a109e445f026@anatoli.ws> <f667e8f9-b279-a3ce-3fc4-224ba17f4bbb@kicp.uchicago.edu> <00225a04-237d-9051-9aea-12c192106a20@anatoli.ws> <373EDB20-C750-42E2-A41B-EA61F6E49807@kicp.uchicago.edu> <20200609120136.00005b3c@seibercom.net> <2393a1e0-b073-950a-78be-9f57d8e9934b@anatoli.ws> <e1f6623a-3b3c-a43e-446a-d41f20f69418@kicp.uchicago.edu> <20200610063555.00003707@seibercom.net> <82F57D0D-E0EC-49F7-824E-20A296C9F549@kicp.uchicago.edu> <250b853a-b436-0e99-b05c-9abd6b6019ef@panix.com> <20200611070630.2cb42786.freebsd@edvax.de> <EA869B95-9D98-4ECC-9371-C57A0035BC32@kreme.com> <20200611075658.1dd841a9.freebsd@edvax.de> <20200611082443.0000187a@seibercom.net>
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On 6/11/20 7:24 AM, Jerry wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 07:56:58 +0200, Polytropon commented:
>> On Wed, 10 Jun 2020 23:13:10 -0600, @lbutlr wrote:
>>> On 10 Jun 2020, at 23:06, Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> wrote:
>>>> However, I assume that the use of "reply to all" is so convenient
>>>> it is often preferred to "reply to mailing list", that's why
>>>> sometimes replies are send "twice"…
>>
>> Attention! Here we have a severe case of "MUA ate my homework"!
>>
>> Your MUA did modify (!) my original message, so the quote is no
>> longer correct (as it imples something that I didn't write).
>>
>> Aspect 1 is no big problem: It removed my newlines and put
>> everything into one long line. This is no big deal with
>> regular text ("paragraph text"), but would be with code,
>> or something laid out to be a table or a diagram in text.
>
> I think that could also be attributed to the fact that many users
> configure their MUSs to use a specific font and/or font size that
> affects the final display of the received email. I prefer a larger font
> myself since my eye sight isn't what it was 20 years ago.
That's your business, and it us not advisable to push it on recipients
of your email. Make sure you are _sending_ messages in plain text, then
those who read them will have them according their own preferences, be
it larger font to please older eyes like ours, or smaller font to fit
into real estate of the window/screen the have.
>
>> Aspect 2, and that _is_ a problem: I wrote "...", which is
>> three periods, and your MUA turned it into "…", which is
>> an UTF-8 ellipsis.
>
> If UTF was used to begin with, that problem would evaporate.
I kind of would disagree here. As we are on English speaking mail list,
it is annoying to see "foreign" characters, be those hieroglyphs,
hiragana, or Cyrillic (even though the last was way of writing where I
grew up, - I would prefer to avoid causing annoyance of those who don't
understand it).
>
>> Aspect 2a, a sign of inconsistency, is that your MUA did
>> not change my " double quotation marks (inch symbols) into
>> correct typographical quotation marks. And how could it?
>> Which rules would apply? I'm in Germany, so our quotation
>> marks are "two down" and "two up", while in English, you
>> usually how "two in" and "two out", something like this,
>> incorrectly simplified:
>>
>> ,,The german style.''
>>
>> ``The english style.''
>
> I believe the 'American' style would be:
> U+201C and U-201D : “American style”
>
> In any case, I have not seen your 'magical character transpositions" in
> my everyday use. Perhaps it is a systemic problem with your MUA.
>
>> And there are of course differences in AE and BE. You can
>> also see that I used tabs and empty lines for format my
>> reply. If a MUA eats those, big problem.
>>
>> A typographically skilled person will even say that using
>> something like “that“ is wrong (uses same symbol for start
>> and end of quoting).
>>
>> Similarly, MUAs could mess with the use of dashes ("-" or
>> "–") or apostrophes ("'" or "’").
>>
>> All those considerations of course lead to breaking my
>> carefully crafted message in plain ASCII (not even using
>> ISO-8859-1) and lifting it into the UTF-8 multibyte universe
>> with all its unsolved questions. ;-)
>
> I use UTF-8 and find it solves problems, not creates them.
Or maybe it just masks problems on your side making you perceive there
are none?
>
>>> A smart MUA (is there one) you have a reply button that replied
>>> sender if the messages was directly to you, replied to list if the
>>> message was from a list, [...]
>>
>> As I mentioned, this will only work as long as the relevant
>> headers are intact. If some MUA mangles them on the way (yes,
>> I'm looking at you, MICROS~1 products!), this will no longer
>> work. And as I've been saying this, MICROS~1 products are
>> also known for changing message content (see above, aspect 2),
>> and even mangling timestamps and timezones.
>
> "Citation need for products post 2010" I am aware the the latest
> versions of MS Outlook can be configured to reformat long lines, (the
> removal of soft line breaks) and I actually fine that quite useful. I
> use MS Outlook for my job and I find receiving and then trying to read
> a long, detailed message in lines restricted to <= 80 characters a real
> PIA when I have a 32" HD screen. Of course, YMMV.
>
>> Oh, and MUAs don't have to be smart. It's much better if the
>> people using them are smart. That's fully sufficient. :-)
>
> And rarely seen in the wild. :)
>
>>> [...] and made you hit a difficult chorded sequence of 47 keys in
>>> precise order in less than 4 seconds to reply to all.
>
> I put that into the same category as being expected to write a cryptic
> 30 line XML document to get a simple device to work.
>
>> Which is inconvenient for users who _wish_ to be CCed in the
>> typical "reply to all" manner.
>
> Simple solution, join the mailing group. don't put the burden on the
> email recipient. Take responsibility for your own actions. I know,
> extremely rare these days.
>
>> If I remember correctly, "reply to all" has never been a real
>> problem on the FreeBSD mailing lists. Users can set up filtering
>> rules to remove duplicate messages they might receive during a
>> thread, or remind their counterparts to pay attention to use
>> the "reply to mailing list" button.
>
> Unfortunately, some sneaky 'repliers' include the intended recipient's
> name in the "To:" field that complicates filtering messages.
>
>> Sadly, Sylpheed has a prominent "reply to all" button, whereas
>> "reply to mailing list" is a drop-down element next to the
>> regular "reply" button. So you can guess which one gets used
>> the most.
>
> Claws-Mail allows a user to create custom folders with predefined
> "To:". "CC:" and "Reply-To:" fields, among others. That totally
> eliminates all the guess work, assuming the end-user bothered to
> properly configure it.
Which is great thing, but some of us prefer not to sort messages from
inbox until the issue is resolved fully: sort of self-tracking system,
and we may need to see all new at a glance to immediately recognize the
potential first priority ones. Also, sorting based on what _sender_ made
the message kind of unattracts me, maybe it is just my logic.
Thanks.
Valeri
>
--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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