[Leica] OFF TOPIC: bad email infrastructure [was Re: P/S-messages...]

[Jeff Moore <jbm@instinet.com>]

At 8 Apr 1998 13:24:35 -0400, Peterson_Art@hq.navsea.navy.mil wrote:

>      On another matter, your e-mail identified "Christian Becker" as having 
>      written the original criticism, and I can only assume that your e-mail 
>      software gives you insight into writer's identities, because mine does 
>      NOT, and so because Mr. Becker did not put his name on his message, I 
>      had no idea whom it came from; nor do I know who YOU are.

The author of the reply was Jorg Willems <jorg@salesmedia.com>.  This was 
clearly specified in the `From:' header of the message, as was Mr. Becker's 
identity.  I fear you have a fatally flawed, fundamentally useless Lotus 
email gateway and/or client to blame for being in the dark.  Such software 
tends to be allowed to stay in place only in large, bureaucratic 
organizations where infrastructure decisions are made by fiat rather than with 
the aim of serving the user community.

That same software apparently prevents you from interleaving just the
quoted text you're responding to in the canonical way...

>      Therefore I 
>      would suggest that members "sign" their messages, so that we may know 
>      who said what and, when we write, to or about whom we are speaking.

I would suggest that this is in general unnecessary when proper user identity 
information appears in the mail headers.  It's probably only necessary when 
mail comes from places where there's a culture of hiding behind "screen names" 
or "handles" (AOL seems to be the most egregious offender).

(to duplicate header info:

 -Jeff Moore <jbm@instinet.com>
)