Re: [pgsql-www] Forums at postgresql.com.au

On 21 Nov 2010, at 16:16, Trevor Talbot wrote:
>> I do see a difficulty here; if the forum software is only subscribed with one e-mail address, how is it going to distinguish between a reply-all and a private reply?
>> Maybe it would help to subscribe it using two or three addresses, so that you can see if both (or at least two out of three) addresses got the reply, or only one?
>
> Once the forum software determines an incoming email is meant to be a
> private message, how would it determine which user it is meant for?

I don't expect the forum software to post the message anonymously to the ML. It wouldn't be difficult to at least include the username (as used on the forum) in the message body, and perhaps work that into the message headers, in such a way that that information can be obtained from a reply to the message.

Of course, the way e-mail works, there's not much guarantee that anything but the original senders' e-mail address is preserved, but such cases can be detected and be acted upon - although probably not entirely transparently
For example, receiving a message that a recipient could not be reached from the recipient itself - the global forum user account - would seem a bit odd. It's not that different from receiving a mail from a mail-server that a recipient could not be found though, except that the error isn't with the address, but with related headers or the message body.

You can reach the user, but it probably can not be guaranteed 100%.

Alban Hertroys

--
If you can't see the forest for the trees,
cut the trees and you'll see there is no forest.

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