At 03:05 PM 11/27/02 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: >Lydia Nickerson <lydy at demesne.com> writes: > > > At 11:35 AM 11/27/02 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > > >books at bofh.com writes: > > > > I also do not believe that DDB is not religious. I will offer > > > > as inflamatory examples requests for discussions on the following > > > > subjects by him: > > > > > > > > 1) List headers should have the list address set as reply-to > > > > 2) Vi is better than Emacs > > > > 3) Ksh is the best shell > > > > 4) Sendmail is clearly superior to qmail > > > > 5) HTML is necessary for effective email communications > > > > ... > > > > These are clearly religious issues. :) > > > > > >Not in the sense we're discussing. There are solid, real-world, > > >observable, measurable, reasons for preferences among the things on > > >those lists. > > > > Actually, what's going on is that you have certain immovable opinions > > based on those observable, measurable facts, not quite the same thing. > >You do understand that that's a top-level nasty accusation in my >world, right? Notice that, even in responding to the poke here in the >list, I didn't actually claim that the evidence was overwhelming and >only an idiot could disagree. I'm, um, agnostic on the topic of the configuration of email lists, due to vast ignorance on the topic. I have never seen anyone argue with you about the facts of what configurations do what, but I have certainly seen many people, some of them quite reasonable and experienced, argue with you about what configuration to use based on those facts, from which I draw the conclusion that one can draw more than one conclusion from the data, depending on what the list master prefers in terms of traffic to the list, embarrassment to the list members, ease of use for list members, and probably lots of other arguments I don't remember. You're making choices based on some facts and some variables and some preferences, which looks to me an awful lot like an opinion. I don't see why opinion should be a dirty word. We all have them, and the more they're based on real world observations and rational evaluations, the better off we all are. Lydia Nickerson lydy at demesne.com Dulciculi Aliquorum