OFF-TOPIC: Idiotic mail add-on features

[Don Whiteside <dwhite@shadow.net>]

At 05:33 PM 5/27/96 -0700, Don Perley wrote:
>Any particular reason you marked this message "highest priority"?  Isn't that
>for things that need timely/immediate attention? (like when my manager needs 
>some 401K form filled out by noon).  

It's worth remembering that this priority crap is a Eudora hack, not part of
internet email standards.

However, since you and others (including myself) have chosen to avail
ourselves of programs that add such idiocies and do things like set sounds
to respond to this stuff, here is what I teach all the people in my email
classes to do:

If you're on a mailing list and using Eudora Pro, set up a filter to
identify messages that have To: or Cc: lines of thinkpad@cs.utk.edu and set
it to LOWER the priority.

If you're on a mailing list and using Eudora Light, either buy EPro or turn
off alarms for priorities - you're putting yourself at the mercy of every
chucklehead on the Internet who (a) doesn't understand priorities (b) has
different priorities than you or (c) set it by accident.

I am always reading in Comp.RISKS about mailers mis-identifying these custom
headers used by other mailers. Relying on yours to not get borked by other
headers in a mixed-platform enviornment like inet email is asking for trouble.

Donald Alan Whiteside, Official Computer Dork for the 1996 Olympics
"Penis ownership is not a prerequisite to technological competence" - Me.