launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Graham Binns <graham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 11 June 2010 15:53, Francis J. Lacoste <francis.lacoste@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Can somebody explain me this address book crap?
>
> Is it that some some address book software harvest emails automatically? For
> example, if I have Graham Binns in my address book and there is another Graham
> Binns emailing me with a different address, it will at some point
> automatically add that different email to the record?
>
> Am I the only one thinking such behavior is broken, or at least not thought
> through properly. I can see that being useful in some cases, but annoying in a
> lot of others.

Some MUAs (Gmail, Thunderbird, Mail.app, etc.) will automatically add
an address to your addressbook whenever you email that address for the
first time. If I look in my Gmail addressbook, for example, I can see
several Bug $foos in there, because the Reply-to address for all bug
mail is "Bug $foo <$foo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>".

We're not proposing to change the Reply-to header, however, so we're
not going to end up with "Graham Binns <$foo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>"
entries in peoples' address books (unless their MUA is very broken,
and I'm inclined to not worry too much about such an edge case). The
problem of the bug email addresses going in there is something you can
do nothing about.

This functionality can be turned of in most cases, by the way. Or you
can use Mutt, where it's never turned on in the first place. But
remember, all mail clients suck; it's a basic specification of the
application genre.


-- 
Graham Binns | PGP Key: EC66FA7D