On 4/27/06, Chad Perrin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 27, 2006 at 06:27:06PM -0400, Ryan Frantz wrote:

I tend to agree with the principles on which you base your opinion, but
I don't think they're properly applied here, necessarily.  I've never
been subscribed to any other interactive email list that didn't default
the reply-to header to the list address, as far as I recall.  I don't
think I'm alone in that.  As such, this handling of it seems to violate

You're not. I think I reply to sender and then end up forwarding to
the list at least twice a week.

the POLS without sufficient "return on investment" to justify it.  What
I see here is a lot of messages accidentally sent to individuals when
they are meant for the list.  In addition to that, many MUAs and email
clients (yeah, there's a difference) don't even support the list-reply
header and, while that's a problem for standards-compliant mail
handling, it doesn't change the fact that their users end up in a very
confusing state with regards to this list.

And this is the problem. The logic of not munging the reply-to is
extremely outdated. Even the article cited is from four years ago.
Minimal munging is a wonderful concept, but in practice almost every
email is subject to multiple rewrites these days. When was the last
time you sat down to compose an email on the computer that your email
claims you were at. I can guarantee that I, personally, am not sitting
at the console of gmail.com right now. Once you're rewriting, you
might as well rewrite.

The argument that setting reply-to removes functionality is at best
outdated and at worst BS, too. Almost every POP or IMAP client on the
market, and every single MUA, allow you to override reply-to and reply
to the 'sender' from address. Most however do not include any reply to
list functionality at all, unless the list is included in "reply to
all". I use four differnt clients and two webmail interfaces on a
regualr basis. *Exactly 0* of them include a reply to list feature.
Even the venerable mutt doesn't do it by default. Not that I can use
mutt most of the time, anyway.

The *only* way you lose functionality by rewriting reply-to is if you
also munge from so it looks like the massage came from the list. I've
know lists that do that, but this isn't one of them.

That siad, maybe it made sense ten years ago. We get this wonderful
resource for free, and if the people who maintain the hardware and
software that runs it don't have the time or inclination to muck about
in the rewrite rules...it's a fairly minor annoyance, and I'm just
glad this list is here at all.

-- j
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