I just want to point out a few things:
. What is described as "two copies" is really two different messages that
contain some different information.
. Sometimes those differences are important to keep track of.
. When a mailing list delays delivery of a message substantially (hours, days,
moderation approval, &c.), knowing that information can be very useful.
. Sometimes a mailing list will alter a message in ways that matter (dropping
images or attachments, screwing up links, adding footers at the bottom).
Personally, and I think I am an outlier, I very much want to see the multiple
copies.
Although for the recent and medium-term past, I've used email systems where my
server does duplicate supression, and I absolutely detest it, and it causes me
some real frustrations.
It seems particularly weird that it's somewhat common for this suppression to
be done server-side, because it's really a client-side question. Of course, as
more and more users are using web-based email systems, the server and the
client are conjoined and overlap in weird ways, which doubtless has someting do
with it.
But if you wnated to do duplicate suppression in the client (mutt) in an
effective way, it would be worth some thought about how to design it well.
Ideally it would be something where duplicates were hidden but still accessible
if you wanted to dig deeper. Mutt is definitely not optimized to make this
easier.
Anyhow:
Nicolas George <geo...@nsup.org> wrote on Sun, 27 Oct 2024
at 09:04:35 EDT in <zx46yzj3rluux...@phare.normalesup.org>:
> It tells mutt to add “Reply-To: mutt-users@mutt.org” when writing to
> mutt-users, and will tell people who reply to reply to the list rather
> than you.
>
> Most mailing-list do that for you, this one, along with the Debian ones,
> is one of the few I know that do not, expecting users to adhere to the
> failed “List-Reply-To” standard instead.
No, this is not a fair statement ("Most").
There is an immense variety in how mailing lists on the Internet work, and it's
almost impossible to make accurate statements about "most mailing lists." There
are strong and differing opinions on the right way to set this up (and many
other parameters too).
For many people who have a particular scope or area of focus, it can seem like
"most mailing lists" are set up in a particular way. But that experience is far
from universal.
Philosophically, I don't think it's a great idea for individuals to set
Reply-To in emails they send to lists.
For one thing, it's not universally effective --- many mailing lists strip or
override reply-to headers when disseminating emails.
For another thing, it means that the experience of replying to an email on the
list is different when replying to different people. If person A emails the
list and changes their reply-to, and person B does not, then someone who
replies to both messages may see a different experience, and that can cause
confusion.
Still, you might find it is a solution that is somewhat effective on an
individual level, and not everyone needs to concern themselves with the
systemic costs of those kinds of actions and how they might scale up if some
others, many others, or all others choose them.
--
jh...@alum.mit.edu
John Hawkinson
