On 1/12/13 9:55 PM, Reindl Harald wrote: > and that is the really sad thing of this thread > > the subject is about "REPLY-TO headers" > but WTF - there is NO reply-to header at all > > reply goes back to the sender while it would go back > to the list if the messages WOULD contain "Reoly-To" > > so if your MUA does not support "reply-list" or the > icon is not in the toolbar you have only two choices: > > * hope the MUA supports "reply-list" > * reply all and remove the original sender > * reply all and do what Wietse does not like > > so in reality it would be better to add a "reply-To"-header > as any php-script adds in 5 seconds before start such topic! > If you look at Wietse messages, they do have a Reply-To field, and that is what caused to original discussion. He, understandably, prefers help requests to be placed on the list as opposed to directly to him, that way the other members of the list might be able to help with the reply, and the conversation is kept out in public where everyone can learn from it.
Knowing the software that this list uses (by reading the headers), it is in fact possible to configure the list so that all messages have a Reply-To field set to the list posting address. The issue with this, is that if a poster has Reply-To set to where the poster would prefer to receive messages, this setting would get overwritten by the list. The manager of the list is thus presented with a conundrum, they can leave Reply-To unchanged, so the posters to the list can specify where they would prefer personal replies to go, and repliers need to use "Reply to List" (if available) or "Reply All" to respond to the message. (If using Reply All, good netiquette would be to strip the original posters address out of the recipients list, unless there was a need for them to get a personal reply, but this is largely not done). The problem with Reply All in this case, is that it will normally sen back to both the From: address and the Reply-To: (after all, it is ALL). The other choice the list manager has is to set Reply-To: to the list posting address, so Reply goes to the list, and to make a private reply, you need to use Reply-All, and then remove the list address from the distribution, and if the original poster had user Reply-To, that setting has been lost, so the Reply goes to the wrong address as far as they are concerned. Because of this, having the list set Reply-To is normally not done unless the list really want to strongly discourage private replies. So the choice comes down to, do you break the ability to specify a Reply-To for private replies, or make it that people who use Reply All to post to the list, (and forget to trim the recipient list) might send email to address that don't want it. The first causes the possibility of lost email (A message being sent from a send only account, that sets Reply-To to point to where they can read email, something allowed by the RFCs). The second just causes inconvenience for the poster, since they will receive the message at their Reply-To address, and if they really wanted to, they could set up the posting address to be really send only to not get replies back on it. -- Richard Damon
