Re: Bogus reply-to
"Monique Y. Mudama" <spam@bounceswoosh.org> said on Sun, 8 Aug 2004 23:48:43 -0600:
> On 2004-08-08, Tim Connors penned:
> > "Monique Y. Mudama" <spam@bounceswoosh.org> said on Sun, 8 Aug 2004
> > 10:05:12 -0600:
> >
> > I suggest that gmane is the wrong tool for the job - I;ve heard plenty
> > of people say it sucks for mailing lists, and this appears to be
> > another case (actually, google seem to be really doing a good job at
> > making sucky UIs and not implementing proper protocols - witness
> > google groups 2 and how it doesn't set and preserve "References:"; but
> > I digress). But anyway...
>
> It sure sounds like you're claiming that the fact that gmane delivers
> messages through the news protocol rather than email is a flaw, rather
> than the whole point.
Damn me. Confusing gmail and gmane again. Not even related.
But yes, I do exactly the same thing as you. As to your post a second
ago, the boht.it unidirectional gateway I use (hence all my mangling)
that does the linux.debian.* preserves the "Mail-Copies-To: never",
but not the "Mail-followup-to:" one.
> Um, no, *I* set mail-copies-to: never. Actually, I guess I'm not sure
> what all happens in processing from gmane to mailing list to that
> newsgroup, but I would think that this setting is somehow related to my
> original headers?
gmane seems like it is probably preserving your mail-copies-to and
mail-followups-to, but the bofh.it unidirectional gateway (which I
know a few people use, I have no idea how many - but since it is only
unidirectional, I occasionally see a few people post there, and then
wonder why no-one answers them) seems to drop "mail-followups-to"
(it's free, I can't complain). But of course, being unidirectional,
one has to write scripts so you can reply to the mailing list instead
of just to the 5 or so audience in the newsgroup. When one writes
scripts, they are likely to lose details such as not replying to
people directly - that's what happened to me until someone (you?)
alerted me to my mailing.
> > Possibly this is why people reply-to you directly.
>
> Because I ask them not to in my headers? Please explain, cuz I'm not
> following you.
Did I explain myself better in the above paragraph, this time?
> > [1] Even if Reply-To is considered harmful
> > (http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html), and causes some
> > mailers to drop the mailing list off the list of CCs, and will end up
> > replying only to your single bogus address.
>
> Your link seems to talk exclusively about lists admins setting reply-to
> for the whole list, which isn't the case with my emails:
>
> "The Reply-To header was not invented on a whim. It is there for the
> sender of a mail message to use. If you stomp on this header, you can
> lose important information."
>
> Is the behavior of dropping the mailing list part of the spec? I guess
> I assumed that a reply-to should only be used, you know, when you're
> actually replying. Was I wrong?
If I understand things properly, if I subscribe to debian-user, and I
reply to your message if you use a bogus "reply-to", then my mail will
simply consist of a recipient of "To: <bogus@address>". I will then
have to go and manually substitute "To: debian-user". Also, if I
understand correctly, this will effect *everyone*, not just those of
us using silly mail/news clients.
Then again, I also do recall something about mailing list software
that looks at your "reply-to", and massages it in an appropriate way
to end up with effectively what you want. I don't know.
--
TimC -- http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/staff/tconnors/
So y'know, when the girl octopus slaps the boy octopus for being too
forward, he could say it wasn't his fault, the arm just kind of did its
own thing. -- Kasatka in AFAFDA
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