On Thu, 2008-01-10 at 08:46 -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote: > > So some mailing lists hitting reply will go to the list (often what you > want), while others (like this one) hitting reply will go only to the > original sender (almost never what you want), while in both cases > hitting group reply will go to both the list and the original sender so > at least in that case you know everyone you wanted to receiver the > message will get at least one copy (the original sender gets two) > without having to remember what settings the mailing list you are > currently reading uses. You're failing to consider the magnitude of failure. Accidentally sending a public reply in private, the failure mode of proper list management without violating the sender's right to set his Reply-To: how he chooses, is never catastrophic. Accidentally sending a private reply in public, the failure mode of the Reply-To munging you're advocating, on occasion is catastrophic. > It gets pretty annoying to have to remember to hit 'L' for list reply on > debian lists, 'g' for group reply on lkml, and 'r' for reply to > 'reply-to' setting on many other lists. I just hit 'g' to save my poor > overworked brain cells. Yes, using computers is HARD. There are so many things to remember. Like RFC 2822, which says you should leave other peoples' Reply-To the way they set it. If your mailer can't support the standards adequately enough to enable you to use it efficiently, perhaps you should submit a bug report, write a patch, or switch to a modern, standards-compliant mailer. RFC 2822 link and excerpt provided in case your browser causes you similar problems using Google: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it indicates the mailbox(es) to which the author of the message suggests that replies be sent. In the absence of the "Reply-To:" field, replies SHOULD by default be sent to the mailbox(es) specified in the "From:" field unless otherwise specified by the person composing the reply. Reply-To is the AUTHOR'S field to do with as he pleases, not the list manager's. Whether you intend your reply for the list or the author is up to you, but don't insist useful information be removed from all emails in defiance of standards because you have a crappy mailer and/or can't be bothered to learn how to use it. From your message headers I see your mailer handles list replies properly; if some of your mailing lists are screwing the pooch, file bug reports with the list managers. "l" should reply to list even on the ones where you're doing "r" or "g", unless they're set up wrong.
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