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Re: Reply-to (was: dselect oddities)



I'm afraid Ill have to drag out this again.  Please read:

http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html

On Mon, 18 May 1998, Steve Lamb wrote:

> On Mon, 18 May 1998 09:07:52 -0300 (ADT), Trevor Barrie wrote:
> 
> >>     No, the reply I thought went to the list didn't because this list does
> >> not correctly set the reply-to field.
> 
> >Seems to me it sets it right... ie, it leaves it how the original
> >sender set it. Stepping on a user's header is a Bad Thing IMO.
> 
>     Incorrect.  Many mailing lists, in fact, the grand majority that are run
> properly, set the reply-to to the list.  This is because a mailing list for
> discussion among a group and replies should default back to the group without
> a CC to the original poster.
> 
>     Without the reply-to field set the behavior for many clients is to either
> reply to the user alone (which most people do not want, they want to reply to
> the list) or reply to everyone to get the list.  The problem with that is if
> that trend continues a copy is sent to the list as well as copies to every
> person who ever participated in a thread.  Without the efforts of the
> individuals in this thread alone we would be sending duplicates to a good 7-8
> members.  If we are going to have private CC lists like that, what is the
> point of having the list software to distribute the mail?  In short, it is
> bad form.
> 
>     The only thing that prevents both of those, automatically, is to set the
> reply-to to the list.  This means that people who want to reply to the list
> (which is, IMHO, the default behavior outside of announce lists) can do so
> easily, we're not constantly culling the CC: list of duplicate entries, and
> for the rare case when people want to send a private message to the
> individual of a particular message nearly all of the modern email clients on
> a variety of platforms give the user the choice of which address to send to
> with the reply-to as default.

-- 
Scott K. Ellis <storm@gate.net>                 http://www.gate.net/~storm/


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