Re: Could you recommend CD/DVD writer program?

[Dave Sherohman <dave@sherohman.org>]

On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 06:28:29AM -0500, Mark Allums wrote:
> The fact that so many people have a problem with this should tell the  
> maintainers something.  They are being as mule-headed as possible about  
> this, for no good reason, RFCs-be-damned.

Am I correct to infer from your final clause that you are aware of some
RFC which states that mailing lists SHOULD or MUST add reply-to headers
directing responses back to the list?  If so, please cite the RFC number
and/or provide a link to it, as I am aware of no such RFC.

> And sometimes I forget.  I have to remember two behaviors for different  
> lists.  I'm not young anymore.  No one should get POed at anyone else  
> for not changing the addressing, because we may not be able to do better.

Sometimes I forget, too.  I'm sure everyone does.  That's human nature.

So what happens when someone forgets?  With reply-to set to direct
responses back to the list, a response which was intended to be private
becomes public.  With no reply-to, a response which was intended to be
public becomes private.

Perhaps your experiences have been different than mine, but, as I see
it, publicizing something intended to be private is very likely to cause
harm, and this harm may be rather substantial.  (Sending a closed
project bid to your competitors, distributing your home phone number to
all of d-u's thousands of subscribers, etc.)  Sending a reply privately
that was intended to go to the list is unlikely to do any more than
cause minor annoyance.  (Re-send it to the list and you get the original
intended effect with no harm done beyond the embarassment of messing it
up and the initial recipient seeing it twice.)

Granted, for most lists, the substantial majority of replies are
intended to go to the list, but the greater degree of harm caused by
inadvertently publicizing private information is, I believe, large
enough that the average harm-per-reply (i.e., expected harm from a
mis-send times the odds of a mis-send) is still lower without setting
reply-to.

I'm not a list admin here, but that seems to me like a pretty good
reason for the current policy.

-- 
Dave Sherohman