Re: debian-user list info and guidelines (FAQ) - posted monthly
On Fri, Aug 06, 2021 at 12:25:52PM -0400, Polyna-Maude Racicot-Summerside wrote:
Actually, the message you sent would have been sent only to yourself in
the reply if I wouldn't have took the time to add the mailing list as CC.
OK, let's explore why.
According to your User-Agent header, you are using the MUA Thunderbird.
According to the description you just wrote about the behaviour of
replying, it would NOT have replied to the list, but directly to Tomas.
That's because you have hit Thunderbird's "Reply" button (or keyboard
shortcut, or menu entry), which is defined as "reply to sender".
Thunderbird has a separate "reply to list" function. By default, you can
see it in the list of actions if you right-click a list mail, or if you
hit the keys CTRL + Shift + L. I *think* the "Reply all" button that
normally appears turns into a "reply list" button, when the mail in
question is a list message.
You need to be using the separate "reply to list" function to send a
reply to the correct place.
In my opinion, it's awkward that there's a separate function and you
have to remember to use it in some circumstances but not others. That's
the default behaviour in my chosen MUA too (neomutt). However, I
reconfigured neomutt so I had a single button to hit that always does
the right thing. Perhaps, Thunderbird can be similarly configured to be
more convenient in this regard. I don't know.
There's one more caveat worth mentioning here, and it's to do with mail
server stuff, rather than client. In some circumstances, such as when
somebody hits "reply all" or CCs you on a mail you get via a list
anyway, you can get two copies of the mail. Since only one copy came via
the list, only one copy has the List-* headers, and so Thunderbird's
"reply to list" function will only work for the list copy. Worse, some
mail server back-ends (for example Gmail, Exchange) de-duplicated copies
of mail. Therefore, the one copy you might have (despite having been
sent two) may not be the list copy either. If that affects you, all I
can suggest is looking for a better mail provider. But, we can all help
each other by not CCing people when replying to them on-list. Which is
why I have that in my mail signature.
--
Please do not CC me for listmail.
👱🏻 Jonathan Dowland
✎ jmtd@debian.org
🔗 https://jmtd.net
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