Thread: Re: [GENERAL] Adding Reply-To: to Lists configuration ...

Chris Green <chris@areti.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 07:34:28PM -0400, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> >
> > What is the general opinion of this?  I'd like to implement it, but not so
> > much so that I'm going to beat my head against a brick wall on it ...
> >
> Personally I'm against it because it means that I'll often get two
> replies when people reply to my postings.  However it's not a big
> issue for me.

Actually, it would result in just the opposite.

Jim

On Mon, Nov 29, 2004 at 07:35:41AM -0500, Jim Seymour wrote:
>
> Chris Green <chris@areti.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 07:34:28PM -0400, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> > >
> > > What is the general opinion of this?  I'd like to implement it, but not so
> > > much so that I'm going to beat my head against a brick wall on it ...
> > >
> > Personally I'm against it because it means that I'll often get two
> > replies when people reply to my postings.  However it's not a big
> > issue for me.
>
> Actually, it would result in just the opposite.
>
It depends on the mailing list software, you could be right.  However
on another mailing list where I'm a member I get two copies of
messages when people do 'Reply to all' simply because I have a
Reply-To: of my own set.  (I have Reply-To: set so that if people want
to send me a personal reply it gets to a mailbox I will read.  If you
reply to my From: address the message will end up in a catch-all,
low-priority, probably junk mailbox).

This is a perpetual problem, if people all used the same MUA and
(assuming it has the capability) all used the 'reply to list' command
to reply to the list everything would be wonderful!  :-)

--
Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk)

    "Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence."

On Mon, Nov 29, 2004 at 12:49:46 +0000,
  Chris Green <chris@areti.co.uk> wrote:
>
> This is a perpetual problem, if people all used the same MUA and
> (assuming it has the capability) all used the 'reply to list' command
> to reply to the list everything would be wonderful!  :-)

I think using mail-followup-to is better than having people do reply to list.

I think the main benefit to having reply-to point to the list is for supporting
clueless users on lists (who don't seem to understand the difference between
reply to sender and reply to all) and I don't think we have too many of those
here.

When I am subscribed to lists that force reply-to to point to the list,
I have my mail filter remove those headers so that things will work
normally (other than not allowing a sender to use reply-to of their own).

Reply-to would be especially bad for the postgres lists as nonsubscribers
can post and that the list servers are often slow.

People who don't want separate copies of messages should set the
mail-followup-to header to indicate that preference. This isn't perfect
since not all mail clients support this and some set up is required to
make your client aware of the list. It is also possible for mailing list
software to handle this preference for you (by not sending copies to addresses
on the list that appear in the recipient headers), but I don't know if the
software in use has that capability.

Bruno Wolff III <bruno@wolff.to> writes:
> It is also possible for mailing list software to handle this
> preference for you (by not sending copies to addresses on the list
> that appear in the recipient headers), but I don't know if the
> software in use has that capability.

That's a good point.  It looks like our list software *can* do that
(send majordomo a "help set" command and read about "eliminatecc" setting)
so rather than try to force the same behavior on everyone, I think
it's sufficient to tell those who prefer only one copy to enable that
preference.

            regards, tom lane

On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 02:02:41AM -0600, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 29, 2004 at 12:49:46 +0000,
>   Chris Green <chris@areti.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > This is a perpetual problem, if people all used the same MUA and
> > (assuming it has the capability) all used the 'reply to list' command
> > to reply to the list everything would be wonderful!  :-)
>
> I think using mail-followup-to is better than having people do reply to list.
>
It depends on how the 'reply to list' is implemented surely.  With
mutt (the MUA I use) you specify the addresses of known mailing lists
and the 'reply to List' command uses this to detect from the headers
whether the mail is from a list or not and acts accordingly.


> I think the main benefit to having reply-to point to the list is for supporting
> clueless users on lists (who don't seem to understand the difference between
> reply to sender and reply to all) and I don't think we have too many of those
> here.
>
The disadvantage of setting Reply-To: to point to the list for me is
that it would override my specific Reply-To: and thus prevent people
sending replies direct to me if they happened to want to do that.  A
message sent to my From: address gets sorted by procmail to a very low
priority mailbox which I may well overlook.  (I use a different
address for list subscriptions from the one I use for personal mail)

> People who don't want separate copies of messages should set the
> mail-followup-to header to indicate that preference. This isn't perfect
> since not all mail clients support this and some set up is required to
> make your client aware of the list. It is also possible for mailing list

As I said my MUA does this.

> software to handle this preference for you (by not sending copies to addresses
> on the list that appear in the recipient headers), but I don't know if the
> software in use has that capability.
>

--
Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk)

    "Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence."