Re: Fuck it!

From: Anatoly Vorobey (mellon_at_pobox.com)
Date: Mon 02 Nov 1998 - 20:53:41 IST


You, Michael N. Livshin, were spotted writing this on Mon, Nov 02, 1998 at 07:45:59PM +0200:
>
> Here is a basic rule of mailing list discourse:
>
> DO NOT SET Reply-to: TO THE LIST, DAMMIT. When I hit reply,
> I'm supposed to be replying to the person, not following up.

This isn't universally true. Mailing lists aren't Usenet, therefore
"following up" isn't defined as an operation uniquely distinct
from "replying". It's all email, anyway.

> I get 12 mailing lists. Only this one has this braindamage.

It isn't brain damage, it's a feature controllable in majordomo.

Especially for lists with lively discussions, it's helpful
to have Reply-To: point to the list. Otherwise people frequently
forget to change the To: header and send their replies to the
sender instead of the whole list as they intended. In case such
people don't keep their sent messages, it turns into a real problem.

There isn't any universal consensus about whether mailing lists
should have Reply-To: directed to the list. I subscribe to very many
mailing lists, and this behavior varies from list to list.

Moreover, good mailers have different keys for usual reply, which
honors the Reply-To: header, and reply which sends directly to the From:
header. In this case there isn't any problem at all.

(Bad mailers, on the other hand, have little icons instead of keys).

Sincerely,
Anatoly.

-- 
Anatoly Vorobey,
mellon@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton
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