Date   : Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:48:42 +0000
From   : mfirth@... (Michael Firth)
Subject: Who the message is from...

Kevin Bracey wrote:
> Rick Murray wrote:
>   
>> An (ex)Acornite! Hi, welcome!
>>   
>>     
> Yep, pretty ex. Howdy!
>   
>>  > and it looks perfectly configured to me. So admins - please don't 
>> mess with it!
>>
>> Ooooh, you can tell he's new. :-)
>>   
>>     
> Not really - seen this discussion a few times on mailing lists, and it's 
> amusing that it's the first thing I see on this one.. I'm not on many at 
> the minute - only three others, and none of them mess around with 
> Reply-To (or From as you originally suggested).
>   
>> Now, for another point of view. Technical issues and header lines aside, 
>> the *LOGICAL* behaviour is to click REPLY to REPLY TO THE MAILING LIST. 
>>   
>>     
> So what is it logical for "Reply to All" to do if "Reply" is replying to 
> the list? As I've got two buttons, "Reply" and "Reply to All", I expect 
> a "reply" to go to the sender, and "reply to all" to go to everyone who 
> received the message.
>
>   
>> As opposed to the current where it is hard to send to the mailing list? 
>>   
>>     
> At a minimum your client should have "Reply to All" - doesn't that work? 
> That should pluck the list address out of the "To" field. I suppose if 
> there are clients out there that lack "Reply to All" that might explain 
> why this keeps coming up.
>
> Are you really in a situation that when you get a message with 
> "BBC-Micro" in the subject you're assuming that it's from the list and 
> manually typing in the list address to reply? I can see that's 
> dangerous, but I'm still not quite sure why you're having to resort to that.
>
> I've just checked, and you're using Thunderbird like me. You've got 
> "Reply to All". So what's the problem? Even if your filters are duff, 
> using Reply to All will prevent cock-ups.
>   
The problem with "Reply to All", is that it also replies to the sender 
of the original message (as I've just done), as well as to the mailing list.

If everyone just uses this, then the "To" and "CC" boxes will quickly 
fill up with everyone who's contributed to that particular thread.

For some clients (e.g. mobile phones), "Reply to All" is also harder to 
get to than "Reply"
>> A's fault is not knowing Y sent the message privately, thus exposing 
>> something to X which was probably best kept secret.
>>     
> Surely everyone's got filters set up to send list messages to somewhere 
> separate from private messages? This is fairly high volume. And if that 
> filter can't distinguish between private messages and list messages, 
> you're in danger of making a fool of yourself, I guess. You should be 
> filtering on the "List Id" header, not just "BBC-Micro" in the subject. 
> This is standard mailing-list procedure; it's not safe to filter on the 
> subject - and two of my lists don't even distinguish themselves in the 
> subject anyway. Maybe that should be advised in the joining message for 
> people who aren't used to mailing lists. (They are a bit old-fashioned 
> now, I suppose).
>   
>> But, then, with Usenet clicking Reply replies to the group. Not privately.
>>   
>>     
> The exact labelling of the buttons will vary, but a Usenet client will 
> have two buttons for private and public reply, as well as a New Post button.
>
> A list-aware mail client will offer the same three buttons - it either 
> have a manually-configured address for posts and public replies, or will 
> use the List-Post address.
>
> A list-unaware mail client won't give you a Post button, but will offer 
> you the usual Reply button, going privately, or Reply to All, which will 
> go to the list (To) and the sender (From).
>
> Every case has two reply buttons, whatever the labelling - what's so 
> hard about that?
>
> If you munge the Reply-To address on a mailing list, you're removing the 
> button to reply privately, and you end up with two buttons to reply 
> publicly. So you're nobbling mid-to-high-functionality clients for the 
> benefit of clients that lack even a "Reply to All" function, but I'm not 
> convinced those exist.
>   

The problem is that most people will be using pretty dumb clients. Due 
to Microsoft's dominance of the computing world, a lot of people (me 
included) will usually be using Microsoft applications for e-mail. A 
large percentage of the rest will be using Thunderbird, which is also 
not a "list-aware" mail client (as far as I know).

Can you give some examples of "list aware" mail clients, and what 
percentage of Internet mail users use them?

The other problem with dumb clients is that clever filtering is more 
difficult, which makes filtering accidental "reply to user" messages 
seperate from the list postings more difficult.
>> What is wrong with:
>>
>>    From: Rick <rs@...>
>>    Reply-To: <bbc-micro@...>
>>   
>>     
> It overwrites any Reply-To set by Rick.
>   
>> If this isn't viable, then what's the point of Reply-To?
>>     
> Like RFC822 says, it allows you to send e-mails from one account, but 
> request that replies go to some other account as well or instead. Not 
> unusual - I use it if e-mailing from home but wanting copies of replies 
> to come to work. I admit I've never used it on Usenet/mailing lists though.
>   
>> Read RFC822, and I will quote, specifically:
>>   
>>     
> ... a passage that has been removed from RFC2822 which obsoletes 822. No 
> such suggestion appears in RFC2822, and List-Reply has been invented 
> since then.
>   
>> Oh, and its an RFC, NOT a standard. 
>>   
>>     
> You're right, RFC2822, despite being designated as obsoleting RFC822 
> (STD 11), is still only a proposed standard. After 8 years. They don't 
> like to rush these things...
>
> But note that RFC822 only suggests that you could use Reply-To for 
> mailing lists - it's saying it's possible, not that it's a good idea...
>
>   
Standards are all very well, but if most people don't have mail clients 
that are fully compliant to the latest standards, then by making your 
mailing list fully compliant, you are making things more difficult
for the majority of list users.

As a contrasting view to the URL you posted previously, 
http://www.metasystema.net/essays/reply-to.html is an essay suggesting 
that changing the "Reply-To" header is a good thing.

Regards

Michael