Re: [gtk-list] Re: That darn "Reply-To"

[Nicholas Lamb <njl195 ecs soton ac uk>]

On Mon, 24 Nov 1997, Michael K. Johnson wrote:
> Owen Taylor writes:
> >Could wthe Reply-To header be removed from gtk-list?
> 
> No.

Why not? -- Here are the reasons why Reply-To: is a generally accepted
"Bad Thing" (TM) to be adding in mailing list headers

(1) Duplicates existing mailer behaviour (most mailers will offer to
    send replies to everyone, most others are horribly broken anyway)

(2) Breaks obvious purpose of Reply feaure -- to contact the Author

(3) Encourages mailers to add even *more* options, many are having to
    add a "Send to From: not Reply-To: address" feature because
    users are annoyed by broken list behaviour

> HOWEVER, please recall what has been stated before: messages sent to
> the list with a "reply-to:" header do NOT have that header replaced.
> People who send messages which should be replied to privately should
> insert reply-to headers.  Those who want the messages to be replied
> to normally (the default) should not include reply-to messages.

This at least is better than nothing, but I shouldn't have to override
the defaults in order to get correct behaviour out of the list :)

> >The "general consensus" seems to be is that this is broken behavior.
> 
> Uh, I'm not convinced.

I hope my reasons were enough to convince you. Please note that this
is NOT a list for net-newbies (the commonest excuse from list
admins is that such newbies can't figure out how to reply to the list)
and that there are many discussions which have taken place on this
list but might have been more appropriate off-line (especially the
discussion about how the list is run :(

Nick.