On Sun, Feb 24, 2002 at 08:13:07PM -0600, Scott Raun wrote: > My experience: if Reply-To is not set to the list, then one of these > things happens - > > 1) replies don't happen because they're too much trouble to get to > the list What does this have to do with Reply-To munging? Sounds like the person wants to get direct replies as well as replies to the list. Perhaps a request to be Cc:'d on subsequent posts would make sense, yet, that would be a user-request wouldn't it? Something useful for the Reply-To: field. > 2) Reply-All happens, and half the time the poor originator gets > two copies of the reply. Sounds like people need to learn how to use their email clients. Ignorance of one's software does not qualify as an excuse to be obnoxious about one's email. > 3) otherwise interesting and on-topic discussions move to private > e-mail, and the list never sees them That is a lesson in discipline, not a correction via "Reply-To" munging. If people aren't knowledgable about their email clients and how to use them properly, then it's high time they learn. > 2 is really obnoxious to the original poster. 1 & 3 negatively impact > community building. I think you're making up excuses for something that is harmful and inappropriate. If I make a post that is on-topic, but wish to receive emails to process via a procmail filter, let's say for voting, I can use the "Reply-To" field in my email that is originally sent to a list. If that list munges my "Reply-To", then confusion ensues. Reply-To's can be useful, such as when you're using the MAIL-TO forms from Network Solutions to update your DNS records, or when mailer daemons send you subscription confirmations. One should be able to rely upon the Reply-To header doing useful work. Redirecting all of my email to a list by default is not acceptable behavior. > I've been involved in / had to deal with all of these. I consider the > gains of not munging Reply-To to be nowhere near the losses. That's your opinion. > I only know of a handful of lists that don't do Reply-To munging. One > is a Solaris help list - it has a strong culture of 'post your > problem, collect the answers from everyone, post back a summary > including what fixed it to the list'. It works there. It is one of > the few scenarios where I can see it being useful - you need that > really strong list culture. Then that's what should happen. A strong list culture, where netiquette and responsible moderators help guide the discussion. > The other lists are alll ones where I disagree with the owner, but > can't do anything, so I live with it. I don't know of any other lists > where Reply-To munging isn't done. Try all of the lists that Debian hosts, for starters. Any email lists that I host, for second. northshield at minstrel.com for another (SCA Principality list). The list goes on. Reply-To munging is rampant, but by no means is it a majority. > I do know of at least one group list - inhabited by strongly > computer-literate techies - where they debate the topic every two or > three years. And they always decide in favor. I would say it's more like our situation. No one makes any decisions. The debate flares up, but nothing is done. The environment that rules is the one that is initially set up. After that, very little changes unless something large in scale happens to influence it. I.e. spamming of the list. -- Chad Walstrom <chewie at wookimus.net> | a.k.a. ^chewie http://www.wookimus.net/ | s.k.a. gunnarr Get my public key, ICQ#, etc. $(mailx -s 'get info' chewie at wookimus.net) -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 232 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20020225/1affdf72/attachment.pgp