On Sat, 22 Jan 2005, Dave Sherohman wrote: > Why is that, assuming that you're getting just the direct reply and not > one direct and one via the list? A direct reply isn't list mail, so > list filters really shouldn't apply to it, should they? (If you are > getting two copies, aren't there procmail rules that can be used to > recognize and suppress the duplicate?) [Note that I am not complaining about the procedure used to reply to the list -- with Pine, I can accept the defaults when replying and get it to the list in either case. The big irritation for me with not having reply-to munging turned on is the duplicate message issue - see below.] The problem is that if a user hits reply-to-all, one copy goes directly to me from the user's mail server, and another copy goes to me via the list server. The direct copy does not have the List-Id tag, and ends up in my inbox. The copy from the list server does have the List-Id tag, and will be sorted into my mailing list folder. If I set up Procmail to strip the duplicate messages, I will generally only receive the copy sent directly to me, and not the copy sent to the list (the privately-sent copy will usually arrive faster.) That mean that that message ends up in my inbox, where I have to manually delete/move it to the list, instead of the list folder, where it gets nicely threaded and I can read/delete it at my leisure. > In any case, my big beef with lists setting reply-to: automatically is > that, as you say, getting a duplicate copy is irritating, but, if > someone wants to reply to the list and inadvertently replies privately, > then getting duplicates is the worst thing that will come of it and it's > just irritating, no more. Inadvertently sending a response to the list > which you intended to be private is much more likely to have significant > negative consequences, ranging from embarrassment to lawsuits. > (Oops... I didn't mean to break that NDA...) Not only is leaving > reply-to alone more consistent with non-list mail, it's also safer for > the list's subscribers. That never used to be a problem; when I was first signing up for mailing lists (many moons ago), where the reply-to munging was default, I never saw those "accidental posts". Now that more users with crappy MUA's (which don't make it obvious that you're sending back to the list instead of the user) are using mailing lists, I notice it a lot more. Even so, most users who do accidently have a post go to the list reply to it and say "Oops, sorry!" and it never happens again. My view on this has always been that if you're replying to a message posted to the list, the default behavior should be for your reply to go back to the mailing list; if you want to change that behavior, you'll have to do something different. It's always seemed perfectly obvious to me.. -- Nate Carlson <natecars at real-time.com> | Phone : (952)943-8700 http://www.real-time.com | Fax : (952)943-8500