This Mailinglist

[Ewan Mac Mahon]

On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 04:19:46PM -0800, Ed Fletcher wrote:
> I hesitate to jump into this.  But I feel quite strongly that the list 
> should be set to Reply-To list.  Absolutely every other mailing list I'm 
> on works this way and I've never seen a negative result from it.  
OK. Now post a message (eg a For Sale message) that really wants replies
direct to you and not the list, and set a header that causes this. Next
find a subject that's on topic on two lists and crosspost it; make sure
to keep all of the discussion visible to subscribers on either list.
Next get contributions to a list discussion from a non-subscriber (in an
Ubuntu context imagine getting help from the non-Ubuntu using Debian
packager of a universe app).

In each of these cases the list's munging of the headers will prevent
messages from going where they need to. Non-munging is the norm on
technical/develeopment lists for a number of good and well known
reasons. The fact that you've not come across them just means that
you've not been subscribed to many of those lists. OTOH, it can work OK
for closed clubs (like lugs, say) but this isn't one of those.

> It seems unreasonable to ask everyone to switch clients just to help
> out the small minority that do not want to subscribe.
>
It seems unreasonable to rewrite everyone's mail headers and break
off-list cooperation just because there's a bug in your MUA.
 
> Reply-To-All means that I will get the same message twice when someone 
> sends an answer.  

If you use the wrong reply function you'll get the wrong behaviour,
that's just standard garbage in, garbage out. You don't want to reply to
all? So don't. Equally, when posting, if you want replies to go just to the
list and never to your inbox, say so - set the damn header yourself.

Ewan

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