Thread hijacking

[Christopher Chan]

Christopher Chan wrote:
> NoOp wrote:
>> On 12/16/2009 10:16 AM, Alan McKay wrote:
>>> On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Odd <iodine at runbox.no> wrote:
>>>> What's the point of a mailing list if private/direct replies should be
>>>> the norm?
>>> It seems to be the RFC purists who drag out this bit of nonsense from
>>> time-to-time on most of the lists out there.
>>>
>>> The RFC clearly states that replies should be to the individual.
>>>
>>>
>> Can you please cite the RFC? Not disputing, just curious & would like to
>> read it. Thanks.
>>
>>
>>
> 
> This should explain it.
> 
> http://woozle.org/~neale/papers/reply-to-still-harmful.html
> 
> Relevant portion if you do not wish to read the whole thing.
> 
> "In April of 2001, the IETF issued af new document, RFC 2822, which 
> obsoletes RFC 822. In this new RFC, the author addresses the Reply-To 
> header field in a few places, but the most relevant to this discussion 
> is the following in section 3.6.2 "Originator fields":
> 
>      When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it indicates the mailbox(es) 
> to which the author of the message suggests that replies be sent."
> 
> 
> Another portion of the article for those who say 2822 is old and obsolete.
> 
> "How to specify where to post list messages
> 
> RFC 2369 specifies, in section 3.4, the List-Post header field:
> 
>      The List-Post field describes the method for posting to the list. 
> This is typically the address of the list, but MAY be a moderator, or 
> potentially some other form of submission. For the special case of a 
> list that does not allow posting (e.g., an announcements list), the 
> List-Post field may contain the special value "NO".
> 
> Modern mail list software sets this header field, or provides some 
> mechanism for the administrator to set it."
> 

More stuff on the mailman developers list:

http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-developers@python.org/msg11600.html

--------------------------------
Here's what RFC 5322 $3.6.2 says:


"The originator fields also provide the information required when 
replying to a message. When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it 
indicates the address(es) to which the author of the message suggests 
that replies be sent. In the absence of the "Reply-To:" field, replies 
SHOULD by default be sent to the mailbox(es) specified in the "From:" 
field unless otherwise specified by the person composing the reply."

There's no way that I can read that to suggest that the mailing list has 
any right to touch that field. This language says to me that Reply-To is 
firmly under the purview of the message's original author.
-------------------------------