Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2020 09:32:03 +0100
From: "Geoff Clare via austin-group-l at The Open Group"
<austin-group-l@opengroup.org>
Message-ID: <20200910083203.GA29472@localhost>
| You read it again. You are ignoring the last sentence.
No, I am not.
| Yes. The last sentence. It clearly implies that the address in the
| "From:" field is the address that "Reply-To:" overrides.
It does not. It says what to do if there is no Reply-To field, and
has no bearing at all if there is.
I know - I was involved in writing that text when it appeared first in
rfc2822 ... correctly handling Reply-To has always been one of my hobby
horses (ever since Dave Crocker explained it to me when I asked him
long ago ... the text in rfc822 was not very informative at all).
We cannot say where the client must send replies, as, as we both agree,
that's ultimately up to the person sending the reply. But we can say
what the Reply-To field means, and that is what that test says. It is
not an override of the From field, it "indicates the address(es) to which
the author of the message suggests that replies be sent."
The current config of the austin-list mailer is perverting that use.
Some lists (absent an author supplied Reply-To field) add a Reply-To
directing replies to only the list, as many list members prefer things
that way (not all mailers do good duplicate filtration, so if many
people get a private reply, and the same reply via the list, they
actually see both (and for some reason, that irritates many people).
That's not exactly perfect, but it is at least reasonable, and understandable.
Adding a Reply-To field with what ought to be in the From field is
simply insane.
| Of course. Who else to send a reply to is the choice of the person
| sending the reply. Which is why almost all email clients provide
| separate "reply" and "reply all" functions.
I know - a very limited approach. I have lots of options on where I
send replies, far more than just those two. The question is where should
a normal reply be sent, the one that is used all the time when there is
no reason to override. That's what matters here, as that is the one that
is used by default (the one I automatically pick when I want to send any
normal e-mail reply).
I have (recently) here normally been using my "reply to everyone" variant,
which is more than a typical Reply-All as it includes every address it
can find in any source/recipient field in the header of the message, then
I just go and delete the inappropriate ones. I also have "reply to author"
"reply to sender" (there are occasionally times when that is appropriate)
and "reply to significant addrs" (Reply-To if there is one, otherwise
>From + To, but not cc). There are many combinations that might be useful
to recipients, users should be able to tailor this to suit their needs,
just having "reply" and "reply all" is limiting.
If the message includes the mailing list headers (why are those not
added for austin-list messages) then I also see "subscribe"/"unsubscribe"
and "reply to list" if those addresses are given, which they ought to be.
| It is the almost universally adopted convention. You need to accept
| that and move on.
Sorry, that I refuse to do.
| Also, it in no way reduces the functionality of email.
It isn't the reply sending that loses functionality, it is the
act of sending a message and indicating (in a way that can be
automated, rather than text in the message) to which addresses
you would like replies to be sent.
For example, in this message, I am including a Reply-To header
like this
Reply-To: Robert Elz <k...@munnari.oz.au>,
Andrew Josey <ajo...@opengroup.org>
so that if you choose to continue this debate, we can stop bothering
the whole list with this issue that has nothing at all to do with
the objectives of the list, but just mailing list management.
But I bet it will be deleted by the mailing list software, and
replaced by something different.... You should still see it in
the copy of this message sent to you directly though. If included
in the message you actually see, I assume that your mailer's normal
action, when you use it in the normal way you would reply to any other
message sent to the list, would be to include the list anyway, ignoring
my request. You may choose then to go edit the header, and delete the
extra address(es) but why should you be required to take that step, when
this can trivially easily be automated. I know, that's how it works
for me.
| I used the word "offered" above and in an earlier email for a reason.
| The way this is usually handled is that the different reply functions
| pre-populate the To and Cc fields with the "offered" addresses.
| The person composing the reply can then alter them before sending.
Of course, but when all I desire to do is reply to wherever the reply
should go, and particularly when I'm replying quickly, I usually don't
even look at the header of my reply. Why should I have to? When I
am thinking of it, and actually check -- which I remembered to do this
time, even though I forgot I should have used "reply to everyone" and
just used "reply" ... that incidentally is why the message quoting format
is different, I have those 2 set up differently, normally if I am replying
to everyone I don't want the original message included, so when I want
quotes I use the function that gets me one, this time the template
message came prepared with your message in it, and I instead delete the
parts I don't want to include.
| My email client (mutt) is just about as unlimited as it is possible
| for an email client to be.
Yes, I know mutt, but sorry, compared to MH (nmh currently) it is just
plain primitive and restrictive. Certainly better than mailx, but
still primitive. As Steffen said:
austin-group-l@opengroup.org (really stef...@sdaoden.eu) said:
| Hihihi. But at least his mailer is scriptable to the core!
and he was right.
Of course, even mailx is (in many ways) better than your average web
client, and it is at least good that opengroup are managing their own
e-mail, rather than farming it out to google or someone like that.
kre
