M. Fioretti wrote:
On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 14:58:57 PM -0600, Barbara Duprey ([email protected]) wrote:
The OOo list management (ezmlm or CollabNet-- I'd love to know who
does what here) sets a Reply-To header that includes only the list
address. This precedes the original Reply-To containing whatever the
sender specified, or the sender's address by default. In
Thunderbird, at least, this means that the From and the sender's
Reply-To are ignored; Reply and Reply All both are set up to go only
to the list. Is Thunderbird's response typical?
Yes, in the sense that any well done mail client (as Thunderbird is)
obeys the standard, which is "reply means to reply to all and only the
addresses listed in the Reply-To header".
I looked and there are actually two Reply-To headers. with the list-only
version first. I think that might confuse things.
So if the list management software has been configured to write in the
Reply-To header only the list email address, that's what will happen,
and (in general) the only way to reply both to the list and the OP is
by hand, as you said. There may be special settings in Thunderbirds
and other MUAs to override this, I don't know, but in general a mail
client will work like that by default.
The discussions all over the Internet over what is the "right"
address(es) that a mailing list software should write in the Reply-To
header are even worst than those on how to handle unsubscribed posters
on the users list. Basically, every list works as its moderator feels
it should work. This and the fact that collabnet never bothered to
listen subscribers request make changing the settings for this list
basically impossible to achieve, so you are right to not consider it.
Good info, thanks!
In any case, a strategy that relies on Reply All apparently would
first require changes to the setting of the Reply-To header. That
puts it outside the bounds of the kind of solution I'm investigating
(by the way, I'm up to three alternatives now, plus possible
combinations!). Note that this does not apply to responses to
attachments in digest-form messages
Stop investigating and manually add the OP address (as you were
already doing anyway, it would not be an extra effort) whenever you
answer to a new message on the us...@ooo list from somebody whose name
you don't remember.
It will work much better and generate much, much less list traffic and
flames than what's already happening or what you're investigating
now. You are "to three alternatives now, plus possible combinations",
which don't work in the digest-form case, and any of the things you've
figured out may very well break next week, as soon as some new version
of a mail or newsgroup client changes its default behavior, or the
webform on the website or gmane or other newsgroup archive change the
way they work... Why waste any more time over this investigation?
For one thing, I'm learning a lot -- and collecting it in a form that
should be useful to others. I don't consider it a waste of my time. Now,
could you please explain what you meant by "don't work in the
digest-form case"? By the way, all the solutions I'm looking at require
exactly one message to the (unsubscribed only) user privately, and one
to the list telling everybody not to bother with the CC'ing, etc. They
also all end up with the unsubs having a way to see whatever responses
apply to their questions, regardless of where in the threads they
appear. In contrast, what you described (as Reply All, but let's take it
as the manual copying that would actually be required) means the unsub
would get exactly one message -- provided that his subject was useful,
otherwise nothing. If that one message was not an actual answer, but
perhaps asked for additional information so we could help, as is often
the case, and he supplied it, and that led somebody to respond with an
actual answer -- he'd never know, and since nobody else knows that he
isn't subscribed (since we've all been instructed to discard our
filters), it will look as if he's been answered when he hasn't. I can
see this leading to a lot of "Why isn't anybody answering my question?"
messages, either plaintively or furiously expressed. I don't see a
wonderful reduction in list volume this way, though the alternatives I'm
looking at would have a real shot at doing that -- if I'm right, and
I'll leave it to the community to decide that. By the way, the
mechanisms under consideration are not nearly as fragile as all that,
though they are ezmlm-oriented and would become obsolete with a
different structure. But so would all our subscriptions and current
procedures...and I think we're all agreed that nothing like that is
happening soon, if at all. So meanwhile, back at the ranch....
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