On Mon, Jan 10, 2005 at 09:54:43PM -0500, Nick Smith wrote > seems like 50/50 i when i reply it wants to go to the sender > instead of the list, i keep emailing people directly by mistake. > with i high volume list like this i would think it would be set > to reply-to-list, is it just me or are other people going > through this as well?
Long story. In the beginning, when you got an email from a mailing list and replied to it, it went back to the list. Several years ago, Chip Rosenthal hit the wrong button and sent a private personal message to a mailing list, rather than an individual that he wanted to send to. Rather than gracefully admitting that he had screwed up, he launched a whine at http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html blaming his mistake on mailing list software, his birth sign, the phase of the moon, etc, etc. His suggested "solution" to his mistake was to modify mailing list behaviour so that people have to jump through flaming hoops in order to consistently send email replies to a mailing list. Unfortunately, his suggestion has been followed, and many mailing lists have been dumbed down to the point-n-drool level in this matter. His suggestion may make sense in the case of an "announcement" list or a "for-sale" list or a "personals" list, where the sender wants replies to go to a specific address, rather than the list. However, in the case of 95% of mailing lists, it's a PITA. I get emails from the list, and I damn well want my *REPLY* to go to the list. And I should *NOT* have to remember to use a different key with *SOME* email, just to save Chip Rosenthal from making a once-in-a-decade mistake. Here's the solution I've implemented to the problem Chip's idea has created for mailing-list users. It's a procmail filter that corrects the behaviour of dumbed-down mailing-list software like that being used for this list... :0 fhw * ^List-Id:.*gentoo-user\.gentoo\.org * !^Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | formail -i "Reply-To: [email protected] (Gentoo-user list)" The original "Reply-To:" (if there was one) is renamed, not deleted. So it's still available for cut-n-paste once every decade, if/when you run across one of the highly pathological situations Chip has presented as an excuse for his idea. -- Walter Dnes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> An infinite number of monkeys pounding away on keyboards will eventually produce a report showing that Windows is more secure, and has a lower TCO, than linux. -- [email protected] mailing list
