On Wednesday 12 January 2005 06:08 am, "Walter Dnes" 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 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. 

Not true, this has never been consistent.

> Several years ago, 
> Chip Rosenthal 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.

The document doesn't whine that much, and presents a couple of very good 
points:
1. "Defaulting" to replying to a single user minimizes traffic and damage.  
An email can always be sent to more preople, it can't be unsent to 
someone.
2. Removing the original Reply-To field breaks it's intended usage and 
causes information loss.  Of course, this is problem can be worked around 
in a couple of ways.

I'm not sure astrology or astronomy ever played a large part in the 
document.

The document also inspried at least two other document of similar size.  
The first was a rebuttal called reply-to-considered-helpful and the other 
was a counter-rebuttal of which I have forgetten the name.

In any case, there is no real consensus, nor was there before Chip's 
tirade.  I fall on the side of reply-to-considered-harmful, because of the 
information loss associated with the "old way" of doing things and I 
believe the reply-to-considered-harmful document supports it's points 
better than the reply-to-considered-helpful document.

Also, I don't believe in doing things *wrong* simply because it makes it 
*easier* for some /proper/ subset of the population.

-- 
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy

PS: While I will read and, indeed, welcome replies, this is the last thing 
I will say on the matter.

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