On Tue, Aug 19, 2003 at 02:50:01AM -0400, Aaron Hope wrote: > BTW, Is there a reason why mailman isn't configured to set the > reply-to header?
Yes. We've had this holy war before, and the (small) majority of list members were against reply-to. The logical argument: Setting the reply-to header changes the behavior of your mailer, such that it no longer does what it is intended to do when you use the reply function: reply to the sender. Setting the reply-to header makes it impossible for well-behaved mailers to send a private reply to the sender without manually editing the headers. Leaving it out makes it possible for well-behaved mailers to use a "list-reply" function to respond to the list, when that is what we want to do, or failing that to use the "group-reply" function, which virtually all mailers have had for centuries now. Setting reply-to also makes it impossible to respond to posters who have themselves set the reply-to header because they NEED it. That's the essence of it, but if you haven't heard enough, there's this: http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html People familiar with the argument also know about this: http://www.metasystema.org/essays/reply-to-useful.mhtml In the end, it can be shown that munging reply-to causes some users genuine damage (such as in the case of the guy who needs to set reply-to in order to receive mail), whereas not munging it merely reduces convenience for some people who have sh!tty mailers. The rest of the world shouldn't be punished for your poor choice of software... -- Derek D. Martin http://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank the spammers.
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