On Dec 13, 2010, at 9:41 AM, Bruce Johnson wrote:
On Dec 13, 2010, at 10:00 AM, Joshua Juran wrote:
That's a result of Reply-To pointing to the list, which is
inadvisable (for exactly this reason, i.e. accidentally sending
private replies to the list) and (as of RFC 2822 (April 2001)) not
standards-compliant.
I'm on a couple lists where that behavior is implemented by default,
and it is a GIANT pain in the a**, as it subverts *the entire point*
of having a mailing list.
Perhaps, if you insist on only ever using the Reply function and not
Reply All (or Reply to List if you have it).
Did you read the first of the two links I posted?
<quote>
Reply-To munging does not benefit the user with a reasonable mailer.
People want to munge Reply-To headers to make 'reply back to the list'
easy. But it already is easy. Reasonable mail programs have two
separate 'reply' commands: one that replies directly to the author of
a message, and another that replies to the author plus all of the list
recipients. Even the lowly Berkeley Mail command has had this for
about a decade.
</quote>
"Reply-To" Munging Considered Harmful
http://marc.merlins.org/netrants/reply-to-harmful.html
Also, a cursory examination of RFC2822 <http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html
> shows no mention *whatsoever* about Reply-to pointing to a list;
the only things it mentions are some obsoleted versions of the Reply-
To header and what should take priority in the absence of a Reply-To
header.
Did you read the second of the two links I posted?
<quote>
In this new RFC, the author addresses the Reply-To header field in a
few places, but the most relevant to this discussion is the following
in section 3.6.2 "Originator fields":
When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it indicates the mailbox(es)
to which the author of the message suggests that replies be sent.
Your list software is not "the author of the message", so it must not
set or in any way meddle with the Reply-To header field. That field
exists for the author and the author alone. If your list munges it,
you are violating the standard.
</quote>
“Reply-To” Munging Still Considered Harmful. Really.
http://woozle.org/~neale/papers/reply-to-still-harmful.html
I'll gladly stand corrected if you can tell me the section number of
the RFC where this behavior is noted as 'non-compliant'.
Section 3.6.2 "Originator fields" specifies behavior to which Reply-To
munging is contrary (i.e. that Reply-To serves the author), without
mentioning any prohibited alternate behaviors explicitly.
As a final note, I'll add that a list-munged Reply-To field is one of
those 'modes' that user interface experts keep saying are evil.
Josh
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