On Wed, 17 Apr 2013, Jed Brown wrote: > John Doe sends email to petsc-users and the mailing list rewrites > Reply-To back to the list. Now any user hits reply-all and their mailer > gives them a message that replies *only* to petsc-users, dropping the > original author. This is a problem,
Its a problem only if the author is not subscribed. > and only a few mailers have a "when > From and Reply-To do not agree, assume this is mailing list munging and > disregard the intent of the Reply-To field (RFC 2822) by also replying > to the address found in From" feature. > In other words, any mailer that interprets the Reply-To field as its > intended "instead of" semantics rather than "in addition to" will drop > the original author, meaning lost replies for people that are not > subscribed or have delivery disabled. Or remove option 'subscribe-but-do-not-deliver' for our usage of 'Reply-To: list' > Perhaps a middle ground would be to have the list copy the From header > over to Reply-to (if it doesn't already exist) and then _add_ the list > address to Reply-to. That still isn't quite right when cross-posting, > but it would allow us to advertise "subscribe with delivery off and ask > questions on the list" or even "mail the list without subscribing" > instead of "always write petsc-maint if you can't be bothered to filter > the high-volume list". Earlier in the thread you've supported: reminder emails to folks doing 'reply' instead of 'reply-all:' as an acceptable thing. [and this happens a few times a day]. But here a reply of 'use petsc-maint' instead of subscribe-but-do-not-deliver with petsc-users' is suggested not good. [which happens so infrequently - except for configure.log sutff]. And I fail to see how 'e-mail petsc-maint without subscribing is not good - whereas 'email petsc-users without subscribing is a great feature'. [yeah you get archives on petsc-users - but I don't think uses are as much concerened about that.] And I'll submit - its easier for most folks to send email to petsc-maint instead of figuring out 'subscribe-but-donot-deliver stuff on petsc-users'. [Yeah 'expert' mailing list users might expect "subscribe with delivery" workflow to work.] Perhaps the problem here is - I view petsc-users and petsc-dev as public mailing lists - and primary purpose of public mailing lists is all to all communication mechanism. [so subscription/ reply-to make sense to me.] And petsc-maint as the longstanding non-subscribe/support or any type of conversation e-mail to-petsc-developers. But most use petsc-users [and some view it] as a support e-mail adress [with searchable archives]. If thats what it it - then no-subscribe-post or subscribe-but-do-not-deliver stuff would be the primary thing - and recommending that would make sense. And then we should be accepting build logs on it as well - and not worry about flooding users mailboxes iwth them. [compressed as openmpi list recommends] [what about petsc-dev? some use it as reaching petsc-developers - not petsc development discussions. And what about petsc-maint? redirect to petsc-users and have petsc-developers an non-ambiguous place for non-public e-mails to petsc-developers?] Satish
