Dear debaters, the debate starts to look like a religious war. However I
will respond to some of the remarks made by Erik (I assume it was him who
made the following remarks to Marc. I do receive now so many cc's, due to
the reply-to-all, that I get confused what came first and later, because the
messages arrive at different times and get sorted chronologically sometimes
the other way around.).
See my remarks in the (partly erased) message I did receive.

> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:vnc-list-admin@;realvnc.com]Namens Erik
> Verzonden: vrijdag 15-nov-02 3:30
>
> Marc,
>
> I just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. You are 100% right.
> Anyone who thinks
> "reply-to" needs to be there, probably hasn't been around too
> long.. Reply-to
> is bad for as many reasons as they think it's good.

Well, your assumption is wrong as far as myself is concerned. I am a user of
email since 1980/81 and have been subscribed to many discussion lists. Also
I am the owner of a number of them.

> I use pine myself, but I think just about any mail client has a
> 'reply to all' button.. which is what everyone I know has been
> using since the early 90's (And some of you have probably been
> using it into the 80's).

Yes, all the mail clients I know have the reply-to-all facility nowadays.
If you imply to say that "what everyone I know has been using since the
early 90's..." means that everyone has been using this when replying to
messages of a discussion list, I certainly know this to be incorrect.

> Reply-tos break things like vacation, and are a BAD idea.. You
> wont lose an 'archive messages'.. Most lists do NOT have a
> reply-to, i'm sorry to say.. for those of you who think it does.
> None of the Security focus lists, linux kernel lists, most LUG
> lists.. In fact, Out of the 80+ lists Im on, I count
> 15 that have reply-to's..

On what basis, other then the lists you are on, do you make such a sweeping
statement.
One of the largest suppliers, possibly the largest, for discussion lists
(www.lsoft.com) with more than 250.000 lists and more than 250.000.000
subscribers, gives the option for both and the default is Reply-to(-the
list).

+++++++++++++CC'd from Listserv++++++++++++
Public discussion lists have always been the "classic" type of LISTSERV
mailing list.  Such lists are available to discuss just about everything
imaginable. In the last few years it has become desirable to secure mailing
lists against random spamming and mail bombing, but no discussion of
different types of lists would really be complete without talking about this
kind of list.

Typically, a public discussion list is wide-open (although some things, like
the ability to review the subscribership, may be restricted). Anyone can
subscribe (with a confirmation to verify the mailing path), anyone can post,
anyone can read the messages in the archives, and security is set fairly
low. Very large lists (hundreds or even thousands of users with hundreds of
postings every week) may likely be set up this way as it is a
"low-maintenance" way to run a list (and most spams tend to be caught by
LISTSERV's anti-spamming filters anyway). For instance you might have

* My public discussion list (MYLIST-L)
* Subscription= Open,Confirm
* ......
* Reply-to= List,Respect
* Review= Owners        Send= Public      Errors-To= Owner
* .....

and if you want to cut down on the amount of "me-too"ism on the list, you
could set

* Reply-to= Sender,Respect

to force the default Reply-To: header to point back to the original poster
instead of to the list. Note that the ",Respect" option means that if a user
sends mail to the list that contains a "Reply-To:" header pointing back to
the list (unlikely that this may be), LISTSERV will "respect" that header
and use it. If you absolutely do not want this to be possible, you should
code

* Reply-to= Sender,Ignore

instead.

There is one major caveat with regard to the use of the Reply-To= list
header keyword. You should note carefully that not all subscriber-side mail
clients either recognize or properly handle an RFC822 "Reply-To:" header.
This may result in users posting replies to your list even though LISTSERV
put the correct Reply-To: header on the mail. There is absolutely nothing
that L-Soft can do to correct this problem since it exists on the
subscriber's end in non-compliant mail software that L-Soft does not and
cannot support.
++++++ End of the CC'd text from Listserv+++++++++

> It's not time for the mailing lists to change, it's time for
> people to learn how it's done, and how it's always been done.

Here I disagree strongly: It certainly has NOT ALWAYS been done!

With fr. gr. Eppo R. Kooi.
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