In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 03:10:23PM +0800, Matt Morgan wrote: > Surely many off-list replies are sent purely because this odd system > of not being able to reply to the list solely by just hitting reply.
Probably true. (But, in the case of the original message that seems to have sparked this current debate, the message was sent off-list intentionally.) > This doesn't happen in any other list/forum I subscribe to and I find > it a pain, what's the reason? I'm not sure why the list is run the way it is, but for some reason I get the impression that CommuniGate Pro has a number of quirks in its default configuration. Unfortunately, regardless of WAMUG's decisions, the e-mail reply process suffers from a remarkable lack of Internet standardisation. As far as I know, the only ratified method of altering the reply is to use a 'Reply-To' designation. But to use this to direct replies back to a group list is officially incorrect. One alternative is the 'Mail-Followup-To' designation, but because it is an unratified convention it is not universally supported. The best option is probably for mail clients to provide a 'Reply to List' button. However, this itself requires standardisation (otherwise, how can any mail client automatically know the address of the list?). This is probably covered in a document known as RFC 2369, but I am not sure if Apple Mail supports this RFC. Also, the WAMUG list software does not currently insert a full set of RFC 2369 designations.
