[UPHPU] Mailing list reply-to address

[Lamont Peterson]

On Wednesday 13 June 2007 11:00am, Jennifer Charrey wrote:
> Could we please set the reply-to address of UPHPU emails to the group
> instead of the sender? I know it's possible in mailman, and it's the
> expected behavior for a mailing list...

I don't mind letting everyone know which way I stand on this by saying:

Please, no.

Yes, it's possible to do with mailman but I don't agree that "it's the 
expected behavior for a mailing list."  Not necessarily, anyway.  Personally, 
I've found that lists which do munge the headers are more difficult to work 
with and that the vast majority of lists don't munge them (I've been 
subscribed to as many as over 100 disparate lists on dozens of topics at once 
before).  I think it's more of an issue with habits that form due to the 
email clients people are using and get used to.

Nearly all (descent?) email clients (or MUAs, if you prefer that term) have a 
reply-to and a reply-to-all feature.  Other have discussed how these can be 
used to ease the "burden" of replying to t he list.  My email client has both 
of those plus a reply-to-author and a reply-to-list feature.  For example, I 
pressed 'l' and this window that I am currently typing in came up with the 
To: set for the list.  If I wanted to reply to just Jennifer, I would click 
the reply button or press 'r' (or for reply-to-author, I could 
press 'shift+a'.  I'm using Kontact/KMail.  I wish more email clients would 
implement a reply-to-list feature.  I almost never send replies to the wrong 
place now, and if I hit 'l' on a message in a folder that doesn't hold a 
mailing list, I get a window with the quoted text to reply to and nothing in 
the "To:" field, which *requires* me to fix things instead of the client 
making an assumption that might not match what I really meant to do.

Wouldn't it be great if there was just one command called, "Do what I want you 
to do"?  Unfortunately, computer technology hasn't evolved that far (yet?).

Another poster suggested that munging was a good idea because in his thinking 
the message came from the list and that's who the replies should go to.  I 
disagree with the premise; the messages do not come from the list.  List 
members send messages to the list because they want the list members to 
receive them.  When I receive a list message, I see that it came from the 
author of the message, not the list.  The list doesn't write anything.  It's 
just a convenience mechanism so that I don't have to keep track of who to 
send the message(s) to.

The mailing list manager software also adds (or should, not all do) headers 
like "List-Id:" so that I can sort the received messages easily and reliably 
(sorting on subject lines isn't that reliable).  Some MLMs also include a 
header to tell your client where to send replies for the list.  Perhaps if 
more clients would utilize that info, this conversation would never have 
happened?  Who knows.

I don't want to see any headers being changed that are coming through the MLM.  
I've seen that on other lists and it was extremely annoying to craft a 
response to just the author and keep it off-list as the original authors 
email address was no longer in the message at all (which I believe was due to 
a little over zealous munging, beyond what we're talking about here, but 
that's another side of the coin.

Personally, I don't like it when someone replies to all and keeps me and this 
list in the email as I never get a copy from the MLM, due to the default 
setting.  I'd forgotten that there was a per-user setting for that, which 
I'll have to change.  When this happens, the copy sent directly to me arrives 
first but it doesn't have list headers or anything, so it doesn't get sorted.  
That would be fine, if I also got a copy from the list (which is what I'm 
going to do from now on), but that also means each such message comes twice.  
That's also why you don't see me including an author in my replies 
(typically, I slip once in a while, too).

Anyway, I found it fun to read all the replies and commentary on various 
features and points of view.  There were several times that I wanted to 
press 'l' and add my 2 cents worth here and there, but I decided to save all 
of you the trouble of reading these thoughts scattered about :) .

Oh, and top-posting is just plain rude.  lol.  I always liked this quotation:

A:  Because we read from left to right, top to bottom.
Q:  Why is top-posting considered bad netiquette?

Personally, I find it easier to read things in-line, especially when a thread 
gets long as a conversation develops and sprouts tentacles and tangents.
-- 
Lamont Peterson <peregrine at OpenBrainstem.net>
Founder [ http://blog.OpenBrainstem.net/peregrine/ ]
GPG Key fingerprint: 0E35 93C5 4249 49F0 EC7B  4DDD BE46 4732 6460 CCB5
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