[mythtv-users] Re: OT: Reply-To munging / mailing list configuration

[Isaac Richards]

On Friday 18 March 2005 10:53 pm, Justin Gombos wrote:
> * Brad Templeton <brad+myth at templetons.com> [2005-03-18 22:14]:
> > My own taste is that high-traffic lists should normally send replies
> > just to the author being replied to, you should have to explicitly
> > do a group reply to get the message to the whole group!
>
> I can see where you're coming from and why there would be a temptation
> to encourage off-list traffic, but I think when it comes down to it
> the will of the sender is not going to be influenced by convenience.
>
> Reply-To munging exists not to encourage list traffic, but because so
> many folks have lame MUAs (like Outlook) that don't have a "list
> reply" function, and don't know what the Mail-Followup-To field is
> used for.  So munging the Reply-To field deliberately malforms a
> message in the interest of supporting these crude primitive MUAs used
> by the masses, to save those users from the effort of having to do a
> group reply then erase the personal address.

This is a _public user support_ list.  Repeat after me: use-er sup-port.  Very 
good! =)

Because of the nature of these lists, all replies, with very few exceptions, 
should go to the list.  That way, people can do neat things like finding 
solutions to problems by checking the archives.  People taking things private 
should be the exception, not the rule, and I think it should be a conscious 
decision for someone to do so.

Incidentally, my email client (kmail) has 4 different reply-to actions, one of 
which happens to be a 'Reply to Author' function, if I'm ever crazy enough to 
want to do that.

Isaac