** Ian Bell ian@redtommo.com [2003-05-31 22:12]:
I am asking for consistency amongst mail groups. I have not burning preference to hit reply rather than reply all. I just want to do the same thing whether I am replying to ALUG or any other mail group.
So always hit "followup" or "reply to all" rather than "reply", and remove any list members from the recipient fields. Easy.
At last a sensible suggestion and one i can actually do. OK it will be a bit awkward to start with but at least I'll be able to do the same thing irrespective of the lst. And after a while it will be second nature. Thanks for that Richard.
We-hey, go for it :-)
Thirdly what you're asking for would be impossible to do correctly even if it was a sensible thing to do - what should the list manager do if there is already a Reply-To field on a message sent to the list?
I do not know, but there are large numbers of mail lists that manage somehow.
I don't believe you. These lists will screw up whenever a poster uses a Reply-To field because there is no possible correct thing that they can do. If you disagree, just state what it is.
OK. I assume lists check the From: field for a valid email address i.e one that is subscribed to the list. So set From: to From. Set to: to recipient and Reply-to: to list and discard the senders Reply-to field.
Which destroys any information about an alternative address for personal replies - for example, I know of people who have an address subscribed to lists (sometimes an address for each list to aid filing), but would use the reply to field to set their main email address for any personal replies. Not as common now I believe, but not unheard of.
Anyway, and quick survey from the person who sparked this whole debate with an off hand remark (boy will I read what I write in future!)...
I did a quick survey of the lists I'm subscribed to and found that of those 30 (I think I need to trim that a bit!), 20 follow the same practice as the ALUG list, and 10 use the reply-to munging approach. Most of the latter can be accounted for from two server setups - the LowEndMac lists and the LUG lists (7 out of 10), and about a third (7 out of 20) of the former are accounted for off a single server setup - the Debian one. Apart from the 4 Mac lists they are all Linux related - I wonder if there is anything significant about the lack of Windows ones ;-)
** end quote [Ian Bell]