Re: mail-followup-to / mail-copies-to

Hi Adam,

(NB: I still have to finish reading through all the previous thread 
Bruce pointed me at).

On Thu, 26 May 2005, Adam M. Costello wrote:

> There are several things that would be useful to be able to express.

Note that I'm not particularly interested in generally changing how 
respondents reply to mails, and what cues they might have as to where 
to direct replies. It seems that discussion might be long and already 
well trodden.

I'm interested in solving the problem of a new reply context, "list 
reply", which many MUAs offer now, for which context there is no good 
way for originators to indicate a preference of "copy me directly on 
replies".

AFAICT, all MUAs implementing such reply contexts default to "email 
the list", where the list mailbox is either statically configured or 
else deduced from the post-822 List-* headers. All these MUAs 
(afaict), ignore reply-to in this context, some will allow themselves 
by influenced by a non-standard Mail-Followup-To header.

That's the problem statement I'm concerned with, no more :).

> Here are the ones that spring to my mind right now:
>
>  * What sorts of replies are allowed/encouraged:
>    - Prefer private reply.
>    - Prefer public reply.
>    - Public reply is the only option (From address is bogus).
>    - No preference.
>
>    (Mailing lists may want to supply a preference if the author did
>    not supply one, but they generally should not clobber the author's
>    preference if one was supplied.)

I think this debate is fraught with difficulties if one wishes to 
achieve consensus.

Note that Reply-To /sort of/ works ok for public reply, if one 
ignores the "list context reply" of some MUAs. Though, it's a very 
dangerous thing to set in an email to a list.

(presuming it's a sane list which does not munge Reply-To: to go to 
list).

>  * Where private replies should go:
>    - The From address vs. some other address(es).

>  * Where public replies should go:
>    - To the To/Cc addresses, or to some other addresses?  (For example,
>      replies to an announcement list might be directed to a discussion
>      list.)
>    - Should the private-reply address be excluded to avoid duplication
>      (because the public-reply addresses already cover it), or included
>      (because the public-reply addresses don't already cover it)?
>
> For a moment I thought about the ability to indicate that some of the
> To/Cc addresses should be excluded from public replies, but in that
> case, what are those addresses doing in the To/Cc field in the first
> place?
>
> What have I missed?

Not much, AFAICT. But this definitely has been covered previously in 
detail, without consensus AFAICT.

What I really want is a List-Copies-To type header...

 	List-Copies-To: [email protected]

Which MTAs should retain in replies. Which would clearly indicate my 
preference to be copied on list replies. That would allow my problem 
with how "list reply" context works in several recent MTA 
implementations to be solved.

(I guess you could call it "Mail-Copies-To" - but I dont know what 
problems that header had, and a "List-Copies-To" header seems 
specific enough in its scope that it shouldn't trod on any of the 
difficult questions around Reply-To / MFT which seem impossible to 
achieve consensus on..)

> I'm confused by the Mail-Followup-To field in your message.  It 
> contains only your address, not the list address.  Doesn't that 
> mean that a "reply all" would go to you and nowhere else?  Surely 
> that's not what you intended?

> http://cr.yp.to/proto/replyto.html

Well, I have a vague notion that the old DRUMS I-D on MFT specified 
an inclusive behaviour on Reply-All, such that both MFT and To/Cc 
would be used to reply to. But I cant find a copy of the I-D anymore.

The DJB specification, the only one which google can guide one to 
with any easy, indeed would require me to include all relevant reply 
addresses in the MFT.

However, mutt seems to reply to MFT and list on list-reply, so it's 
good enough for me. I'd rather not to have set this vaguely defined 
and interpreted header though.

> I think you want both the list address and your address in
> Mail-Followup-To.

I don't want MFT at all. I just want people to include me in 
list-replies. ;)

> AMC

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	[email protected]	[email protected]	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
Enjoy your life; be pleasant and gay, like the birds in May.