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

On Fri May 27 2005 18:34, Paul Jakma wrote:

> There seems to be broad consensus among MUA designers on the first 
> two of these contexts (personal and public), and a slow consensus 
> evolving on providing a "list reply" context for users.
> 
> There is clearly a /perceived/ need for such a context, at least.
> 
> >> The fact that already several MUAs (popular ones at that,
> >> thunderbird, apple mail, and mutt) /do/ do see fit to provide a "list
> >> context"
> >
> > I see nothing resembling that in Thunderbird.
> 
> Hmm, I must be confused then. Sorry. (It appears to be an extension). 
> Kmail and Evolution MUAs definitely have it.

Kmail and Evolution provide options for directing responses "To List",
in addition to other places (e.g. "To Sender", "To Author"), not a
"context".

> Why does it provide this quirk?

I don't know -- maybe quirky developers (ones who like medium gray
text on a dark gray background).

> >> Hence, Reply-To can /not/ be used.
> >
> > You're going to have to justify that claim.
> 
> Because the most likely reason for it being set are:
> 
> - The author's preferred 'receive' mailbox is not their From
>    (ie to indicate preference for their personal mailbox)

Makes no sense -- for replies "to author" the From field mailbox can
(and should) be set accordingly.
 
> - The author set it to direct replies to the list
> 
> The latter case is, ime, rare.

Umm, look at this message for example (and note past messages as well).
That specific case (along with a couple of others) is specifically
mentioned in RFC 724, which has been around for close to three decades,
and its successors. 
 
> > 2. Sometimes one list's expansion feeds another list, and one may
> >   then have multiple sets of List-fields; one cannot in general tell
> >   which list is included in another.  Sending to all directly will
> >   result in duplicates in the included list.  Picking only the included
> >   list (by guessing) won't copy the subscribers of the other list who
> >   are not also subscribed to the included list.
> 
> That seems a problem with the definition of List-Post, and would 
> affect any usage of List-Post, not just this proposed usage. Out of 
> scope for what I'm proposing.

No, it's a problem with your proposal; Reply-To: [email protected]
works fine to specify responses to the (including) list (possibly in
addition to other mailboxes).  That removes any ambiguity about which
list responses are supposed to be sent to.