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

On Fri, 27 May 2005, Bruce Lilly wrote:

> On Fri May 27 2005 21:49, Paul Jakma wrote:
>
>> It absolutely is not fine to set Reply-To == list mailbox because of
>> the *definite* risk of MUAs sending 'private' mails to the Reply-To.

> You are confused. Reply-To has semantics of "suggestion for responses",
> not "private".

Well, rather several MUAs are confused on this point. (Mine isn't - 
it asks me whether I want to follow the 'suggestion' of a Reply-To).

> RFCs 724, 733, and 822 had some confusing statements.  RFC 2822 is 
> much more clear, and was approved with community review and 
> consensus more than four years ago.  So this has already happened.

Hmm, 2822 is clearer yes.

It's not clear enough though. Eg, lets just quote from the example 
2822 gives:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mary Smith <[email protected]>
To: John Doe <[email protected]>
Reply-To: "Mary Smith: Personal Account" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Saying Hello
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 10:01:10 -0600
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>

This is a reply to your hello.
----

    Note the "Reply-To:" field in the above message.  When John 
replies
    to Mary's message above, the reply should go to the address in the
    "Reply-To:" field instead of the address in the "From:" field.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Clearly this example shows how 'Reply-To' can be used to suggest that 
author prefers replies to go to their [email protected] mailbox 
rather than their [email protected] mailbox.

Where things go wrong is when MUAs try to respond to the following:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mary Smith <[email protected]>
To: John Doe <[email protected]>
Cc: Example list <[email protected]>
Reply-To: "Mary Smith: Personal Account" <[email protected]>,
 	Example list <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Saying Hello
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 10:01:10 -0600
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>

This is a mail to you and the list
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Lots of MUAs will reply to both [email protected] and 
[email protected] for 'reply'.

We can try deny the existence of this problem, but then I suspect 
we'll just have:

- the same dead-locked discussion on this list every now and again
   about the problem

Which will lead to:

- More and more ad-hoc solutions to the problem[1], because of
   dead-lock in trying to have either the cause of the problem
   clarified, or any new solution accepted at an IETF level (ie this
   list :) ).

IIRC a suggestion was floated in that last discussion you pointed me 
at, from circa august last year, that the From field should always be 
set to the author's preferred mailbox for replies to the author. Such 
a suggestion would allow Reply-To to be useful and (eventually, after 
a long amount of time no doubt) allow me to use it.

Would it be an idea to act on this suggestion?

1. Specifically, more implementations supporting MFT.

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	[email protected]	[email protected]	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
Sho' they got to have it against the law.  Shoot, ever'body git high,
they wouldn't be nobody git up and feed the chickens.  Hee-hee.
 		-- Terry Southern