Re: Understanding response protocols

In <[email protected]> Bruce Lilly <[email protected]> writes:

>Author (or author's UA per author's configuration) sets Reply-To: good.
>List expander sets Reply-To: very bad.  RFC 2822 says "When the
>"Reply-To:" field is present, it indicates the mailbox(es) to which the
>author of the message suggests that replies be sent".  N.B. "author",
>not anybody or anything else.

Which is exactly why Reply-To is NOT the solution to this problem.

What is needed is some field that can be set by the Mailing-List expander
according to the default policy of the particular mailing list. Yes, there
need to be rules as to which takes priority when the poster and the
expander have different ideas as to what they want, and there need to be
rules as to how the ultimate recipient can override the lot of them if he
wants to. But those are just details.

The usual case (95% of the time) is that both posters and recipients will
be happy to accept what the standard list policy decides. They do NOT want
to have to make different choices when posting on account of different
vagaries of different lists. They do NOT want to be faced with loads of
choices when replying. All they want (both of them) is to press one button
and have the "Right Thing" happen.

And the present situation is that there is NO WAY that those 95% of people
can do that.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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