Re: Understanding response protocols

In <[email protected]> Keith Moore <[email protected]> writes:

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

>You are correct that Reply-To is not the solution to this problem,  
>but the fact that Reply-To is better reserved for use by authors is  
>NOT "exactly why" Reply-To is not the solution to the problem.  The  
>reason that Reply-To is not the solution to the problem is that the  
>decision about where a reply goes needs to be made by the person  
>composing the reply, and NO set of header fields, no matter how you  
>define them, can make this decision for that person.

But nobody has ever suggested that the person composing the reply should
not have the final say.

But if you want to provide hoops and popups to ask the user

   "The original sender wants you to send your reply to X, but you should
   should be aware that you have a God given right to to send it somewhere
   else, and you are advised to consider your options carefully before
   just hitting 'send'."

then the 95% of people who are happy to just hit 'send' will be mightily
pissed off.

Currently, we have the Reply-To header, and the usual behaviour of MUAs is
to reply to that address when you hit 'send'.

All that is suggested is that there should be some further header(s) with
the same property, namely MUAs will reply to that address when you hit
'reply-to-list'.

Both Reply-To and MFT/whatever are headers provided by the original sender
and/or the mailing list manager with the intent of influencing where
replies should be sent. The first is existing practice and the second is a
proposed future practice.

But in both cases, it is reasonable to suppose that 95% of repliers will
just hit the proper key and accept the default behaviour.

If you are complaining that you do not like such behaviour for MFT, then
logically wou must admit that you do not like it for Reply-To either. In
that case, your quarrel is with implementors of existing MUAs, and if you
want to start a campaign to have chem change their user interfaces, then
go ahead.

But no way is your argument a valid objection to having another header, in
addition to Reply-To, whose behaviour is broadly similar to Reply-To.

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