On Mon, Dec 03, 2007 at 07:23:43PM -0800, James G. Sack (jim) wrote:
I'm trying to recommend this mailman setting for another list I'm on.
..but a question comes up: Mailman's docs contain some words to the effect:
Where are replies to list messages directed?
Poster is strongly recommended for most mailing
lists.
I believe we use mailman and all "our" lists have the reply-to option
set to "this list" -- is this not so?
I thought the "this list" option made eminent sense, so why would they
use the _strongly recommended_ language?
Are there any downsides to this header setting?
Some have mentioned that it violates RFC-822, which is not quite true. It
voilates RFC-2822, the new document describing mail messages.
<http://woozle.org/~neale/papers/reply-to-still-harmful>
is a good summary. The main disadvantage to setting Reply-To is that it
overwrites whatever the original poster might have used this field for. If
they don't use it, a modern client, such as mutt, will still allow a reply
to go to either. Many clients don't give a choice, and the only way to
reply to the possible sender is to cut and paste the address.
You'll usually find a lot of strong opinions about it, usually boiling down
to people either wanting to make the choice themselves, or not having to
think about it.
If you set a mailing list to munge Reply-To, you pretty much give up any
complaint you might have about people posting to the list. A reply may be
off topic, and really should have just been sent to the original poster,
but the list didn't give them that choice.
Dave
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