Ray Rashif wrote: > Hi > > I'm new to the ML and I can't help but wonder - why isn't there a > reply-to header set by the list admin? Most of the other lists have > this, and honestly it's nothing bad. In fact, it makes things easier > when you can just click on "reply" (or use a reply operator on a CLI > client) and expect the mail to be delivered to the list instead of the > sender (in case one forgets to include a Cc). How do you handle this > as it is currently?
The LUGS mailing list currently requires you to hit "Reply to all" on mails intended for the list. For those interested in a rationale - there are two broad schools of thought on Mailing List reply semantics - whether the list should set the "Reply-to" header or not. The historical list netiquette (the policy used on slugnet), gnu mailman default and recommended method (1) is to not set the Reply-To header. Posters should click "Reply to All" to keep other posters on the thread in the discussion as they may not be subscribers - or subscribers may have procmail or sieve rules to handle mail To'd or Cc'd to them differently (e.g. I have threads that I'm involved in the To or Cc headers filed into a different folder to the general list traffic). This approach makes it easier to reply back to the poster if you so wish (without copying and pasting their address). Lists with this reply policy include the linux-kernel mailing list, all of the debian lists, and most other long standing open source projects... The alternative netiquette is for the list to set the Reply-To header so that replies always go to the list. This is supposed to make sure that discussion is kept on list (and also makes sure posts from newbies who forget to hit "Reply-to-All" make it to the list). Many find this policy quite restricting as whether you click "Reply" or "Reply-to-All", you can't get it to reply to the original poster (2) - only the list - so you need to copy and paste the email address if you wish to post only to the sender. This policy is used by lists that have a lot of subscribers who are not aware of the historical practices of Internet mailing lists and are unaware of the rational behind doing it the right way™ (mentioned above) :) If you can garner support for changing the policy for slugnet, then we could take a vote (3) amongst the list members - in the mean time just remember to click "Reply to all" when replying to list posts - the method we have currently gives list posters a choice of where they want their mail to go rather than forcing them into one way of doing it. Let the debating begin :) It's all in good humour ;) ~mc [1] Gnu mailman option for where are replies to list messages are directed says 'Poster' is *strongly//* recommended for most mailing lists. [2] Mozilla Thunderbird for example is unable to override Reply-to set by the list and if the poster *chooses* to post only to the sender, then he has to resort to cumbersome copy and paste operations. [3] Please reply to me off-list and I'll tally and post the results - BTW if we had Reply-To set we couldn't easily do this, we would be sending many hundreds of mails out with just yes/no spamming everyone on the list. _______________________________________________ Slugnet mailing list [email protected] http://www.lugs.org.sg/mailman/listinfo/slugnet
