[tpop3d-discuss] Re: OFFTOPIC: reply-to munging

[Paul Warren]

On Fri, Jun 29, 2001 at 12:04:19AM +0100, Chris Lightfoot wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 11:42:40PM +0200, Marcin Sochacki wrote:
> > I don't want to start another flame-war, but you must admit, that for
> > educational purposes it would be nice to make the whole discussion public
> > (also in the archives). Most users need to perform some magic for
> > a "proper" list reply. A munged reply-to is really not that harmful,
> > and also is quite intuitive for most users.
> 
> Hmmph. I must admit, this is a persuasive argument.
> 
> I had hoped that in a discussion about email software,
> we could expect everyone to be using non-broken mail
> clients.

Without wanting to cause offense, the problem here lies entirely with
the user.  If you cannot tell exactly who the email you are composing is
addressed to, then you are going to have problems communicating
seriously over email.  

I have been on a fair few mailing lists for quite a long time, and I
have never seen this particular problem on lists without reply-to
munging.  

I'm going round in circles, but suppose that the user really had wanted
to email Chris privately, that Chris had set his Reply-To: because
he was unable to set his From: address as he wished, and that this list
munged Reply-Tos - how would he achieve it?  It's not as far fetched as
it sounds.

Add to this the facts that:
 
 - I like the long To: / CC: lists as this allows my client to highlight
   messages that are a reply to me.
 - Reply-to munging leads to accidental, and occassionally embarrassing
   on-list replies.
 - You know I'm right :-)

and there seems to be little doubt as to what the correct solution is...
;-)

Paul