[tpop3d-discuss] Reply-To: munging

[Chris Lightfoot]

On Wed, Jun 06, 2001 at 09:18:34AM +0200, Marcin Sochacki wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 06, 2001 at 12:06:46AM +0100, Chris Lightfoot wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 05, 2001 at 11:28:08PM +0200, Marcin Sochacki wrote:
> > > Can we switch Mailman to automatically set Reply-To header?
> > > It's very uncomfortable to remember about changing the address every time
> > > I want to post something.
> > 
> > I'll think about it, but, since you seem to be using mutt,
> > why not just use `g' to group-reply?
> 
> `g' does not always work for me, and even though Mailman author says it's bad,
> most discussion lists set Reply-To.

Hmm. I can't see why `g' doesn't work. IWFM.

> The reasoning for not setting
> Reply-To header is rather unclear to me.

Well, the two articles usually quoted in this context
are--

    http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html
        reply-to munging considered harmful

and

    http://marc.merlins.org/~merlin/perso/reply-to-useful.html
        reply-to munging considered useful

The standard of argument in these two articles, especially
the second, is fairly laughable, as you might expect.
About the only decent points in them are:

    1. replacing a proper reply-to with the list's address
       may hide the author's intentions, making it
       impossible to reply to an individual author;

    2. not replacing the reply-to with the list's address
       may lead to a substantial waste of time and
       bandwidth as numerous addresses `snowball' into the
       recipients for each message;

    3. inserting the name of the list in the reply-to
       header violates the `principle of least surprise',
       because people do not expect replies to go to the
       list unless they have specifically asked for this
       to happen by typing `g' or answering `yes' to
       `reply to all recipients'. 

A fourth argument which some people find convincing is--

    4. RFC822 says that you should munge the reply-to
       headers for `text-message teleconferencing'.

This is just plain silly. The fact that the RFC says
something doesn't mean that it is gospel truth, and it
doesn't answer the point in (1) above.


In my opinion, whatever the strength of the other
arguments, (1) clinches it. So, on that basis, I don't
anticipate changing the list to munge reply-to headers.

-- 
Chris Lightfoot -- www.ex-parrot.com/~chris/
 ``You can't say that, because it's true.''
   (unnamed Russian censor, to Malcom Muggeridge, 1933)