[MacPerl] Re: [MacPerl-Forum] Mailing list idea

[John W Baxter <jwblist@olympus.net>]

At 14:04 -0700 4/15/99, Vicki Brown wrote:
>> Would it be possible to add a reply-to header to the headers for the
>> macperl lists?  When I hit reply, it brings up the author's name, not
>> the list address. This means I have to go back to the message, determine
>> which list it is from and type in the address.
>
>It's configurable.  Whether a reply goes to the list or the sender seems to
>be a matter of much heated debate, depending on the list :-) On the
>majordomo-users list recently, one listmaster admitted that he loathed and
>despised the mere thought of replies going to the list by default; but 3 of
>his lists had recently voted to be configured that way.

There are sound reasons for not setting up the Reply-To header to point to
the list.

1.  If a list member uses a Reply-To: to get mail to where s/he wants it,
that information is overwritten and lost.

2.  There are faulty mail transfer agents out there which will send error
replies to the reply to instead of the address they should use.  Those can
easily lead to loops in which list members get several hundred bogus
messages before the list is shut down or the account causing the problem is
located and unzubscribed.

3.  It's usually more of a problem to broadcast a reply which should have
been private than to send a reply privately which should have been
broadcast.

   ---------
I've been on both sorts of list (reply to sender; reply to list).

Neither is "right" as far as I'm concerned...I have to redo headers after
hitting reply about as often either way.  (I was saved from broadcasting
confidential stuff to one of the reply-to-list lists several years ago by a
message size limit:  it was *lots* of confidential material...not so
confidential as to need encryption.)

Majordomo 2 will probably provide some facilities to improve the situation.

   --John


--
John Baxter   jwblist@olympus.net      Port Ludlow, WA, USA
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach him to fish,
and you get rid of him for the weekend.

==== Want to unsubscribe from this list?
==== Send mail with body "unsubscribe" to macperl-forum-request@macperl.org