I do not really understand what you discuss about, and this in such an emotional manner. It started about "Reply to Mailing list", but now you even fight about the "Reply" and "Reply all" buttons. This is ridiculous, as it is well defined and leaves NO ROOM for interpretation.
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322#section-3.6.2
I repeat this in a short sentence each: Reply: You answer to "From" XOR "Reply-to", with Reply-to taking precedence. Reply all: Like reply, plus a copy to all (known) recipients of the original: To:, CC: (obviously not BCC:)
So the creator of this thread got it wrong. NO BUTTON replies to the To: field, if it is overridden by the Reply-to: This is the sole purpose of the Reply-to field.
If you answer to _this_ message, no matter how, I will receive my copy through the list, AND IN NO CASE directly! To do this, you had to add me to To: or CC: manually. This behaviour is WANTED by design of the RFC. ONLY IF I had put more addresses into the To or CC fields, you could make a difference with Reply or Reply all. Again this is WANTED by the RFC. To vary from this, would mean you create a mail client that violates RFC and works differently from ANY OTHER common sense program.
It also is common practice for mail list programs, to put their address into the "Reply-to" field. Since decades I used literally hundreds of mailing-lists, and they actually all work the same. So again, this is not in your hands, thus not worth to fight about.
Now let's have look at Reply-List. Because a "Reply to list" is NOT defined in a RFC, this is entirely up to the developers. They SHOULD just EXPLAIN what they really mean by it, so everybody KNOWS what happens beforehand. Everyone may make suggestions, this is an open world, though. And the developers will try to honour what they find feasible.
My 2 cents In all programs I know of - that even have this button, a modern fashion
- the Reply-List button honours the Reply-To field. Simple as that.
I do not see a difference to Reply, and I cannot even imagine what else it should do, so I would agree to those who say this button is simply dispensable... But again, this may be my ignorance. It is entirely up to the developers to define AND DOCUMENT its behaviour.
DOCUMENT your (mis-)feature properly, and everything is well. Close your ears to screaming and flaming.
BUT AGAIN: DO NOT FIGHT OVER REPLY AND REPLY TO ALL. It is well defined and done correctly by RC!
Cheers Hardy
On 16.01.2014 11:01, Hartmut Steffin wrote:
I do not really understand what you discuss about, and this in such an emotional manner. It started about "Reply to Mailing list", but now you even fight about the "Reply" and "Reply all" buttons. This is ridiculous, as it is well defined and leaves NO ROOM for interpretation.
[ snip ]
So the creator of this thread got it wrong. NO BUTTON replies to the To: field, if it is overridden by the Reply-to: This is the sole purpose of the Reply-to field.
I didn't get anything wrong. I know about Reply-To, obviously (since I'm well known for hating its misuse by mailing list) and I simply didn't say anything about it in the root posting of the thread, because the mailing list in question, which I was having trouble replying to, doesn't use it (and since I run the list, it never will do something so insipidly inane.
I used "Reply All" and it did not have the proper behavior expected of "Reply All". The Reply-To header is irrelevant since it is not present; it is not the cause of the breakage.
And now, quote from your above RFC citation (5322/3.6.2):
"When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it
indicates the address(es) to which the author of the message suggests
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
that replies be sent.
The mailing list robot is not "the author of the message" by any stretch of the imagination.
On 16.01.2014 21:22, Kaz Kylheku wrote:
I used "Reply All" and it did not have the proper behavior expected of "Reply All". The Reply-To header is irrelevant since it is not present; it is not the cause of the breakage.
Sorry, I obviously missed this part. I read so many stupid things in the other posts. No excuse, just telling.
Okay, I never had a mailing list that does NOT set the Reply-To header. But this would not really work at all! Where is the address of the list? Not the sender obviously (From), nor the Reply-To:? You are kidding. No mailprogram can really know where the list is!
So if this is right what you are telling, you talk about a kind of list that does not really work with any client I know of. And I would not even know how to program it. Will you tell us?
Tell us how we can address the mailing list, if its address is nowhere to be found. (A field name listed in the RFC! It MUST be either From, or Reply-to.)
Cheers Hardy
-- Brady's First Law of Problem Solving: When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?"
On 16.01.2014 13:01, Hartmut Steffin wrote:
On 16.01.2014 21:22, Kaz Kylheku wrote:
I used "Reply All" and it did not have the proper behavior expected of "Reply All". The Reply-To header is irrelevant since it is not present; it is not the cause of the breakage.
Sorry, I obviously missed this part. I read so many stupid things in the other posts. No excuse, just telling.
Okay, I never had a mailing list that does NOT set the Reply-To header.
GNU Mailman, fairly popular mailing list manager, defaults to turning this behavior off, and that default is documented as being recommended. This was mentioned elsewhere in the thread, too.
But this would not really work at all! Where is the address of the list?
The address of the list is one of the parties which is "in the loop" of the message. It gets Cc's when you do "Reply All", whether you do "Reply All" to a re-mailed message that you received from the list, or whether you do "Reply All" to a direct message from someone replying to your list posting via their "Reply All".
So if this is right what you are telling, you talk about a kind of list that does not really work with any client I know of.
It works with every client, all the way down to Mutt or what have you.
And I would not even know how to program it. Will you tell us?
No, because programming a mailing list manager is a large topic, obviously.
Tell us how we can address the mailing list, if its address is nowhere to be found. (A field name listed in the RFC! It MUST be either From, or Reply-to.)
In a fresh posting, the mailing list is in the "To:". Otherwise, the mailing list is in the "Cc:" header.
Example: you start a thread in foo-list@example.com by sending to that address. The robot mails it to Bob. Bob now has a message From: you, and the mailing list has put itself into the Cc: list. (That is the proper way by which a mailing list requests a copy of the reply, not Reply-To).
Bob hits "Reply All". Now his message is composed "To: you", and the "Cc: foo-list@example.com" is preserved thanks to Reply All. He sends the message.
You get the message directly. The mailing list manager also gets it, and notices that the To: person is a subscriber of the list. It wonders: should we send another copy to this person? It peers into your user settings and sees, no, you don't like to receive list copies of messages for which you're already a recipient. So it avoids sending you another copy. Or perhaps your preference is otherwise, so you do get the list copy.
Suppose you reply to the direct copy. You hit Reply All, and you're composing To: Bob. The mailing list is in the Cc: line.
Anyone who uses Reply does not get a Cc: line with the mailing list; which is exactly what is wanted: a private reply unseen by the mailing list subscribers or any other party that is "in the loop".
On 2014-01-16 5:12 PM, Kaz Kylheku kaz@kylheku.com wrote:
GNU Mailman, fairly popular mailing list manager, defaults to turning this behavior off, and that default is documented as being recommended.
and that recommendation is based on some silly corner cases, like 'mail lists where abused women are discussing things, and don't want their posts to be sent to the list be default'.
The bottom line is, the vast majority of posts to email DISCUSSION lists should, by default, go to the list - otherwise it defeats the purpose of a DISCUSSION list.
I totally understand and acknowledge that there are legitimate cases where the default reply-to should NOT be the list, but the simple real world fact is, in the vast majority of cases, that simply is not the case.
In a fresh posting, the mailing list is in the "To:". Otherwise, the mailing list is in the "Cc:" header
And this is only true for those who send to BOTH the list AND the sender
- which should only be done if thst is what the SENDER wants (and they
should explicitly say so by virtue of properly setting the Reply-To).
-
Charles Marcus -
Hartmut Steffin -
Kaz Kylheku