list issues & status

[Peter Corlett]

On Wed, Nov 05, 2014 at 09:49:50AM -0800, Al Kossow wrote:
> On 11/5/14 8:40 AM, Peter Corlett wrote:
>> I suspect if I subscribed you to some of my mailing lists without any means
>> of unsubscription, you'd be likewise somewhat miffed.
> As long as people are working on the list, can we fix it so that 'reply' and
> 'reply list' go to different places?

SMTP/RFC822 don't have such concepts, so that's a MUA-specific extension that
lists cannot rely upon unless it's a closed list with known MUAs such as on a
homogenous corporate network.

The main tunable is whether list software sets Reply-To: the list or leaves it
alone.  In the former case, replies will normally be directed to the list and
it is more faff in many MUAs than it really ought to be to mail just the sender
causing occasional embarassment when something really should be off-list.
However, leaving it alone means that replies tend to go to the sender and not
always to the list as intended.  Neither option is entirely satisfatory, but
I'm more a fan of the former on the basis that discussions should stay on-list
unless there's a good reason to take them off-list, although obviously the best
policy depends on the specific list.

> As a reminder to everyone, there is no way currently to just reply to the
> original poster, and Mr Corlett may be unaware that EVERYONE saw his reply.

I had actually intended to post to the list, since I had been obliquely
referred to on-list and was replying to that.  More importantly, I was
describing a problem that was likely to have a solution that other list members
would be interested in.  (Hence my preference for on-list so that answers help
everybody and not just the one person who asked.)