[lug] Re: More on Reply-To

[Tom Tromey]

>>>>> "Wayde" == J Wayde Allen <wallen at lug.boulder.co.us> writes:

Wayde> On Tue, 11 Jun 2002, James C. McMaster (Jim) wrote:
>> Most of the lists to which I subscribe do not set Reply-to, and I
>> prefer it that way.

Wayde> We all have preferences.  I like chocalate ice cream perhaps
Wayde> you prefer vanilla?

If only it were as simple as just a preference.  But in fact the
failure mode of reply-to munging has potentially more damaging
consequences than the failure mode of not munging.  By contrast, your
choice of chocolate only impacts me very indirectly

One common pro-munging (or, more accurately, anti-non-munging)
argument I see is "you should check your reply addresses", the theory
being that this isn't a big deal.  Well, it is a big deal if you send
a lot of email and your error rate is very low.

I've managed to resign myself to the reality of munged lists.
Typically I post one embarrassing note to each such list, and then
greatly reduce the frequency of my responses -- an unintended
consequence of the list's own policy intended to generate more on-list
discussion.

My view is that munging is a technological attempt to enforce a
particular list-wide attitude.  But the attitude is a social
construct, resistant to technological tinkering.

And of course I dislike having my own UI hijacked administratively.


But back to positive steps:

Gnus has a nice tweak that can be used to mostly hack around this
problem.

More generally, I thought a later RFC introduced new headers precisely
to eliminate this entire problem.  Why don't we push technology
forward, and use that?

Tom