[erlang-questions] mailing list "reply to"

Jesse Gumm sigmastar@REDACTED
Sat Dec 4 05:48:42 CET 2010


Oh totally. I understand the reasoning behind the behavior and I
wouldn't expect anyone to change the behavior of things - that would
lead to some disasters. To be honest, I never even thought about it
before this post, as I've got my gmail configured to reply-all by
default.  It's more just something that did strike me as odd, but I'm
no veteran to mailing lists, and was not aware there even was a
mailing list standard.

If I were coming to mailing lists the first time, I would expect them
to munge the reply-to header, but as it is, I'm not surprised or
hampered by the fact that they don't.

-Jesse

On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 10:21 PM, YC <yinso.chen@REDACTED> wrote:
> Hi Jesse -
> On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 7:13 PM, Jesse Gumm <sigmastar@REDACTED> wrote:
>>
>> For me, it makes more sense to mangle the reply-to header since 99% of
>> the time, I'm replying to the mailing list rather than do the
>> individual.  It makes more sense to me to make the default behavior be
>> the most common behavior.  I view a mailing list as just another way
>> of implementing an online forum, and in that regard, the default
>> action is to reply to the thread, rather than via PM.
>
> Maybe it is easier to picture this way - what if some of the forums you
> frequent all the sudden change their default behavior to pm'ing instead of
> replying to forum?  Will that perhaps catch you by surprise?
> That's the same with mailing lists not obeying internet standards - they
> surprise the heck out of people when all the sudden reply no longer just
> goes to the sender, unfortunately just when they need to private message.
>  You might think mailing list is the same as forums, but mail clients *are
> not* forums.  Reply means replying to sender, and mailing list munging
> reply-to are breaking the expected behavior of mail clients.
> Hopefully you won't ever inadvertently send a private reply to public when
> your 1% need arise, but if you ever do, you will appreciate why mailing
> lists should interoperate with the standards instead of breaking them.
> My last 2 cents on this off-topic thread.  Cheers,
> yc
>
>



-- 
Jesse Gumm
Sigma Star Systems
414.940.4866
gumm@REDACTED
http://www.sigma-star.com


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