Davis, Iain E. said: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Nancy Thuleen [mailto:nthuleen at students.wisc.edu] >> Sent: Friday, November 29, 2002 9:22 AM >> To: dragaera at dragaera.info >> Subject: Re: Straw Poll about "Reply-to" (was: Damiano's Lute) > >> Definitely not. This is what puzzles me: I'm on 5 or 6 lists >> like this one (discussion-based lists), and with only one >> exception, they all have the reply-to set to the individual >> poster, just like this list -- correctly, in other words. :) > > Interesting. I'm on ...well, more lists than I can accurrately count > (at least 10, maybe as many as 20), and I'm pretty certain this is the > only one that is configured this way, which is why it is so problematic > for me. :) > > Hmm. Perhaps I should survey my lists, just to see for sure.) > > Not includinig dragaera.info lists: 18 lists, which as it turns out > there are a mere 2 others that operate in the same fashion as the /this/ > dragaera list (note, I've not counted any of the "announce-only" > lists...no one replies to those, anyway, nor did I count lists which I'm > on, but are effectively dead -- no activity in months.). In my experience, the more technically adept the members of a list are, the more likely they are to do things *this* way, that is, NOT to munge the reply-to headers. Yes, some lists of geeks munge headers. Many do not. Sourceforge.net hosts THOUSANDS of mailing lists- their policy is not to munge. To those who say that sending replies to sender instead of munging wastes bandwidth: We're supposed to be intelligent, learning beings. We've got opposable thumbs, and can have flame-free discussions on religion. Remembering something THIS BASIC is NOT HARD, folks. Think of it this way... the mailing list isn't a person, it's a way to facilitate mail delivery within a topic. As with personal email, when you hit reply, your email will be sent to the *person* who sent the email you're replying to, not the delivery system. (Yes, it's more complex than that, and no, I'm not going to go into the workings of SMTP and the like. Close enough.) It's really not hard to remember gang, and DDB's right. If you accidentally reply to sender instead of the list, it's ONE email inconveniening two people, the sender and the recipient. The sender has to resend to list, and the recipient will get an extra copy of the message. Other way around: You slip for a message meant for DDB alone, and inconvenience the whole list, wasting a lot more bandwidth, and possibly embarrassing yourself or DDB or both with the contents of your hero worship mail. Go one step further. Some putz puts a "vacation" autoresponder on their email address, responding to EVERY message they get for the week they're not checking their mail. Every message goes to the list, and causes a mail loop. Bad Juju. (Yes, many smart mailing list packages have patches to avoid this... but just as not all email clients aren't smart enough to handle "reply to list," so are not all mailing lists able to handle loops. If we're catering to mediocrity, we'd best do so on both sides.) If your memory is REALLY that bad, put a post-it note on your monitor frame. -Rick