Reply-to header, yet again (was Re: q for the C hackers)

Derek Martin invalid at pizzashack.org
Tue Aug 19 10:38:30 EDT 2003


On Tue, Aug 19, 2003 at 02:50:01AM -0400, Aaron Hope wrote:
> BTW, Is there a reason why mailman isn't configured to set the 
> reply-to header?

Yes.  We've had this holy war before, and the (small) majority of list
members were against reply-to.  The logical argument:

Setting the reply-to header changes the behavior of your mailer, such
that it no longer does what it is intended to do when you use the
reply function: reply to the sender.  Setting the reply-to header
makes it impossible for well-behaved mailers to send a private reply
to the sender without manually editing the headers.  Leaving it out
makes it possible for well-behaved mailers to use a "list-reply"
function to respond to the list, when that is what we want to do, or
failing that to use the "group-reply" function, which virtually all
mailers have had for centuries now.  Setting reply-to also makes it
impossible to respond to posters who have themselves set the reply-to
header because they NEED it.  

That's the essence of it, but if you haven't heard enough, there's
this:

  http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html

People familiar with the argument also know about this:

  http://www.metasystema.org/essays/reply-to-useful.mhtml

In the end, it can be shown that munging reply-to causes some users
genuine damage (such as in the case of the guy who needs to set
reply-to in order to receive mail), whereas not munging it merely
reduces convenience for some people who have sh!tty mailers.
The rest of the world shouldn't be punished for your poor choice of
software...

-- 
Derek D. Martin
http://www.pizzashack.org/
GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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