List header cancer (was: Lawsuits, Red Hat, yummy....)

[Jerry Feldman]

On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:54:41 -0400
Bill McGonigle <bill at bfccomputing.com> wrote:

> 
> On Oct 18, 2007, at 14:20, Chris wrote:
> 
> > What is actually wrong with having the Reply To: as the list, after
> > all, that is where the message came from.
> 
> Messages are delivered by the list, but they come from a person.  So,  
> people expect replies to go to the person.  This expectation can lead  
> to really embarrassing situations when people expect to send a  
> private reply.

I've been running listservs for over 15 years and we've had many
discussions on whether to set the reply-to to the list or to the
message poster. In most cases, it is considered a better practice not
to set the reply-to to the list. One reason is that you don't want
private replies to go back to the list. If the intent is to reply to
the list, then change the address. I have my email client set up that
if I reply from a listserv folder, such as gnhlug, it will insert
gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org into the to: header. 

-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9
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