but fetchmail doesn't seem to have Reply-To set.
And with good reason [1].
[1] http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html
Yes, I've read that, and I'm not convinced. Using pine I find replying to
lists with Reply-To set to be much smoother; his arguments seem rather
mailer specific.
His stated arguments are:
1. It violates the principle of minimal munging.
2. It provides no benefit to the user of a reasonable mailer.
3. It limits a subscriber's freedom to choose how he or she will direct a
response.
4. It actually reduces functionality for the user of a reasonable mailer.
5. It removes important information, which can make it impossible to get
back to the message sender.
6. It penalizes the person with a reasonable mailer in order to coddle
those running brain-dead software.
7. It violates the principle of least work because complicates the
procedure for replying to messages.
8. It violates the principle of least surprise because it changes the way
a mailer works.
9. It violates the principle of least damage, and it encourages a failure
mode that can be extremely embarrassing -- or worse.
10. Your subscribers don't want you to do it. Or, at least the ones who
have bothered to read the docs for their mailer don't want you to do it.
All of arguments 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 10 seem to boil down to "it doesn't
work smoothly with my mailer".
Argument 1 only has force if Reply-To achieves nothing useful.
Argument 9 seems to be the clincher for Chip Rosenthal: he's saying "I
boo-boo'ed using Reply-To, so it's bad".
The only argument I find at all persuasive is number 5, namely if the user
wants replies to go to an e-mail different from his From address. I guess
this depends on the list, but my impression is that virtually everybody
using support lists like this prefer replies to stay on list, and this is
a vital function provided by Reply-To.
Of course, a contrary argument is that I'm creating noise by making this
argument on list. If anyone objects, tell me, and I'll shut up! I'm only
arguing here because I think this is actually quite an interesting point.