At 04:33 PM 10/8/98 +0100, Paul Overell wrote:
Yes, you can point Reply-To: at a bogus address, or a /dev/null, but
I can't think of any way to specifically flag a message as "FYI only,
no reply desired". Am I just caffeine-defficient today, or is there
in fact no such beast?
"No reply desired" is essentially an annotation, or comment, to the
recipient. That is, it does not mean "prohibited". It is guidance.
That said, it doesn't hurt to help the originator communicate this to the
recipient's software, so that software can help the recipient understand
the originator's intent.
The suggestion to use the RFC822 "group" construct in the Reply-To field,
as noted, is an attempt to stay legal with 822. The other benefit of using
that construct is that it permits adding text, as the group name, which
explains the intent.
I think a more "natural" way to achieve this is with a null mailbox, along
the line of:
Reply-to: No reply needed <>
but that 822 mandates doesn't permit this.
Might be worth changing the rules.
An entirely different approach is to note that CC: recipients are typically
not intended to send replies, whereas To: recipients typically are. Hence,
using a fake To address and having the real recipients in the CC field
achieves the stated, human intention, goal.
d/
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker Tel: +1(408)246 8253
<mailto:dcrocker(_at_)brandenburg(_dot_)com> 675 Spruce
Drive
Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA
Brandenburg Consulting
<http://www.brandenburg.com> Tel: +60(19)3299 445
Post Office Box 296, U.P.M.
Fax: +1(408)246 8253 Serdang, Selangor 43400 MALAYSIA