ietf-822
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Re: Proper way to specify "Do Not Reply"?

1998-10-09 07:07:25
On Fri, 09 Oct 1998 09:43:27 +0800, Dave Crocker said:
"No reply desired" is essentially an annotation, or comment, to the
recipient.  That is, it does not mean "prohibited".  It is guidance.

Exactly..

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.

OK.. I smell an RFC draft here - is there a better way to address
this?  I can't think of one, and it has nice symmetry with the
RFC821 null return path in the envelopes..

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.

Yes, the only problem here is that what I was thinking was giving the
recipient MUA enough hints so that if the person hits the reply key,
the MUA can pop up a dialog saying "Are you *sure* you want to reply?
The sender didn't think a reply was a good idea...".  And as we've
seen on some high-traffic IETF lists, having yourself listed in the
cc: field is no bar to sending replies.. ;)

-- 
                                Valdis Kletnieks
                                Computer Systems Senior Engineer
                                Virginia Tech

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