Bruce Lilly writes:
If the original message author wishes responses to go
to the list, he should set Reply-To to the list address.
Senders often want to _encourage_ followups and _discourage_ replies.
That doesn't mean senders want to _break_ the reply mechanism.
A new header field could formally declare the same information:
Are-You-Sure-You-Want-To-Reply: I'd like to see this topic discussed
publicly.
An MUA that sees this header field could warn the replying user at the
beginning of composing a reply:
Are you sure you want to reply privately? The message author says:
"I'd like to see this topic discussed publicly." Click here for
private, here for public, here to cancel.
This approach doesn't screw up the Reply-To information, so the user can
still send a reply rather than a followup if he wants to.
---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics,
Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago