ietf-822
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Re: reply problem list

2004-09-01 17:35:45

Bruce Lilly <blilly(_at_)erols(_dot_)com> writes:

D. J. Bernstein wrote:
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.

Mail doesn't have "followups", it has replies.  The Reply-To field
provides a sender with a mechanism to specify the reply address(es)
which he wishes to encourage.  It is of course still possible for a
recipient to direct replies elsewhere.

Real world mail has more than one kind of reply, call the distinction
public/private, narrow/broad, reply-author/reply-all or what you will.

Setting Reply-To might work for one kind of replies, but does the
wrong thing for the other kind of replies.  To see this, just go
through, for each kind of reply, what happen if Reply-To is set to the
mailing list address or to nobody:;.  This is why we need a better
reply mechanism for mail.

The hope should be that a better solution than forcing users to do
manual work can be worked out.

Regards,
Simon


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