Having lists mung mail-followup-to is every bit as bad as having lists
mung reply-to. actually it's worse, since one of the arguments in
favor of mail-followup-to is that it hasn't been corrupted like
reply-to has.
Actually, munging Reply-To works quite well in closed lists, or in lists
such as this one where there are extended threads on some topics and which
are not really suited to contributors who are not subscribed to the list
(who will usually see no more than than a few messages at the start of a
thread, if that).
even in closed lists there is an inherent conflict between what the author
wants and what a list might want to impose. even if the list only sets
reply-to when the author has omitted it, the recipient can't tell who set it.
(you're also wrong about this list not being suitable for outside contributors.)
MUAs then need some form of command for "Reply-To-List", and the
obvious
name for that command is "Followup" (or the single letter 'F').
No, it's not obvious. Even though you can gateway mail into news and
vice versa, in practice the differences between the two environments
affect how people interact with those environments. A followup is not
the same thing as reply-to-list (using list-post) or even reply-to-all.
It is pretty close to the same thing in some lists (see above).
yes, there are exceptions. there are also cases where lists should remove
all headers from the original message. I'm talking about "normal",
general-purpose lists, rather than lists that need to hide information
about their contributors.
If email had a way to distinguish list addresses from personal
addresses, something analogous to followup might be "reply to just the
lists". but even then it would still be different.
I think the ability for a MUA to know whether it is replying to a list is
highly desirable (whether by detecting the presence of List-* headers or
otherwise).
in email it is much less reasonable to assume that everyone in a
conversation can access any mailing list that is copied on the
conversation - not all mailing lists are public, and people are less
likely to be willing to subscribe to an email list than to a usenet
newsgroup.
Indeed. There is a great variety of mailing lists, and one solution might
not fit all. But that is no reason not to provide solutions for those
cases where they seem to be needed.
Personally, I find it extremely annoying to receive personal replies to
messages I post to a mailing list to which I am already subscribed.
Personally, I find it extremely valuable to receive personal replies to
messages I post to a mailing list to which I am already subscribed.
And that is exactly the problem (and the same problem exists on Usenet,
where some posters like personal replies as well as followups, and others
abhor them). So the first thing that is clear is that users need some
means to indicate which class they belong to
no, it's not clear, because there are other variables than a user's
normal preference that should be considered. but mail-copies-to
is worth considering as one way to solve the problem.
Keith