MFT turns this into a function defined by the sender of the message -
That's a content-free statement.
no, it's a value-free statement.
Are you next going to argue that Date
displays don't work because Date is ``defined by the sender''?
I presume that Date is the date at which the sender _thinks_ he sent the
message :)
But a Date that is set by the sender doesn't change the recipient's user
interface (though it might affect the recipient's interpretation of the
message).
What I'm saying is that, when both MUAs fully support Mail-Followup-To,
the behavior that's by far _most commonly desired_ in each situation is
also the _default_:
You are assuming that everybody wants to use MFT for the same purpose,
and in the same way. You want to optimize the default behavior for a
single case - one that may be commonly desired (especially among
heavy list users) but which doesn't solve other problems related to
reply.
* When someone joins a mailing list and then sends a message to it,
he _usually_ doesn't want a copy of the followups.
Not clear, especially in the long term. Subaddresses and other means of
automatically filing messages into folders are getting more popular all the
time. In one list of nontechnical people that I particpate in, about half of
the participants want personal copies of replies to list traffic. A couple
of years ago that figure was around 10%.
* When someone sends a message to a mailing list without joining it,
he _usually_ wants a copy of the followups.
These days for many mailing lists, this isn't even feasible - the list
will filter traffic from non-subscribers. The list might or might not
get so much spam that manual approval of the non-subscriber traffic
is feasible. And whether the sender wants a copy of replies depends
heavily on the nature of the list.
* When someone wants an extra copy of the followups to his message,
he usually also wants an extra copy of the second-level followups,
third-level followups, etc.
strongly disagree here. my experience is just the opposite.
* When someone sends a message to several mailing lists, he _usually_
wants the followups to go to all of the lists (and him if he isn't
on any of them).
not at all clear.
It's one thing if a user says to his MUA "when I send mail to lists X, Y, and
Z, please arrange things so that when someone replies to the list, I don't
get copied on that reply." It's quite another thing to try to arrange things
so that lists work this way by default.
Keith