Keith Moore writes:
There really is a conflict sometimes between what the sender thinks
should happen in the event of a reply and what the recipient wants
to happen with the reply he composes. In that circumstance, the
recipient needs to win.
Time for a reality check.
If the sender wants some addresses to not receive followups, he can
send blind carbon copies to those addresses. The public recipient is
given no hint of those addresses.
How is the recipient supposed to ``win''? Is his MUA supposed to spy
on the sender's computer and see where the message was actually sent?
I'm not sure what question you're asking. If the sender doesn't want
recipients to see those addresses, the mail system is doing what the
sender wants and honoring his intention. This is as it should be.
If the sender does want recipients to see those addresses, and yet
suggest that they not be copied on followups, the mail system doesn't
support the ability to do that at present.
The point is I was trying to make is that whoever is sending a message
has the right to choose (i.e. "win" the argument) which recipients get
that message. This is also true of someone sending a reply. I used
the word "recipient" in the text you quoted above to distinguish him
from the "sender" who sent the subject message, but the "recipient" of
the subject message is also the "sender" of the reply. It just seemed
awkward to use the word "sender" in two different contexts.
Blaming Mail-Followup-To for this is silly.
Nobody's blaming Mail-Followup-To for anything. It's not widely
enough deployed at present to do any significant harm.
What I've been doing is pointing out (a) the problems with using the
Mail-Followup-To for multiple purposes and (b) the limitations
associated with using Mail-Followup-To for duplicate suppression.
Keith