ietf-822
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Re: Understanding response protocols

2004-09-16 12:45:38

b) you are conflating at least two things here - one being whether 
people want to get duplicate copies of a message sent to a particular 
address (IMHO it's fairly safe to assume that most do not want 
duplicate copies), another being whether senders prefer that replies 
reach everyone who received a copy of the original message - or at 
least, don't mind having this as a default.

Possibly so. But you now seem to accept that the number who find duplicate
replies "obnoxious" is nearer 90% than 50% (which indicates that some
change to protocols and/or practice is definitely needed).

"most" implies more than half.  it does not imply nearness to 90%.

As to the number of people who would routinely intend replies to go to all
of the original recipients, even where mailing lists are not involved, I
would expect that actually to be considerably less than the 50% I allowed.

I would expect it to be more than half.
(hmmm.  wonder if any of the webmail services keeps stats on such things?)

ISTM that the only reason that people use Reply-to-All when responding to
mailing lists is that it is the only way of ensuring (without inspecting
the headers carefully and cutting/pasting as necessary) that the reply
goes to the list at least. 

I don't know why you believe that. 

Keith