Charles Lindsey wrote:
In <41471F70(_dot_)9090602(_at_)erols(_dot_)com> Bruce Lilly
<blilly(_at_)erols(_dot_)com> writes:
As suggested by Keith, and as discussed in my earlier message, the
proposal under discussion is based on individual responses going
to the mailbox(es) specified in the From field, when the respondent
specifically wishes to direct a response to the original messages
author(s).
I think you need to make it clear that you are referring to some
"Reply-To-Author" functionality such as has been mentioned here and which
apparently is available in some agents.
That is what I wrote.
Personally, I am somewhat dubious about such feature because
a) most users will suppose it is the normal way to reply to ordinary
mails, which it isn't ("Reply-To-From-address" would convey a more
accurate intention of such a button), and
I don't care if the function is implemented with a GUI button
or some other UI, nor do I care to quibble about specific
labels; the functionality is reply to the author(s) whose
mailboxes are listed in the From field.
b) I am very dubious about _any_ automatic method of responding
Automatic responses have not been discussed.
Default responses would go to the addresses specified
in Reply-To, whether ... [lots of good reasons snipped].
By "Default response", I presume you mean what the usual "Reply" button
does (and maybe Reply-to-All also).
"Default"isn't a clear term, and I have recently changed to referring
to use of Reply-To as a "middle" response to differentiate it from
a "narrow" response to the author(s) and from a "wide" response
including original message recipients.
The real problem here is
that "Reply-To-All" is the wrong button to use when replying to the list
but, unfortunately, the "Reply" button will usually do the wrong thing.
If the original message author recommends responses to go to
a list, and indicates so by setting the Reply-To field
accordingly, and the respondent agrees, the a "middle" response
(rather than reply-to-author or reply-to-all) is appropriate.
Hence the reason why we are having this debate, and hence the reason why
any solution to this problem is going to involve extra MUA functionality,
such as a "Reply-to-List" button, or an extra header such as MFT, or
both.
No extra functionality or fields are required (see above).
Wrong. Default responses go to wherever the original message
sender set Reply-To to point --
Which is no solution at all, as various people have pointed out. Anything
that involves routine manual addition of an extra header everytime someone
posts to a mailing list is doomed to failure, because you will never
educate users to do it.
You are the only person insisting that some manual action is
required. It is not.
We MUST have a solution where the right thing happens
automatically (possibly after some configuration by the user). MFT might
do it. Mail-Copies-To might do it. But Reply-To already has too much
baggage attached to it, and the only configuration option for it likely to
be available in current MUAs is to set it to some fixed address for _all_
outgoing mails.
You are wrong about that.
It is quite clear to me that _any_solution to the problems we are
dicussing will require changes to MUAs before it becomes effective. MFT is
a nice solution on the face of it, but requires the most change to
existing MUAs.
And MTAs.
Mail-Copies-To would he easier to introduce, but it does
not do such a good job.
Not easier -- it has the same problems and requires MUA and MTA
changes.
Looks like we have to choose some least-harmful
alternative. Reply-To is what we have at the moment, and it is clearly not
working.
It works fine for me...
It is well enough defined for us to understand what it would entail.
Where's the ABNF? Where's the definition of how the field is handled
w.r.t. message fragmentation and reassembly? Where's the discussion
w.r.t. interaction with Reply-To in RFC 2822? Where's the discussion
about automatic responses in RFC 3834?