ietf-822
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Re: Understanding response protocols

2004-09-22 07:44:36

How often depends on the list and how its used.  But it's not
"fanciful".  For instance, when I was on IESG it was common to Cc a WG
mailing list on a communication that was actually directed to someone
else, say the IETF secretary.

But for such a message what would MFT say?

You really need two different ones.

For the copy that went to the
directed recipent (e.g. the IETF secretary) you want their "reply"
to come back to you, and perhaps not go with the FYI WG list?

Depends on the nature of the reply. The most common reply from the secretary is probably just an "ack" to say "I got the message and will act on it". Such messages would usually not be copied to WG lists.

But presumably the copy that goes to the WG list should have something
that directs replies to the list - and excludes the IETF secretary
who does not want to be bothered with the "discussion" that arises
on the list?

Actually I'd assume that for messages from a list the usual response would be either to IESG or to a particular AD - as in "thank you for finally approving this document" or "you neglected to consider this important issue" or "I wish to appeal".

However if we had list header then WG members could "reply to list"
for their discussion, and IETF secretary would reply to sender (just you)
or reply to all (CCing the list)

Reply to list is problematic if there are multiple lists involved in a conversation. Often cross-posting is the right thing to do.

Also, having different reply behavior for different copies of a message makes me nervous. If someone is on two lists his replies are probably going to be written with both lists in mind. The reply shouldn't go to one list or the other depending on which copy he happened to read first.

It occurs to me that a lot of this hinges on whether the recipient knows enough information to know which addresses to include in a reply. For instance, a recipient probably recognizes the addresses of lists to which he is subscribed. If he wants to reply only to that list, he has the information he needs to do so. If he wants to configure his user agent to act differently for messages received from that list, he can do that also.

On the other hand, a recipient does not reliably know whether a particular address is subscribed to a list and whether that address wants duplicate copies. So it's helpful if there's something that tells him this.

Keith