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Originator field interaction

2004-10-19 07:08:36

Some statements have been made about use of Reply-To; that
its use to direct responses to a mailing lists precludes indicating
a preferred mailbox for direct responses to the author(s), that
it provides no mechanism for indicating why a suggestion is
being made, that it provides no mechanism for an author to
offer guidance to a potential respondent who wishes to direct
his responses elsewhere. I will address those issues in this
message.  There are several reasons why an author might
suggest a place for responses; RFC 822 lists three, and I'll
use those three:

       Three typical
        uses for this feature can  be  distinguished.   In  the  first
        case,  the  author(s) may not have regular machine-based mail-
        boxes and therefore wish(es) to indicate an alternate  machine
        address.   In  the  second case, an author may wish additional
        persons to be made aware of, or responsible for,  replies.   A
        somewhat  different  use  may be of some help to "text message
        teleconferencing" groups equipped with automatic  distribution
        services:   include the address of that service in the "Reply-
        To" field of all messages  submitted  to  the  teleconference;
        then  participants  can  "reply"  to conference submissions to
        guarantee the correct distribution of any submission of  their
        own.

For brevity, I'll refer to those as "alternative", "delegation", and
"list", and when discussing combinations, the individual cases
will be numbered based on bitwise combinations of those three
assigning binary power values 4, 2, and 1 respectively.

The claim that use for lists precludes use for alternatives presumes
that combinations of uses are not possible. That is not necessarily
true for all combinations; moreover it ignores other mechanisms
available.  Given the three uses mentioned above, there are a
total of 2 raised to power 3, or 8 possible combinations:

0: some use other than the three listed; i.e. none of those three

1, 2, 4: these are single use cases. 1 and 2 are straightforward,
   but case 4 warrants some additional discussion.  The case
   where "the author(s) may not have regular [...] mailboxes"
   begs the question of what appears in the mandatory From
   field, which is supposed to list the author's (or authors')
   mailbox(es).  The example in RFC 822 A.2.6 uses the Sender's
   mailbox with a different display name.  That provides an obvious
   way for an author to provide a recommended mailbox for
   individual responses as well as providing a suggestion for
   other responses; viz. the mailbox for individual responses can
   simply be used in the From field (with a suitable display name
   and/or parenthesized comments).

5, 6: these are handled as just described; the issue of an
   individual mailbox is handled via the From field, the remaining
   use is addressed via Reply-To.

3, 7: combine delegation and list. One implication may be that
   the handling of responses is being delegated to a list (a list
   expander, a named group, or simply a list of mailboxes).
   Are there any circumstances where one might wish to delegate
   individual responsibility yet suggest responses to a list?
   Perhaps (case 3), but probably not in combination also with
   an alternative individual mailbox for the originator. Even these
   cases can be handled using the available originator fields:

Case 3:
   From: (on behalf of, and delegating authority to) 
J(_dot_)Doe(_at_)example(_dot_)com
   Sender: (authored by) Boss(_at_)example(_dot_)com
   Reply-To: The Committee: Tom(_at_)example(_dot_)com, Dick at example.com,
     Harriet(_at_)example(_dot_)com;

Case 7:
   From: (on behalf of, and delegating authority to) 
J(_dot_)Doe(_at_)example(_dot_)com
   Sender: (authored by Boss(_at_)example(_dot_)com while on vacation) 
Room123(_at_)some-hotel(_dot_)net
   Reply-To: The Committee: Tom(_at_)example(_dot_)com, Dick at example.com,
     Harriet(_at_)example(_dot_)com;
  Comments: If you value your job, don't bug me; general discussion
     among the committee, call on J. Doe if necessary

The use of comments, display names (in the named group), and
Comments message header fields demonstrate how an author can
provide indication of why a suggestion has been made for
responses, and to give some guidance to prospective respondents
who might consider deviating from that suggestion. Body text
provides yet another mechanism.


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