ietf-822
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Re: mail-followup-to / mail-copies-to

2005-05-28 18:43:44

On Sat, 28 May 2005, Paul Jakma wrote:

Unlikely to happen -- it is a legitimate use and may be appropriate in some contexts.

Perfect.

Oh, it was supposed to be a footnote?  If you meant restricting use of
Reply-To, no, I don;t think it would be appropriate.

Fine, in that case if the meaning of Reply-To can *not* be made more specific, it's not suitable for list usage. In which case some other solution is needed. Eg, 'Foo-Copy-Me'.

Another "solution" would be (as suggested by Bruce in that previous, older thread and also hinted at, I think, by Keith Moore) to draft something concerning best practice for MUAs on their interaction with their users, specifically in how fields such as Reply-To/From, etc.. are presented to the user and /base/ reccomendations on how the MUA should behave.

(though, I have a sneaking suspicion consensus would be just as hard to achieve.. but hey, worth a try).

As far I can tell, the following reccomendations /might/ be acceptable:

- that the MUA should allow the From field to be editable
  (this apparently would raise other questions - eg 'anonymous' mail
  ?? Also, not sure if site admins would always like this.)

- that setting From should be the preferred way to indicate author's
  preferred mailbox

- that MUAs should make their user aware of a Reply-To field in a
  mail being responded to and should engage the user in selecting the
  correct addresses to reply to.

A major part of /my/ problem with using Reply-To for directing list-replies is that many MUAs will then direct replies (be it 'reply' or 'reply-all') to the mailbox(es) in the Reply-To field automatically *without* involving their user in this decision, with great risk that user doesn't even notice the redirection (and hence commits an indiscretion by sending a private reply to multiple addresses, not just the original author).

If that annoying behaviour were discouraged via an official document I could then whine at the implementors of such MUAs, rather than having to take up the time of the learned members of this list. :)

regards,
--
Paul Jakma      paul(_at_)clubi(_dot_)ie        paul(_at_)jakma(_dot_)org       
Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.
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