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.
-- Superchicken