Era Eriksson spoke in favor of public rather than private replies to most
posts on this list [without touching on the issue of sending a private reply
with a public carbon], and he added,
| This is unlike the culture on some other lists I'm on ...
It's often the software running the list more than the topic that determines
that culture. When every post's return address is clobbered with that of the
list, virtually all replies (no matter how personal or off-topic) will go to
the list and very few will be manually redirected to the author; it is diffi-
cult and sometimes impossible to send private replies in that situation. A
private reply with a public carbon, common on lists that do not clobber the
return address, just plain won't happen.
When a list does not clobber the return address, most posters will not set
Reply-To:. (A few will, and when it is pointed to the list, responses to
such posts will be public-only, but here it is what the poster wants, not
what the list maintainer imposes.) Posts with the author in the return ad-
dress will generate responses to the author, often with a carbon to the list,
and there will be a few readdressed public-only responses. The direct reply
with a public carbon is an artifact of some MUAs, and it really is not in-
tended with malice; in many cases it is done carelessly, but in many others
it is a courtesy so that the person who asked a question doesn't need to wait
for the list software to process and redistribute a post before getting an
answer.
This recent go-round began when Walter Dnes expressed upset at getting two
copies of a reply to an article he had posted. I get the impression that
he might be accustomed to lists that clobber the return address, and he had
never before seen the double copy that is common on lists that do not, so he
didn't know what to make of it. Was it sent by mistake? Probably not. Was
it sent as an insult because the respondent thought Walter needed to read the
answer twice in order to understand it or remember it? Certainly not.
| Anyhow, one way or the other, this is obviously something that could
| rather easily be decided by some sort of majority vote or whatever.
I must disagree. Where to send replies very rarely is something to set one
way for all posts to a given list. It should be determined on a response-by-
response basis, primarily by the first poster's preference if stated and sec-
ondarily by the respondent's decision in light of knowing the first poster's
preference. Posters who can set Reply-To: should do so when they need to
and, when their preference is strong, point it out in the text ("Please reply
privately" or "Replies are directed to the list; please reply publicly on-
ly"). Posters who cannot set Reply-To: and who have a preference that dif-
fers from the way their posts turn out should state what they want and ex-
plain that they cannot set Reply-To: (and they should see if they can do
something about their situations; as I've said before, such an MUA is inade-
quate for use with a mailing list subscription).
Besides, any subscriber who wants the list's submission address as the return
address on all posts to the list -- not just his or her own articles but all
those that he or she receives -- can add it with formail in his or her own
.procmailrc. We're all procmail users here, aren't we?
Most importantly, posters who wish a particular type of reply addressing and
(1) can set Reply-To: but do not do so, or
(2) cannot set Reply-To: but do not state their wishes with an explanation
that they cannot set Reply-To:
should accept the results of the way their posts' return addresses appear and
not bawl out the respondents!