In a previous episode, Jon Miner said, and I quote:
That complaint, to me, is silly. I reply to you and the list because it
is to YOU. A decent mailer (which was suggestion #2) Can put all the
messages to the procmail list in one place and mail to you in another.
That way when I reply to you, you know it immediately (since you did
contribute to the thread, and are assumedly interested.)
I say reply to one or the other - if the person posted an inquiry via a
list, in most cases, they are a subscriber to that list, and it doesn't
take many brain cells to realize that replying to both will result in
duplicate mail on their part. If someone replies all on your post, the
recipent list gets bigger, ad nauseum. If it is private response, mail
direct, if it is applicable to the list discussion, reply to list. If the
person has expressed a desire to recieve a direct reply because they're not
on the list, they're at an alternate email address, or they're subscribed
to a digest form of the list (not applicable on THIS list, but it is on
many), but they need the timely reply, THEN by all means reply to ALL and
keep the original sender.
This really falls squarely on the shoulders of the person authoring the
reply. I shouldn't have to deal with two copies of your message because
YOU think I want two copies. I have my "any decent" mail client set to
direct replies to the procmail list to assist with this, and I also have
procmail recipes set to discard direct replies when the message didn't come
from a known list, but was addressed to one. If someone intends to reply
to me off-list, their "decent" mailer should support cut and paste of the
original From address, or they can type it in -- if writing a followup is
worthwhile, the minour additional work involved with removing inappropriate
(i.e. duplicate) addresses after choosing Reply All shouldn't be a big
deal. If it is, then you're not putting very much thought into the reply,
and it shouldn't be worth the bother to write.
I believe common sense and courtesy should be used in choosing recipients
for a reply.
headers. Or, if you like, use PROCMAIL on your local system to add a
Reply-To pointing wherever you'd like.
Unless I'm mistaken, the very first reply on this thread dived into the
prospect of using local recipes to make these changes.
Just don't screw the list so
that I have to invent procmail recipes to make it right again.
Since any individual isn't going to be able to change how the list operates
as a whole (and I doubt that the handful of people who may be in a position
to enact a change would be interested in doing it), I doubt this should
pose much cause for concern. OTOH, the beauty of Procmail is that you
could write your own recipe to undo it - so if it were called to a vote and
you found yourself in the minority, it really wouldn't take that much to
fix it, now would it?
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Please DO NOT carbon me on list replies. I'll get my copy from the list.
Sean B. Straw / Professional Software Engineering
Post Box 2395 / San Rafael, CA 94912-2395