Re: Kind of annoying.

At 22:52 2002-06-14 +0200, A.T.Z. did say:

> I don't remember why or where but I've seen a website somewhere which 
> explains why it's bad to have replies go to the list.
At a minimum, for the regular users, it removes their ability to easily 
followup to certain users _offlist_.  You hit [REPLY], the message is 
addressed to the list.  Hit [REPLY ALL], and the message is addressed to 
the list and to whomever it was originally addressed to -- most likey, the 
list.
Without the list-centric Reply-To, [REPLY] will go to the author, and 
[REPLY ALL] will go to the author and to where they sent their copy (most 
likely, the list).  This gives respondants an option to offlist a 
reply.  OTOH, it also increases the chance that a lazy respondant will send 
their reply to the list AND to the previous respondant, even though the 
person to whom they are replying to is very likely on the list they're 
participating on.

Then, there are folks like myself (and a few others on this list), who 
would rather that offlist replies were in fact a deliberate act on the part 
of the person sending the reply, since so many offlist replies tend to be 
newbie continuations of discussions which should remain on the list -- 
participation here doesn't constitute an offer to provide one-on-one 
technical support.  Directing replies to the list resolves that.  Users 
needing to contact someone directly offlist can do so as easily as they can 
address any other message, but it is removed from being the default reply 
action within their mail client.
For small lists, reply-to the list is useful because of their "community" 
nature.  As a list grows, and OT tangents become more commonplace - and the 
sheer mail volume more of a problem - directing replies to the list shares 
more traits with the problem set than the solution.
> Seen some very ugly mailloops when braindead autoresponders responded on 
> their own out of the office messages.
Seeing as braindead autoresponders often don't reply to the reply-to header 
(or the envelope sender for that matter, which is most appropriate), this 
is difficult to avoid.  Pre-filtering list submissions through a filter 
which identifies such "out of office" messages is generally the best 
available solution.  Wanna guess what email processing tool I do that with? <g>
> For those who think they are treated badly by more experienced users, 
> please read the following:
Great link!  I hadn't realized Eric had written up that FAQ (he's the 
maintainer of the Jargon File <http://www.tuxedo.org/jargon>).  It's now 
linked from the top of my procmail pages.
---
 Sean B. Straw / Professional Software Engineering

 Procmail disclaimer: <http://www.professional.org/procmail/disclaimer.html>
 Please DO NOT carbon me on list replies.  I'll get my copy from the list.

_______________________________________________
procmail mailing list
procmail(_at_)lists(_dot_)RWTH-Aachen(_dot_)DE
http://MailMan.RWTH-Aachen.DE/mailman/listinfo/procmail