Reply-To Preservation Considered Harmful (was: Re: [NCLUG] users only)

[Eric Brunson]

I am in total agreement with Sean on this matter.

Let's take a look at the summary of the Munging document:

    * It violates the principle of minimal munging.

False.  I recieved the mail from the list, not the original sender.
The reply-to should be set to that from which I received the mail.

    * It provides no benefit to the user of a reasonable mailer.

I use a reasonable mailer, mutt, and before that I used elm for about
5 years.  Both these mailers have a 'group reply' function and both
have the annoying behavior of adding everyone who participates in a
thread to the To: and Cc: headers, therefore spamming me with double
copies of all follow-ups.

    * It limits a subscriber's freedom to choose how he or she will
      direct a response.

That is a ridiculous argument, because 5 points later, he states that
it "complicates the procedure" for making a private reply.  You can't
have it both ways.

    * It actually reduces functionality for the user of a reasonable
      mailer.

It has absolutely no effect on the functionality of my mailers.  It's
not a virus.

    * It removes important information, which can make it impossible
      to get back to the message sender.

The originator sent the mail to the list.  The list sent the mail to
me, therefore the list is the sender, not the originator of the email.
And besides, the originator is still in the "From:" header.

    * It penalizes the person with a reasonable mailer in order to
      coddle those running brain-dead software.

Specious and redundant.

    * It violates the principle of least work because complicates the
      procedure for replying to messages.

See my argument to the first bullet.

    * It violates the principle of least surprise because it changes
      the way a mailer works.

If the Reply-To of a message is not the same as the address in the
From: header my mailer asks for me to verify that I wish to reply to
it, and if I reply in a negative fashion, asks if I'd like to use the
contents of the From: field.  That sounds like the behavior of a
reasonable mailer and involves no suprise. 

    * It violates the principle of least damage, and it encourages a 
      failure mode that can be extremely embarrassing -- or worse.

So does my zipper, I just learned to check it before I leave the
house.

    * Your subscribers don't want you to do it. Or, at least the ones who
      have bothered to read the docs for their mailer don't want you
      to do it.

Cool, Mr. Rosenthal should give the James Randi Foundation a call and
collect his on million dollar reward for being telepathic, because he
can apparently read my mind.  Unfortunately he's wrong.

There's a simple solution to deciding whether your subscribers want
this feature:  Ask them.

Just because something is in print doesn't make it truth.  You have to
learn to read with discrimination.

Now I will go edit my headers so that the reply goes only to the list
and Jafo doesn't get two replies of every follow-up to this.

Sincerely,
e.
postmaster at level3.net
postmaster at ipgeeks.net
postmaster at brunson.com
former-postmaster at fsu.edu

* Sean Reifschneider (jafo at tummy.com) [020531 11:54]:
> First off, I'd like to dispell the myth that switching it to be "reply to
> sender" will help prevent "private messages" from being sent to the list.
> Because people get used to pressing "g" when replying to all messages, it
> still happens.  This isn't some theory of mine, it's something I've
> personally observed in action.
> 
> It boils down to this: What is the most frequent action?  I think it's
> clear that the majority of the time, people want to reply to the list...
> So, changing the default to not match that is going to mean that more
> people are sending private replies that should be public, than people are
> sending public replies that should be private.  The numbers are working
> against us.
> 
> I have a problem with the stated policy being that replies to messages on
> NCLUG be to the sender.  I get enough private replies to posts on various
> LUG lists as it is, here's why I believe that private replies to public
> discussion are a dis-service:
> 
>    It deprives the sender of other valuable input.  Rarely does one person
>    have all the answers.  Outside input is a valuable thing.
> 
>    It turns "community support" into "private support".  I try to
>    participate on mailing lists and in the various LUGS and the open source
>    community in general because the things I'm doing can help many others.
>    One-on-one private support doesn't scale well, there are more newbies
>    than experts...
> 
>    It deprives other people having the same problem from possible
>    solutions.  I frequently search on google for problems I'm having, and
>    I've found BLUG comes up amazingly frequently with the answers to my
>    problems.
> 
> Often, people can be shy about asking questions in a public forum.  That's
> a good percentage of the private responses I've gotten to my LUG messages.
> The other one is "I saw this thread you posted in a year or 3 ago, and you
> sounded like you knew what you were doing.  Did you find a solution?"
> Usually these are about things that I haven't thought about in a very long
> time, and all I know is that if I had found a solution I would have likely
> posted about it to the list...
> 
> So, apparently there is a meme that reply-to munging is bad.  I definitely
> do not agree.
> 
> Sean
> -- 
>  Unix actually IS user friendly -- it's just very picky about whom it
>  calls its friend.
> Sean Reifschneider, Inimitably Superfluous <jafo at tummy.com>
> tummy.com - Linux Consulting since 1995. Qmail, KRUD, Firewalls, Python
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-- 
      Eric Brunson        brunson at level3 dot net
tcA thgirypoC muinelliM latigiD eht detaloiv tsuj evah uoY