[Mailman-Developers] Reply-To munging considered *carefully*

[Michael B. Trausch]

Note, I am not subscribed to mailman-developers at python.org, so this
message may or may not get through to that list.  I did CC everyone
interested so far, though (I think), in this subthread.

On Tue, 2009-10-13 at 16:03 +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Reply-To set to me.  Please verify that your replies are going to the
> intended place.

Indeed, Ctrl+R does reply to you.

> Michael B. Trausch writes:
>  > In any case, it's off-topic, and unless others here are interested
>  > in the discussion, or there's a chance that the ML config would be
>  > changed, it's probably best just to drop it altogether.
> 
> I'm not sure where discussion will take place.  Not here, possibly
> Mailman Developers ML, most likely wiki.list.org.  Drop me a line and
> I'll make sure that you're notified about the new venue.  It will
> probably be Saturday or so.

I assume that since we've already gone there, that's where it'll be.  I
assume I'll know shortly after I hit C-RET if I need to be subscribed
there, too...

> As long as I'm here, let me respond.
> 
>  > I've seen that argument before; it's fine, but the ideal situation is
>  > impossible to achieve (some form of complete consistency amongst all
>  > mailing lists globally).
> 
> The draft RFC admits that.  It's not a panacea, it's a path forward.
> 
> The problem to date, AFAICT from the litter on the path to RFC 2822,
> is that a lot of people want a way to indicate that responses SHOULD
> go to the list (of course you can't *force* them to go to the list).
> They have insisted on coopting Reply-To and Mail-Followup-To for that
> purpose because they are existing headers that many MUAs already
> respect.  This breaks their usage as defined in the RFCs, so the
> cooler heads have refused to sanction such usage.  They are for the
> *author* to indicate where personal replies and public discussion,
> respectively, should be conducted.
> 
> The upshot is that there is no RFC-sanctioned way for a list to say
> "please respond here", and no way at all that doesn't usurp *both* the
> author's and the receiver's options.

The best way to do this far simpler, I think:

  1.  Mailer software should reply to From or Reply-To as currently.
  2.  ML software should set Reply-To _UNLESS_ there was _already_ a
      Reply-To.  Then, Reply-To isn't truly broken, because the author
      has control over it still, and it just defaults to the list.

This manages to make things work 95% of the time for 95% of the people.
I know that people far less technical than myself expect the behavior
above.  I don't know about ML's and whether or not they'll respect and
author-set Reply-To if one is set in the ML configuration, but I've
never tried, either; I do know that of the lists I'm on, the Bazaar ML
and one other one (don't remember right now which one) are the only two
that actually don't set Reply-To.

Now, RFC 2822 says that From, Sender and Reply-To are "originator
fields".  It also says this:



> 
> The intention is to fix that.  I already have agreement in principle
> from the Mailman boss to implement for that list manager.  I will
> provide an implementation of my algorithm that can be used in Emacs
> MUAs.  I'm sure I can get VM and MH-E to adopt it, and almost sure
> Gnus will.  The KDE KMail guy has expressed interest.  Both seemed to
> think my proposal is actually novel, but I certainly will check the
> IETF archives in order to frame it properly in existing discussion.
> 
>  > On the topic of the discussion, though, what is better for all is a
>  > default behavior that is correct, say, 95% of the time for 95% of the
>  > people.
> 
> My algorithm gives that by default.  The draft RFC gives a way for a
> mailing list to either insist on public followup or to strongly
> discourage it.

-- 
Blog:  http://mike.trausch.us/blog/
Misc. Software:  http://mike.trausch.us/software/

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too
high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving
our mark.” —Michelangelo