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

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Michael B. Trausch writes:

[This was me, stephen, but the attribution was dropped:]

 > > 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.

Reply-To still is truly broken.  The author wants personal replies to
go to her, but now they go to the list.  The recipient must
*specifically avoid reply-to-author* in order to reply to the author.
This is so Orwellian.

 > IOW, reply-to only makes sense in its default (none, that is, reply to
 > from) in interpersonal communications or self-made "distribution lists"
 > where From == To and the recipients are all Bcc'd.

Stop deprecating use cases that you don't use.  They exist, are
important to their users, and what you are advocating is tyranny of
the majority.  Not on our Internet, please.

I have no objection to the functionality you want, but I take *strong*
exception to having the very useful Reply-To field *hijacked* so that
you don't need to wait for my proposal to be implemented.[1]

 > So, in the end, I think that the algorithm you mentioned is a good step
 > in the right direction, sure.  But I think the ultimate solution is even
 > simpler than that:

Except that it is *not* an ultimate solution, because the function of
the Reply-To field is lost in important cases.  A new Reply-To field
that third parties are prohibited from munging would have to be
defined.  Why do that when we already have one?


Footnotes: 
[1]  The problem of the wrong dupe being eliminated is *not* a problem
with Reply-To, although it may be made more frequent.  It's simply the
case that if access to the List-Post field in every message is
desired, the mailing *cannot* do dupe elimination.  *Not* *at* *all*.
Your use case here is broken.  Badly.