[Mailman-Users] Setting up redundant mailing lists inOSXSnowLeopard.

[Mark Sapiro]

JRC Groups wrote:
>
>On 1/4/10 9:38 AM, "Mark Sapiro" <mark at msapiro.net> wrote:
>
>> But you probably don't need to mung the reply-to, at least for the
>> sublists. Assuming no reply-to munging at all, the original post will
>> always be From: the OP and To: the umbrella. Thus reply will go to the
>> OP and reply-all to the OP and the umbrella, just as for a
>> non-umbrella case.
>
>Shouldn't it be the other way around ? Most lists I either belong or have
>belonged to work the opposite way. Reply always sends to the list and Reply
>All goes to the list and OP.


This is a very old argument with hardened opinions on both sides. See
<http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html> and
<http://www.metasystema.net/essays/reply-to.html>.

All I will say here is that if you put a Reply-To: <the list> in the
delivered posts, it makes it difficult to reply to the poster since
the post is From: <the poster> and To: <the list> with Reply-To: <the
list>. For most MUAs (and per RFCs) Reply-To: overrides From: for
purposes of replying so 'reply' goes to the list and 'reply all' goes
to the list (Reply-To:) and the list (To:).


>> If you want to mung a reply-to, munging the umbrella to reply-to the
>> umbrella should suffice as that reply-to will pass through the
>> sublists unchanged.
>> 
>> The only place you have a problem is if the member's MUA offers list
>> reply based on the List-Post: header. This then may go to that
>> member's sublist only. The answer to this is to set
>> include_rfc2369_headers or at least include_list_post_header to No on
>> the sublists.
>
>Since I have no way of knowing these details for every subscriber (whether
>the subscriber's MUA offers reply based on the List-Post: header as you
>stated) would it cause any problems to make it standard procedure to set
>those commands to no as you suggested above ?


Mailman is somewhat deficient in this area as far as being fully RFC
2369 compliant when sublists are involved. Strictly speaking, the
List-Unsubscribe header in a received post should be from the sub list
that the recipient is subscribed to, but in your case, the List-Post:
header should be for the parent. The closest you can come is to set
include_rfc2369_headers and include_list_post_header both to Yes on
the parent (you can't include List-Post: without including the others)
and set include_list_post_header to No on the children.

Whether to set include_rfc2369_headers to Yes or to No on the children
is a toss-up. Yes will include both list's headers which could be
confusing, but No will include only the parent's headers which may not
be the preferable ones.

As far as causing problems, the only significant problem is that some
MUA that offers an unsubscribe based on the List-Unsubscribe: header
may go to the parent list instead of the relevant child. The avoidance
is to set include_rfc2369_headers to No on all the lists. You will be
omitting some desirable information, but at least there won't be any
wrong information.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan