[Mailman-Users] Reply e-mail options.

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Joe writes:

 > I would like to have mail addressed to the list with a simple
 > 'Reply' and addressed to both the list and the sender with a 'Reply
 > All'.
 > 
 > Can Mailman be configured to behave this way ?

No.  Replies are generated by subscriber-side mail clients, not by
Mailman.  Mailman *already* *by default* provides enough information
for them to do what you suggest on simple replies[1] (and IMHO that
should be default behavior!), and then Reply All would Just Work
Right.  But mostly they don't (in any configuration, let alone by
default).  As Mark explains, the Reply-To header can't be used because
it breaks Reply All.[2]

IIRC Mozilla Thunderbird and Sylpheed (and maybe Evolution) do this
right.  But trying to convince subscribers to change their MUAs is
like trying to get addicts to give up their drugs. :-(

A few other clients (Mutt, Emacs/Gnus) have a reply-to-list function,
which often does the right thing (ie, fall back to reply-to-author if
it can't figure out what list is meant).  It is easier to get them to
use the function if already present in their client, but that's quite
a bit of work for somebody to find out what clients people are using
and if they have the function.

Footnotes: 
[1]  The RFC 2369 "List-Post" header.

[2]  This is because the definition of "Reply-To" in the email
standard is "The *author* says he doesn't want replies to go to
'From', he wants you to use this address.  Thank you!"