[Mailman-Users] The "right" way to reply to a mailing list

[Lindsay Haisley]

> On Mar 21, 2015, at 10:40 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Lindsay Haisley" <fmouse at fmp.com>
> 
>> In many mail user agents, when you press the "Reply" button the program
>> will analyze the headers, determine that the post being replied to came
>> from a list and offer a "Reply to List" option in addition to a simple
>> reply, which generally goes privately to the original poster.
> 
> {{citation-needed}}
> 
> Thunderbird, Mutt, Zimbra, Outlook and Outlook Express (and descendents)
> all don't do that.  What are "many MUAs"?

T-bird _does_ do this, although it doesn't work exactly as I described.  the header/button pane between the index pane and the preview pane contains a "Reply List" button if a list post is is highlighted in the index, otherwise said button is absent.  Someone in this discussion said that this isn't default behavior in T-bird, but I can't speak to this.  The point is that T-bird is list-aware and can offer reply choices accordingly.  So can Evolution, which was the default Gnome MUA until a few years ago.   Barry Warsaw told us that Claws Mail has excellent reply-to-list support, and Mark Sapiro said that Mutt offers an "L" command to reply to a list.

Whether (count them!) four MUAs constitute "many MUAs", and whether I'm culpable for a misrepresentation of the facts is a matter of opinion.  I already ate a large serving of crow in response to Tanstaafl's taking me to task on the same matter.  At the moment I'm not hungry.

The point is that programming list-awareness into an MUA isn't rocket science, and the fact that it's not done in many of them is more a matter of UI designers and their buddies in marketing departments deciding to "simplify" (i.e. dumb down) their MUA products to enhance user experience and avoid confusing and possibly educating their user/customer base.

Sent from the Dehut/Haisley iPad
email <household at fmp.com>