Reply-To header

[Steven D'Aprano]

Mike Meyer wrote:

> When I notice that a list is broken (RFC 2822 says that
> reply-to is for the *author* of the message; anyone else setting it is
> doing so in violation of the RFC, and hence broken, no matter how
> useful it may be), 

Since when did obeying the RFC become important in and 
of itself? If there was a RFC that said that passwords 
should be limited to one alphanumeric character, would 
we slavishly follow it?

I have been known to change the reply-to address from 
the address I am sending from (me at work for example) to 
the address I want the reply to go to (me at home). There 
are many times I'm emailing people I know can't cope 
with the complicated task of changing the To address of 
their reply, so I change the reply-to header so that 
their reply goes where I want it to go to (which might 
be another email address of mine, or a different 
person, or a mailing list).

That's what reply to means, surely? What is the point 
of a reply-to header that must be the sender, since you 
already have a header that gives you the sender.

If the RFC says that the reply-to header doesn't 
actually mean the address the reply should go to, but 
only the sender, then the RFC is broken. "Where the 
reply goes to" is a *human* decision, not a technical 
one. If I send you an email saying "Please reply to 
president at whitehouse.gov" then your mailer should 
honour that (although, since we are all adults, you 
should have the freedom to ignore my request and make a 
nuisance of yourself by emailing your reply to a 
different address).

Likewise, if I set the reply address to the list, then 
your mailer should reply to the list. Perhaps you can 
argue that *my decision* to have replies go to the list 
is a bad one, but that's a social issue, not a 
technical one.


> I tell my mailer to ignore reply-to on mail from
> that list. Similarly, I no longer try and explain to people how long
> lines violate RFCs and are a pain to read in well-behave mail readers,

By "well-behaved", do you mean "can't cope with long 
lines"? How curious -- that's precisely the opposite 
definition of well-behaved I use.

> or why mail readers that wrap text/plain content are broken.

Curiouser and curiouser. Again that's the exact 
opposite of my definition of broken.


-- 
Steven.