suppressed <suppressed> wrote (in part): > > One final note: It seems that most of the time when I reply to the > list, the default Reply-To is for the author of the message, not the > list. Is this by design? yes. email messages (whether from a mailing list or not) are "from" the original authors, so "hitting Reply" generally means you want to reply to the author. some mailing list software automatically adds a "Reply-to: suppressed" header so that, by default, all replies go back to the list (only), not to the author. there's been quite a bit of debate about whether this is right or wrong behavior. the problem with this sort of "reply-to munging" is that it causes many a *personal* message to be sent to the entire list, inadvertently. this list does not do such reply-to munging, so to reply to the list (and just the list) i normally hit the "Reply To All" button on my mail-reader, which (in the case of this message) puts the following "To:" line on my reply: "suppressed; suppressed", and from there i can: - do nothing, to mail the list and cc: the author, - remove the author's email (as i just did), to reply to the list only, - or remove the list-address to email the author privately off-list. > ...I ask because I'm used to having reply-to > send you back to the list so you don't accidentally just mail the > author of the message (as I almost did with this message). yes, this is the "other" side of the debate, that reply-to munging is A Good Thing, because: *most* of the time, *most* message *are* intended for the list, not the author of the message. but the response to that (from the "reply-to munging is A Bad Thing" camp) is that in the case of off-list messages which contain, say, anything from sensitive business or persoanl information to obscenities resulting from angry flamewars, it's much Less Bad to accidentally send a public message to the author individually, than to accidentally send a private message intended for the author's eyes only, to the potentially thousands of list subscribers. -dave --------------------------------------------------------------------- Web Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/suppressed/ To unsubscribe, e-mail: suppressed For additional commands, e-mail: suppressed
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