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Re: [school-discuss] Reply-to considered harmful (was Re: Job advert)

Karsten M. Self wrote: 
on Tue, Apr 12, 2005 at 07:57:21PM +0200, Brian Sutherland (jinty@xxxxxx) wrote:

On Tue, Apr 12, 2005 at 07:41:42PM +0200, Brian Sutherland wrote:

On Mon, Apr 11, 2005 at 03:55:13PM +0100, garry saddington wrote:
I am quite interested, I have attached my somewhat outdated CV, but I


Sorry for posting this to the list, but I am not used to lists which
set the Reply-To: header and just pressed 'r' rather than 'L'.



Which is why informed folks these days have responded to widespread
blatent egregious abuse of Reply-To and related by overriding them in
their mailer's configuration.

For mutt, quoting my .muttrc:

    set ignore_list_reply_to = yes
    # *FUCK* this shit pisses me off...
    # Fri Feb 25 18:27:28 PST 2005
    set reply_to = ask-no

I swear this crap bites people in the ass all the time.


Interesting,

Most of the earliest lists I was on always set the reply-to to the list address, I believe to foster discussion on list for the benefit of the subscribers. I am unsure if it was the default setting in older mailing list software, but I wouldn't be surprised.

The list reply-to debate is a relatively recent one in Internet mailing list terms, the "reply-to munging harmful" document I am aware of appeared in ~2000. As a mailing list user trained by older lists I actually expect my replies to go to the list by default. I take an extra step if I want to have a private discussion, rather than participate in the list. Even today MUA's with list reply-to avoidance features don't appear to enable them by default.

These days I, (and probably all of us), deal with lists operating in both fashions, but I prefer the simple reply-to list myself, because I am lazy. One will always encounter folks on both sides of this fence.

And yes, I did intend for this to go to the list, I think it is worth a passing thought by the subscribers.

- cameron