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Re: setting reply-to header for mailing list



On Wed, Dec 21, 2005 at 12:01:00PM -0500, Derek Martin wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 21, 2005 at 08:48:17AM -0800, William Yardley wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 21, 2005 at 09:07:01AM -0600, Charles Cazabon wrote:
> > > Eugeny N Dzhurinsky <eugenydzh@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > > > Is it possible to automatically add reply-to header with address
> > > > of mailing list when posting message to the mailing list?

> > > That's not what Reply-To: is for.  It is, however, what the
> > > Mail-Followup-To: header is for.

> > That's debatable.... M-F-T was never adopted as an official standard
> > and is implemented by only a few MUAs (and not by any popular ones).
> > Reply-To will work for this purpose, and will be honored by more
> > mailers.

> Well, it isn't really debatable that this is not what Reply-To is
> for...  Reply-To exists so that the sender can tell the people he is
> corresponding with that the e-mail address which appears on his mail
> may be wrong, and to supply them with the best address at which to
> reach him.

> People use it this way now, but that isn't its purpose,
> and IMNSHO it is a misuse of the feature.

Bullshit.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0822.txt

   This field provides a general  mechanism  for  indicating
   any mailbox(es)  to which responses are to be sent.  Three
   typical uses for this feature can  be  distinguished.   In
   the  first case,  the  author(s) may not have regular
   machine-based mail- boxes and therefore wish(es) to indicate
   an alternate  machine address.   In  the  second case, an
   author may wish additional persons to be made aware of, or
   responsible for,  replies.   A somewhat  different  use  may
   be of some help to "text message teleconferencing" groups
   equipped with automatic  distribution services:   include the
   address of that service in the "Reply- To" field of all
   messages  submitted  to  the  teleconference; then
   participants  can  "reply"  to conference submissions to
   guarantee the correct distribution of any submission of
   their own.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2822.txt

   When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it indicates the
   mailbox(es) to which the author of the message suggests that
   replies be sent.

This suggests a number of uses for Reply-To - basically, allowing the
sender to determine where he or she feels replies should be sent.

I'm not saying that using an explicit Reply-To is a good idea - I
wouldn't do it personally in most cases. But I don't think doing this is
inconsistent with the purpose of the Reply-To header.

/w