Basil Chupin wrote:
ken wrote:
Patrick Shanahan wrote:
.... add the header "Reply-To: opensuse@opensuse.org" to all opensuse list mail. When you decide to post an answer or comment to an opensuse posting, "reply" will select opensuse@opensuse.org address.
is more explanation necessary?
Thanks for the clarification. I see what you're saying now. You threw me a bit of a high-and-inside curve ball with the assertion that this solution "abides by the RFC [2822]", to wit:
If *my* adding a Reply-To (to the list) to incoming mail doesn't violate the RFC, how is it that list server doing the same thing _does_ violate the RFC?
I'm not asking you to 'explain your way out of this contradiction' or anything like that. I don't put myself in the "correct" camp of the issue (I'm much more an advocate of the sensible... even more of universal congruity). But it could be that *adding* a Reply-To doesn't violate 2822 (for those squeamish about that); i.e., the list server could *add* a "Reply-To suse-linux-e@suse.com" to all its incoming mail and this would make both the "correct" and sensible camps happy. It wouldn't be _changing_ the author's Reply-To, but it would allow the list to function like a many-to-many medium... as originally intended.
(Yes, this would mean posters would receive duplicates. But (1) this is, IMO, far less annoying and (2) could be filtered out easily on the client side and, should we find enlightenment, perhaps eventually on the server side.)
Would this lexical workaround applied to the list server raise anyone's hackles? If so, how?
I am not into this thing anymore (after years of arguments in the Fidonet world back in late 80's early 90's) about RFCs, but just on the above point.
I can relate. I've been doing email lists since 1981 and they've always functioned in the way you describe below (what I've termed alternately the intelligent/sensible method). Those in the opposing ("correct") camp draw on one sentence in RFC 2822 which suggests that no one should change the contents of the author's Reply-To field, therefore the mailing list software should leave it alone and the default Reply-To is always the poster instead of the list. It seems to me that the recipient of an email *can* alter the Reply-To field of an incoming email. Indeed, I can take an email I receive and send or not send my reply to it to anyone I please. As the recipient of the email, I can even delete the email if that's what I want to do. So I don't see how that one sentence in RFC 2822 applies to any recipient of any email. Now isn't the list server the recipient of my (and all subscribers') emails? After all, that's where I'm (and all subscribers are) sending email. So as the recipient of my and others' email, just as I am allowed to change the Reply-To field, I believe the list server is likewise allowed to alter the Reply-To field... and _should_ in a sensible way, in a way which makes it a many-to-many technology by default, i.e., without need of a separate, "correct" email client or cludges or technical workarounds on the client side, a way which allows even Windows users to participate in this list. This doesn't mean that a list server is permitted to change anything else in subscribers' emails, not the body or the "Sender" or "From" or "Date" fields. Just the Reply-To. Therefore, in the rare instance when I want to reply only to the author of an email sent to the list, then I can do that also.
I subscribe to the smart updater forum, the smart@labix.org list, and there the server has Reply-to in the message headers which is set to 'Reply-to smart@labix.org' .
Now the interesting part about that is that when I hit the Reply To All button on my mailer (Thunderbird) the ONLY address which comes up in the TO field is.... you guessed it, smart@labix.org. There are NO other TOs or CCs. Nothing. My reply goes only to smart@labix.org.
Yeah. I agree. Generally and historically this is how distribution lists function and how they were originally intended to work. Even those in the "correct" camp would concur with this, but they insist that one sentence in a draft RFC means we should all change email clients or install cludges or hand-edit the addresses every time we correspond with the list. I always thought that computers were supposed to make life simpler and easier, not more complicated and time-consuming and difficult.
Why can't the SuSE Help server put in the Repy-To field and make everybody happy?
(I don't suppose this would ever happen, it's too sensible.)
We need to be patient... I'm sure it'll happen eventually. In twenty or thirty years we'll all look back on this and have a good chuckle.
Cheers.