Settings for reply to all
Hello friends. Is there a setting in Mailman that makes it possible for a "Reply to All" to pick up the From: address?
Michael Welch, volunteer Redwood Alliance PO Box 293 Arcata, CA 95518 707-822-7884 mwelch@redwoodalliance.org www.redwoodalliance.org
Michael Welch wrote:
Hello friends. Is there a setting in Mailman that makes it possible for a "Reply to All" to pick up the From: address?
Yes. Set reply_goes_to_list to Poster so that "reply" goes to the From: or the poster's Reply-To: and "Reply to All" adds the list from the To: or Cc:.
But I suspect that is not what you want. I suspect you want "reply" to go to the list so you have set reply_goes_to_list to This list. This adds a Reply-To: header to delivered posts with the list posting address. According to RFC 5322 and it's predecessors, RFCs 822 and 2822, Reply-To: specifies the address(es) to which replies should be sent in lieu of the default From:. Most MUAs in generating a reply will assume that Reply-To: overrides From so if there is a Reply-To:, they will use the Reply-To: addresses for "replt" and "reply all" and ignore the From:.
I suspect there are MUAs that will include the From: address(es) in "reply all" recipients even when a Reply-To: is present, but this is dependent on the MUA, and is arguably not the right thing to do.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Mark Sapiro writes:
Yes. Set reply_goes_to_list to Poster so that "reply" goes to the From: or the poster's Reply-To: and "Reply to All" adds the list from the To: or Cc:.
It would be an easy hack to add a PosterAndList option, though. This would usually be harmless, and lists where it could be harmful (eg, closed subscription lists for security or discussion of a law or medical practice's clients) probably know who they are.
I suspect there are MUAs that will include the From: address(es) in "reply all" recipients even when a Reply-To: is present, but this is dependent on the MUA, and is arguably not the right thing to do.
It is clearly the right thing to do, in the presence of so many mailing lists that abuse the Reply-To header. I benefit from it several times a day. Cumulative time saving measured in seconds per day, of course, but my frustration level is perceptibly lower.
Of course the MUA should *also* provide an RFC-conforming reply-to-all, but that is never useful in my experience. (Ie, it works fine for RFC-conforming lists that leave Reply-To strictly alone, but given the rarity with which authors use Reply-To, it's a no-op except for reply-to-munging lists.)
YMMV, but for me this is a Toyota Prius vs. Boeing 747 MPG comparison.
N.B. This is a private customization of the Emacs-based VM MUA. I don't know offhand of any stock MUAs that do it.
participants (3)
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Mark Sapiro -
Michael Welch -
Stephen J. Turnbull