[Mailman-Users] HowTo make replies to Sender/List, and reply-alls to everyone?

Matt England mengland at mengland.net
Wed Jul 27 14:33:27 CEST 2005


Hello Mailman-users,

I'm a Mailman 2.1.6rc4 site admin.

I'm seeking to support the following 2 features at the same time with an 
email list:

1) Replies go to list and sender/author

I want to configure, if at all possible, some (or all) of my lists such 
that (by default)  MUA replies to list-generated emails make the list email 
address and the email address of the email's sender/author in the recipient 
fields (any combination of To: or Cc:).

2) Reply-all's go to everyone on the original email's distribution list

Additionally, I would like reply-all's to go to every email address on the 
email's distribution as well as the email address of the list.


Note: I'm willing to let go of #1 if I can at least get #2, but I'd like to 
get both.


Right now, I only see this functionality in my lists:

* Replies go the list and only the list, regardless of a "reply" or a 
"reply-all" MUA command.

* Replies (with no reply-all) only go to the send/author.

Essentially, I find these options too restrictive for my 
communities.  Specifically, I've had at least one case where a non-member 
of an email list sends email to said list, and the list members 
reply--thinking they are sending the email to the author--but the author 
never saw the emails because the "reply-to-the-list-only" feature was 
set...because the list users were originally complaining that replies were 
not going to the lists like they had expected and hoped.

Thus I'm stuck not being able to feed both "mouths."

All of my email lists at my current site are for "private," internal 
corporate discussions.  No one outside of our company can subscribe or even 
know or see the Mailman website (because it's behind an SSL 
"firewall").  Therefore, I allow non-member postings to a list on purpose, 
because said lists in this case effectively acts as a distribution list.

My only other option that I can see thus far is to make 
"reply_goes_to_list" be the Poster instead of "This list" and train my 
users to pay attention to when they should be posting to the list and when 
they should not be.

I'd rather Mailman have this option for " reply_goes_to_list": "Both Poster 
and This list."

Can this be done?

-Matt




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