Errors-to: owner-drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 18:13:21 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se>
To: ietf-drums <drums@CS.UTK.EDU>
Subject: Re: "Reply-To" 
In-Reply-To: <199508151830.OAA21445@wilma.cs.utk.edu>
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950816174740.21591A-100000@ester>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

It was never my intention that mailing list expanders should mess
with the "Reply-To" or "Wide-Reply-To" or other similar heading field.
I agree completely with Keith that this heading field should be
set by the sender and not modified by a list expander.

The main use of "Followup-To" or "Wide-Reply-To" is when someone
sends an initial question to several groups, but wants further
discussion to continue in only one of the lists. This, to me,
seems a reasonable need.

Another use of this heading field is when you send a message to
a group, which you are yourself a member of. In such cases you
may wish to indicate that group replies go only to the list,
and not as personal mail directly to yourself. The "Reply-To"
field is obviously not suitable in this case, since you do not
want to redirect personal replies, only group replies.

--- --- ---

Within IETF-DRUMS, we are not meant to invent new facilities,
so to define a new "Wide-Reply-To" is probably out of scope.
What we should do, however, is to define more clearly the
meaning of "Reply-To".

The suggestion to define "Reply-To" as indicating the senders
wish is OK for me, but not enough. The sender can have different
wishes for where different kinds of replies should go.

Would the following definition be OK?

- The "Reply-To" heading field can be used if the sender of
- a message wants to indicate a wish that replies which would
- otherwise have been sent to the sender are sent somewhere
- else, such as to a secretary. The field is not meant to
- be used to redirect replies which would otherwise have
- been sent to a mailing list or to all recipients of a
- multi-recipient message, and mailing list expanders
- should not use this field to redirect replies to the list.

- The "Followup-To" heading field can occur in messages which
- either originated in Usenet News and have been gatewayed
- to e-mail, or which were submitted at the same time to both
- e-mail and Usenet News. The field indicates a suggestion
- by the sender that further discussion on an issue should
- take place in the newsgroup(s) given in the field, and not
- in other newsgroups to which the message was sent or as
- personal e-mail. If "Followup-To" indicates a newsgroup
- which is gatewayed to e-mail, such as when an e-mail
- mailing list shadows a newsgroup, then the "Followup-To"
- field is a suggestion that further discussion is to
- continue in both the newsgroup and its shadowing
- mailing list.

- Both "Reply-To" and "Followup-To" are only suggestions
- from the sender, the writer of a reply is free to send
- replies to other recipients than suggested by these two
- heading fields.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se> (Stockholm University and KTH)
for more info see URL: http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme