Errors-to: owner-drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Sender: Chris Newman <chrisn+@CMU.EDU>
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 16:35:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: Chris Newman <chrisn+@CMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: "Reply-To" 
To: drums@CS.UTK.EDU
In-Reply-To: <199508161846.OAA24625@wilma.cs.utk.edu>
References: <199508161846.OAA24625@wilma.cs.utk.edu>
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Message-ID: <808605303.21217.0@nifty.andrew.cmu.edu>

 Keith Moore <moore@CS.UTK.EDU> writes:
> I disagree with the premise of the wide-reply-to draft: which is that
> you need a separate way to specify "reply to sender" from
> "reply to all other recipients".  The most common reason for needing
> to specify them separately seems to be because people want to use
> Reply-to instead of From to specify their real mailbox. 

I disagree with your identification of the most common reason.  I
decide which of those to functions to use based on whether I'm adding
to the group discussion, or sending a private note to the author.  And
I do both regularly.

Look at news as an example of how mailing lists should be dealt with.
News has distinct "reply-to" and "followup-to" headers both of which
have very clear meanings and both of which are useful.  The problem
with mailing lists is that they have no "followup-to" equivalent, so
people misuse "reply-to" for that purpose.

People will continue to use "reply-to" as the mailing list equivalent
to "followup-to" until an alternative is available.  We can either
live with the status quo, or provide the desired alternative.
-----
Chris Newman <chrisn+@cmu.edu>, http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~nifty/
The worst thing about censorship is: [censored]