Date: 16 Sep 1997 19:50:15 -0000
Message-ID: <19970916195015.24997.qmail@koobera.math.uic.edu>
From: "D. J. Bernstein" <djb@koobera.math.uic.edu>
To: drums@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: Issues from the past few weeks
Reply-To-Author: djb@koobera.math.uic.edu
Reply-To-All: drums@cs.utk.edu

> Eg: for this message (which is going to at least dozens
> of people), the only reasonable reply is to send to the drums mailing list.

Users often decide to send messages back to the author. You may think
that this is ``unreasonable'' or ``not a reply''; nevertheless it is a
common function that can and should be automated.

Users often decide to send messages to everybody. This, too, is a common
function that can and should be automated.

Obviously a single Reply-To field can't cover both of these functions:
different users often make different decisions about the same message.

> > The format was (obviously, and according to RFC 822) based on memos. But
> > memos rarely contain sender addresses, or recipient addresses, or reply
> > addresses, or carbon-copy information, or exact dates with time zones.
> They actually tend to include much of that

No. They usually contain sender _names_ and recipient _names_. They
rarely contain _addresses_. Example:

   From: Elz
   To: DRUMS

These fields are for human consumption.

---Dan
Set up a new mailing list in a single command. http://pobox.com/~djb/ezmlm.html