To: DRUMS WG <drums@cs.utk.edu>
Subject: Re: A different approach to the Reply-To problem
References: <13798.890436639@foxharp.boston.ma.us>
From: Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>
In-Reply-To: Paul Fox's message of "Fri, 20 Mar 1998 18:30:39 -0500"
Date: 20 Mar 1998 17:00:15 -0800
Message-ID: <m37m5o97ts.fsf@windlord.Stanford.EDU>
Lines: 25

Paul Fox <pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us> writes:

> it's exactly because changing the From header is just a little bit akin
> to lying that i use Reply-to as Personal-reply-to.  if i receive a
> message at address A, and reply to it, and set From to address B because
> that's where i want them to send the next reply, then i have (in some
> small sense) told them that i was reading mail addressed to B when i got
> their mail, since that's what "From" said.  i may be implying that i was
> "somewhere else" when i read the original mail.

And why is it anyone else's business where you are when you're responding
to their mail, how their mail got to you, what mailbox you're reading it
out of, or what system it was on?

I change my From header depending on where I'm sending mail to and what
the topic of the mail is.  All the return mail goes to the same place,
where I use filters to split it out based on the address it was sent to.
I have no intention of changing this behavior; it works, it functions
correctly with listservs and the like that restrict posting to
subscribers, and it has saved me lots of hassles.  The actual sender is
documented in the Sender header if that information is necessary to
someone.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)         <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>