To: IETF working group on revision of mail standards <drums@cs.utk.edu>
Subject: Re: Need for multiple reply destination sets? 
In-Reply-To: Jacob Palme's message of "Sun, 22 Mar 1998 18:48:57 +0100."
References: Jacob Palme's message of "Sat, 21 Mar 1998 12:52:27 +0100." Jacob Palme's message of "Fri, 20 Mar 1998 20:48:53 +0100." Your message of "Thu, 19 Mar 1998 21:42:17 +0100." <v04003a02b13728de7ec2@[130.237.159.161]> <v04003a10b1387461800d@[130.237.150.138]> <v04003a17b139591a4130@[130.237.150.138]>  <v04003a24b13af455e6b8@[130.237.150.138]> 
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Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 15:12:55 +1100
Message-Id: <18530.890626375@munnari.OZ.AU>
From: Robert Elz <kre@munnari.OZ.AU>

    Date:        Sun, 22 Mar 1998 18:48:57 +0100
    From:        Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se>
    Message-ID:  <v04003a24b13af455e6b8@[130.237.150.138]>

  | That might then be a reason for the format
  | Reply-Sets: personal: Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se>;

(etc) - Yes, if you member, that format (more or less) is in my Reply-To
draft (not for Reply-To itself of course, but for a new header).

  | I do not understand this. Why is one kind of reply more "normal" than
  | another kind of reply?

Because, in almost all cases, there is one reply which is the expected one
as a reply to the message - eg: here, replies to this group discussion go to
the list, that's where they're expected.

  | Take a message with a proposal for a text in
  | a standard, where one kind of reply might be minor spelling
  | errors, typically sent only to the author, and another kind could
  | be serious functionality issues, typically sent to the list.

Personally I prefer all such comments to go to the same place (but with
replies to the "here are the spelling mistakes" messages directed into
oblivion, or just to the author of that message).   If someone goes to
the trouble to send in a list of spelling/grammar corrections to a document
sent to a list I'm on, I'd like to see it, so I can avoid duplicating the
work, and so the author doesn't have to read all the same noise multiple times.

Similarly, what one person views as a minor wording cleanup to aid in
better comprehension, someone else sees as a major change to the sense of
the document.

If document editing is what is being done, then replies about the document
should all go to the same place, they're all on topic for current work of
the list.

On the other hand, if someone wants to send spelling corrections about this
message (I'm sure there will be several opportunities), that would not be
a reply to this message at all, it isn't on topic, it would simply be a new
message inspired by this one.  I am not looking for such responses at all,
and don't expect the Reply-To header (or any other) to cover that case.
    
kre