Message-Id: <199804062053.QAA24285@spot.cs.utk.edu>
From: Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>
To: Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se>
cc: IETF working group on revision of mail standards <drums@cs.utk.edu>,
        moore@lust.cs.utk.edu, moore@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: implementation difficulty 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 06 Apr 1998 15:46:28 +0200."
             <v04003a13b14e8af643fa@[130.237.150.138]> 
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Date: Mon, 06 Apr 1998 16:53:33 -0400
Sender: moore@cs.utk.edu

> Would it be possible to change "Dont-Cc-Author-When-Replying-To" to
> "Dont-Send-Group-Replies-Directly-To"?

Dont-Cc-Author-When-Replying-To was not intended as a substitute for
Mail-Followup-To, but rather to allow a clean separation of function
between:

a) establishing a new discussion context that can be used for
   responses, and
b) discouraging duplicate reply messages

Mail-Followup-To works well for the former;
Dont-Cc-Author-When-Replying-To works well for the latter.  If
Mail-Followup-To is used for both, it makes it more difficult for the
responder's user agent to distinguish the two, and therefore more
difficlut for the UA to inform the responder that the subject message
author has requested a new discussion context.

The purpose of Mail-Followup-To should be to allow the author to
suggest a new "discussion context" to be used for responses to the
message.  This discussion context might or might not coincide with the
responder's notion of "the group" or "all" or "everyone" and should
not be confused with it.

Dont-Send-Group-Replies-Directly-To would be less functional than
Dont-Cc-Author-When-Replying-To + Mail-Followup-To, for the following
reasons:

a) it wouldn't provide the desired separation of function
b) it would limit the "new discussion context" to some subset of 
   the original recipients, and
c) it would tie the "new discussion context" to the responder's 
   notion of "group reply".

> With that change, the "Dont-Send-Group-Replies-Directly-To" would be
> an acceptable replacement to "Mail-Followup-To". 

This is only true if you think that the only purpose of
Mail-Followup-To is to prevent duplicate replies.  

> A difference between "Mail-Followup-To" and
> "Dont-Send-Group-Replies-Directly-To" is that with
> "Dont-Send-Group-Replies-Directly-To", mailing lists will not
> have a need to modify it, and even when mailing lists have
> mudget "Reply-To", "Dont-Send-Group-Replies-Directly-To"
> will usually work and have the indented effect.

Mailing lists shouldn't be modifying these headers in any case.  It's
fine for a list to add a separate header field that basically says "to
reply to the list via which you received this message, use address
X@Y". But neither the message author nor the mailing list should be
redefining the responder's notion of "group reply".  

(OTOH, if a list wants to request that responses NOT be sent to the
list, again via a separate header field, that would be reasonable.
But most lists seem to want replies to go to the list, rather than
just to the author.)

Keith