Back in the good old days of the Internet, before the advent of
POP clients and attachments, there was a "To" line and a "From"
line in the message header. Your mail program offered you two
choices: reply to everyone who got the original message, and
reply to originator only.
You had to make the choice, as there was no default.
Today, with the advent of the "Reply-To" line and a single "Reply"
button on GUI mail clients (Outlook, Eudora, Netscrape Mail), the
default is chosen for you. Now, even if you use a "legacy" mail
program like I do, there is no distinction made between reply to
originator and reply to everyone. The Reply-To line is in control.
The result is exemplified in at least two dimensions in yesterday's
personal-made-public exchange between Riley and Tom, and this
morning, when I fell prey to the same problem in my response to
Paul Hirsh's request for a change to digest.
Riley has written and asked that I change the default Reply-To line
from everyone to originator. This being a public list, I am putting
it to a vote.
Each setting has its positive and negative aspects.
With the Reply-To set to everyone (current state), the possibility
that messages intended for one person will to out to the list.
With Reply-To set to originator only, there is a reduced risk that
personal messages will be made public but there is an increased
likelihood that messages intended for the entire list will only go
to the originator.
(BTW: I think that the change in setting is, in large part,
responsible for the increase in list traffic because messages
intended for the list but sent only to the originator under the
old regiem, are now coming to everyone - which may or may not be a
"Good Thing" (TM) depending on your POV.)
If this issue interests you one way or another, please vote for one
of the following:
Reply-To line set to return responses to the list (public)
Reply-To line set to return responses to the originator (private)
Which say ye?
bj
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 03 2003 - 09:09:51 PST