At Sun, 19 Dec 2021 20:23:20 -0500, Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost> wrote:
Subject: Re: Release
>
> What's messy is the idea that when replying to the list one should send
> to *only* the list. That has some merit, but the standards are murkier
> (Mail-Followup-To:) and implementation of them somewhat sparse.
Well, no, there's nothing murky about it _in_the_standards_, even going
all of the way back to RFC-822. It's called "Reply-To":
4.4.3. REPLY-TO / RESENT-REPLY-TO
This field provides a general mechanism for indicating any
mailbox(es) to which responses are to be sent.
[[ ... ]]
A
somewhat different use may be of some help to "text message
teleconferencing" groups equipped with automatic distribution
services: include the address of that service in the "Reply-
To" field of all messages submitted to the teleconference;
then participants can "reply" to conference submissions to
guarantee the correct distribution of any submission of their
own.
(To be even more pedantic, "Mail-Followup-To", and the even more bogus
"mail-reply-to" are stupid inventions by people who didn't understand
RFC 822 clearly enough, and were, in some part, clueless attempts to
abuse Usenet headers that were somewhat over-specified again by people
who apparently didn't understand RFC 822 clearly enough. Of course some
of the problem was exacerbated by software that had been designed and
implemented by people who didn't understand (or maybe appreciate) RFC
822 clearly enough, which sadly included BSD mail and some mailing list
software.)
--
Greg A. Woods <gwoods%acm.org@localhost>
Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack <woods%robohack.ca@localhost>
Planix, Inc. <woods%planix.com@localhost> Avoncote Farms <woods%avoncote.ca@localhost>
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