Date   : Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:59:43 +0100
From   : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: Who the message is from...

Kevin Bracey wrote:

> the minute - only three others, and none of them mess around with 
> Reply-To (or From as you originally suggested).

One or the other, whichever is the best. I think possibly Reply-To, as 
that can override sender's email without obliterating it.


> So what is it logical for "Reply to All" to do if "Reply" is replying to 
> the list?

Just looked, as I tend to ignore "Reply to All". Double-edged sword. It 
will reply to the list as desired, but it will also reply to the sender 
of the message. Thus, it is beneficial for ME as a one-button option to 
reply to the mailing list, but it helps NOBODY else as the person I 
reply to will get a copy privately plus a copy off the list. Dupes 
abound. Are you suggesting this is preferable?


> there are clients out there that lack "Reply to All" that might explain 
> why this keeps coming up.

Let's put it this way. WHO IS THE SENDER OF THE MESSAGE?

In logical terms, the sender of the message is NOT the person that wrote 
it, it is the mailing list. You did not write this message to ME, you 
wrote it to the mailing list, which then disseminated it to everybody 
thus subscribed. Therefore, the origin of the message should rightly be 
the mailing list, and Reply should rightly post back to the mailing list.


> Are you really in a situation that when you get a message with 
> "BBC-Micro" in the subject you're assuming that it's from the list and 
> manually typing in the list address to reply? I can see that's 
> dangerous, but I'm still not quite sure why you're having to resort to that.

1. Because I've only just examined the headers in detail (Thunderbird is 
'broken' in that there's no scrollbar for long headers)
and
2. It's a stop-gap in a wild fantasy that the list might be corrected! :-)


> I've just checked, and you're using Thunderbird like me. You've got 
> "Reply to All". So what's the problem?

Uhhh... That Reply DOESN'T work?

I've used "Reply to All" for this message. Therefore you'll see it 
twice. To me, that's not acceptable.


> Surely everyone's got filters set up to send list messages to somewhere 
> separate from private messages?

I'll be tweaking my filter to use the list header. That ought to work 
better! :-)


 > And if that filter can't distinguish between private messages and list
 > messages, you're in danger of making a fool of yourself, I guess.

As opposed to the Reply-To (or whatever) eing set in such a way that it 
is, if you'll excuse my language, bloody obvious WITHOUT the need to 
devise filters?


> A list-aware mail client will offer the same three buttons

And how many of these are there, versus how many "traditional" clients 
exist? Had an offline poke around Outlook Express.
So... OE doesn't appear to do it, nor does Thunderbird. I'd reckon that 
makes up a pretty substantial sector of the market share of email client 
use.


 > After 8 years. They don't like to rush these things...

:-)


Best wishes,

Rick.

-- 
Rick Murray, eeePC901 & ADSL WiFI'd into it, all ETLAs!
BBC B: DNFS, 2 x 5.25" floppies, EPROM prog, Acorn TTX
E01S FileStore, A3000/A5000/RiscPC/various PCs/blahblah...
 >> TO PRIVATE MAIL ME, REMOVE [BBC-Micro] FROM SUBJECT <<