Bug 82887 – gentoo-java should not have Reply-to headers set

• Product: Gentoo Infrastructure
• Status: VERIFIED FIXED

[Description Andrew Cowie 2005-02-21 15:31:19 UTC]

The gentoo-java mailing list, as the primary place of interaction amongst the gentoo Java team, is a very dev focused list. 

Since it's not a newbie list, people using it understand the differences between Reply To Sender, Reply to List and Reply to All. It's been noted by several people that the fact that the mailing list automatically adds a Reply-to header set to the mailing list (as opposed to sender or better yet not touching it at all) is very frustrating as often people wish to make private remarks, and have to do silly cut and paste of addresses instead of simply Reply [to Sender].

Our community are well schooled in the benefits of replying to list whenever possible; it doesn't need to be forced. Please remove the override of Reply-To.

AfC
Sydney

[Comment 1 Karl Trygve Kalleberg (RETIRED) 2005-02-21 15:40:50 UTC]

I talked to dmwaters about this, and she told me to talk to lcars. But he's not responded to this issue on IRC yet. I'd very much like to see this nuisance fixed soon:)

[Comment 2 Andrea Barisani (RETIRED) 2005-02-21 23:48:19 UTC]

I personally use mutt and I don't know about other MUA but the user is asked about replying to the Reply-To address with mutt, there are no silly cut and paste to do.

I'm also pretty sure that all other MUA have a "Reply to sender" feature.

Honestly I can't see why this is a problem, a dev focused list should be able
to handle a perfectly normal header in MUA configuration imho ;)

Could you please give me a specific example about a MUA with this problem? (I'm interested in this also relating to other gentoo.org ml management)

[Comment 3 Andrew Cowie 2005-02-22 02:36:31 UTC]

Mutt is unusual (and possibly unique) in offering the user an option about whether or not to honour the Reply-To: header; Most other MUAs slavishly adhere to what is set in Reply-To. Specific examples I am aware of are Evolution (which I am using) and Outlook.

The result of our present mailing list configuration in gentoo-java is that Reply to Sender == Reply to List, which defeats the purpose of that feature in Evolution, anyway - and leads me to having to cut & paste.

[I note that gentoo-dev does not mess with Reply-To, and this is appreciated. gentoo-user does, but that's sort of understandable given the new users in there]

AfC

[Comment 4 Andrea Barisani (RETIRED) 2005-02-22 02:41:40 UTC]

gentoo-dev sets Reply-To just like all other ml afaik.

[Comment 5 Mads Martin Joergensen 2005-02-22 02:43:05 UTC]

Reply-To: munging is evil. Period. Get rid of it whereever possible.

Especially with Mutt it's unneeded since one can even configure mailing lists, and use 'l' as list reply.

[Comment 6 Andrea Barisani (RETIRED) 2005-02-22 02:45:02 UTC]

Fixed on gentoo-java, I'll keep the bug open for further comments/problems.  I'll close it in 24h.

[Comment 7 Andrea Barisani (RETIRED) 2005-02-24 04:03:25 UTC]

Well after a lot of people (and on-line docs) finally convinced me that reply-to is really a BAD idea I removed it from gentoo-user and gentoo-dev, of course this caused a major revolt on the userbase. It was my fault as well of course because the change wasn't announced but I didn't thought it was such a huge change and of course there's no reasonable way to "test" this or "prepare" the users for it...this would have happened in any case.  So I'm afraid that the reply-to is going to stay there on other lists, but I'll keep it on gentoo-java since your userbase appears to be smart enough ;). Closing this bug.

[Comment 8 Andrew Cowie 2005-02-24 07:04:55 UTC]

Yeah, I saw the bru ha ha on gentoo-user. Lame. Oh well, I appreciated your effort there, and thanks for leaving gentoo-java correct!

Best,

AfC
Sydeny