Re: Replies to the list

[D'Arcy J.M. Cain]

On Mon, 30 Aug 2010 22:32:52 -0500
Tim McNamara <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Just hit "reply to all".
> 
> Which ends up sending a useless extra copy to the OP, like you will 

I also think that replies should be set to the list but there are
options to solve this problem.  After all, even if replies go to the
list many people always use reply-all anyway.  I do.  One reason is that
users can filter mail based on the fact that they are in the To or Cc
field so that they can deal more rapidly with responses to the
discussions that they have been involved in already.  The other reason
is to deal with messages where the other person has replied to all.

Others have said, change your options.  I'm pretty sure that the
option to avoid duplicates is the default on mailman lists like this
one anyway.

However, that's not ideal.  That means that you get the direct one and
not the one from the list and it may not be filtered properly.  The
direct one does not have the List ID header so it may get caught by a
spam filter where list traffic is whitelisted.

I believe that the optimal solution is to have replies go to the list
and urge everyone to use Reply to all.  Let the list handle it.  In the
cases where someone does hit Reply all and you get two copies, make
sure that your email client filters out duplicates.  Both copies should
have the same message ID.  With procmail this is simple.

:0 Wh: msgid.lock
| formail -D 65536 $HOME/.msgid.cache

Note that if you reply to all on this message I will get two copies one
of which I will discard at delivery time.  If I reply to all to that
response then it will work correctly whether I get the list one or your
direct one.

Summary:  The list should set replies to the list (for people who
forget to reply to all) and users should be urged to reply to all.

-- 
D'Arcy J.M. Cain
Big Smoke Music
http://BigSmokeMusic.com/