Reply-to netiquette (was [META] please start To: with gnupg-users at gnupg.org...)

[Peter Lebbing]

On 31/01/12 00:09, John Clizbe wrote:
> On the Netiquette part of this thread, I too set a Reply-To header that seems at
> least one person regularly ignores. Please don't CC me on list replies. One copy
> is enough.

Well, I don't know if you refer to me, my apologies if so. I know how that comes
about when /I/ reply to a mail you write.

Thunderbird doesn't show me your Reply-To: header. Not even if I press 
"View->Headers->All"! It took me some time to find the circumstances under which 
this happens. It turns out that if To: and Reply-To: have the same e-mail 
address, Reply-To: is silently dropped. And this is exactly the case with your 
messages.

I just press the button "reply all", and Thunderbird addresses a CC: to you.
Remember I haven't seen your Reply-To header, so I can't take a decision on what
it means myself, only Thunderbird gets to do that.

If this dropping of Reply-To: is a bug, and fixed, then hopefully I'll notice it 
and remove a CC: if the person I'm responding to has "Reply-To: gnupg-users..." 
set. But it's still something that can easily be overlooked.

If I press "reply to list", even people who would want a CC: when I reply to
their message will not get one. I was under the impression "reply to all" was
the convention here on gnupg-users. Isn't it?

I read Dan J Bernsteins words on Reply-To and his propositions, Mail-Followup-To
etcetera. I'm going to be blunt here: it's a pity DJB came up with these,
because I think a less controversial person would have much more chance of
getting it into an RFC. I don't want to spark a pro- and contra-DJB discussion
here, so please take a few breaths before you reply.

There should be mail headers for:
- List customs: reply all/reply list
- Personal preferences overriding list customs: do you want CC:'s?

Either that, or we should all exclusively use Usenet ;). Do away with the
concept of mailing list altogether.

Peter.

PS: I'm running Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.24) 
Gecko/20111114 Icedove/3.1.16, as you can see in the headers ;). On Debian wheezy.

-- 
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