ADMIN: Re: replies?

[Peter Rauch]

On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Bill Shear wrote:
> At least on my machine, the "reply" function sends some replies meant for
> TAXACOM only to the sender of the original message, and not the entire list.

Your email program will address "replies" to whatever it is
configured to send them to, which might take the address from the
"From:" field, or from the "Reply-To:" field, or even from the
"X-From:" and/or "Cc:" fields (and possibly, your program allows
you the user to reconfigure it to pick up the address from some
other header field than the default).

> In some messages, the TAXACOM address appears in the "reply to" line, and
> in others, that of the original sender only.

In _all_ Taxacom messages, the "Reply-To:" field contains the
address of the _sender_ (i.e., the author) of the message. Even
if the sender prepares his message with another email address in
his outgoing "Reply-To:" field, Taxacom will not "respect" that
address, but will replace it with the _sender's_ email address.
That is the way Taxacom is currently configured (for you LISTSERV
aficionados, Reply-to= Sender,Ignore) *.

> Thus TAXACOMers may be missing many posts.

Taxacomers may be missing _replies_ to posts --those replies that
the replier may have unintentionally addressed only to the
original author (sender), repliers who are perhaps unaware about
how their email program works with respect to addressing
"replies".  Ultimately, it is up to each person to determine how
their email program behaves, and to make sure that their outgoing
"replies" are addressed to the _intended_ addressee(s).

> Or am I unique in this respect?

Only to the degree that your email software might be
more or less configurable than the next person's.

> Can anything be done about this by the TAXACOM owners?

Taxacom could be reconfigured so that the default email address
which LISTSERV inserts into all the Taxacom postings is
taxacom at ... rather than <sender>@.... This would probably cause
more replies sent from subscribers to go back to taxacom rather
than back to the original sender. But, ultimately --like I
said--, it is up to the person replying to know how his own email
program works, because some email programs ignore the "Reply-To:"
field and insert the address of the "From:" field (i.e., the
original sender), and it would be up to those individuals to
reconfigure their email programs to use the "Reply-To" field.

Belt and suspenders? Always check the "To:" address in your
outgoing reply before you press the SEND key. And, if your email
program does/can not display the "To:" field, get a better
program.

Peter

* Taxacom is configured this way at the request of the list's
owner, who intended to help a few careless souls save face when
the compose a reply intended only for the eyes of the original
author, but which _embarrassingly_ ends up on Taxacom because the
sender doesn't pay attention to what the default "Reply-To:"
field was. I say --let 'em live and learn! But, I was out-voted
:>)