BLOCK TOM MARGRAVE PLEASE]

[Duston, Hal]

Monty,

> Monty J. Harder [mailto:dmonster at juno.com] wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 04 Jul 2000 23:31:53 -0500 I wrote:
> 
> > The From header was NOT munged.  It originated with 
> 
> 
>   OK.  We have a semantics problem.  When I send a message to 
> the list, that is one transaction....  
> 
> > 
> > Yes, it did come from Lowell, the list certainly didn't type it.  
> 
> There are spambots that don't "type" anything, but nobody would
> seriously suggest that they don't originate mail.

But the list didn't originate the mail.

> 
> > Majordomo is just another server in between Lowell and you, and 
> > servers are only supposed to add a new received line at the top 
> > of the email to indicate that they processed it.
> 
> ...When it adds:
> 
--- SNIP KCLUG signature block SNIP ---
> 
> at the bottom, it has changed the message body.  When it 
> sends x copies of the message back out, addressed To: the 
> various members of the list, with the body change, it is 
> sending a new message out, which is =actually= from the list 
> server, not from the person who posted it to the list.  You 
> think this "just another server", but I don't.

I think of it as a reflecter.  It is re-sending the original 
email without changing the To:.  The To: is put on the at the 
point of origin.  The ONLY header changed right here is 
Reply-to.  The server also adds a received line. Yes, it adds
a sig-block on the end just like Juno.

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Juno changed the body to add this, but doesn't change the Reply-to:

> 
> > For some advocacy see
> > http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html
> 
> 
> <q>
> Reply-To munging does not benefit the user with a reasonable mailer.
> People want to munge Reply-To headers to make "reply back to 
> the list" easy. But it already is easy. Reasonable mail programs 
> have two separate ``reply'' commands: one that replies directly to 
> the author of a message, and another that replies to the author plus 
> all of the list recipients.  Even the lowly Berkeley Mail command 
> has had this for about a decade. 
> </q>
> 
>   Well, there are several problems with this idea.  First, I 
> don't see in the headers where the list recipients are listed 
> (although the fact that the original message was to: kclug at kclug.org 
> might allow a mail program to make some assumptions) but even 
> if I did, if someone responded to a stale message by replying 
> to the list of addresses that happened to have been subscribed 
> at the time, they'd be including some who'd unsubbed later 
> (perhaps to use a different account).

No there isn't a list of subscribers in the email.  The reply 
button sends to the address in the Reply-to: line.  The replyall 
button sends to the address in the Reply-to: line PLUS the address 
in the To: line i.e. the list.  So, if we no longer munged the 
Reply-to, pressing reply would go only to the original author, 
while pressing replyall would also go to the list.  Pretty 
easy if you ask me.

--- SNIP other advocacy link and response SNIP ---

>   So, in order to make it perfectly clear what is going on, 
> I guess we need =another= header line, like "Reply-To-List", 
> which would be managed by the list server itself.  Then all 
> we need to do is get all the software to recognize and use 
> it.... Geez.  
> 

The replyall button already does this, see above.

Hal Duston
hald at sound.net