TMDA (was Re: best new video cards for linux?)

[jabr at abreau.net (John Abreau)]

On Thu, 2003-07-10 at 15:03, Jerry Feldman wrote:

> The list is set up to reply to the poster of the list by default. For
> most listserv software, this is the default out of the box
> configuration. The list owner can easily change that to set the from and
> reply-to back to the list. This is a discussion that has been ongoing
> for as long as we have been running listservs back at the old BCS
> (probably 1992). 
> The intent of the current configuration is that the default reply goes
> back to the poster to reduce list traffic. If one responds and wants to
> respond to the list itself, then edit the To: line. 

The "replyto" issue pops up here periodically, and both sides can 
make plausible arguments in their favor. Someone once suggested 
voting on it, which would probably turn into a Florida tie, and 
we'd likely see repeated calls for votes, resulting in the list 
behavior changing back and forth periodically. 

I felt that inconsistent behavior like that would be far worse than 
any downside from either position, so I essentially made an arbitrary 
one-time decision on it. 

I based my decision on the basis of privacy and failure modes:

* In the absence of a replyto header, something that should have 
  been public might accidentally be sent privately. To recover 
  from the error, the sender can simply resend it. 

* With a replyto header, something that should have been private 
  might accidentally be sent to the public list. To recover from 
  this error, the sender would have to convince hundreds of list 
  recipients to delete the message from their mailboxesd without 
  reading it, and the sender could never be 100% sure that everyone 
  had complied. 


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