[Discuss] DMARC issue, Yahoo and beyond

[Derek Martin]

On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 02:10:48PM -0400, Richard Pieri wrote:
> Derek Martin wrote:
> > If a mailing list--which is already a special case of e-mail
> > usage--*ADDS* a reply-to header to an e-mail which matches the from
> > header of the message, when none previously existed, the net effect is
> > nil: respondants will (assuming they even honor reply-to, which is not
> 
> It most certainly is problematic. 

You are not paying attention.

> The net effect is that it causes good mail programs to behave
> inconsistently. When set to the list it breaks reply to author
> functions in good mail programs (Elm, Pine and their derivatives;
> Thunderbird and Seamonkey, and even the venerable Berkeley Mail to
> name a few). When set to the original author it breaks reply to list
> and reply to all functions in those same programs.
[...] 
> Thoughtless? Hardly. I've thought about this off and on for far too long.

Here's why it IS thoughtless: You're talking about the general case of
lists setting the reply-to header to the *list* address.  I'm talking
about setting it to the *sender's* address.  The former is very bad,
for the reasons you suggest.  The latter has NONE of the effects you
described.

Moreover, if your "good mail programs" obey the correct headers
(List-Post and/or Mail-Followup-To), which all of the clients you 
named do AFAIK, then setting reply-to has *absolutely no effect* on
list-reply functionality, ever.

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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