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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Ideas on Reply-To-List
From:       Casey Allen Shobe <cshobe () softhome ! net>
Date:       2003-12-03 21:02:58
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On Sat, November 29 2003 09:58, Ingo Klöcker wrote:
> > That's also why mailinglists set Reply-To headers to promote the idea
> > that discussions stay on the mailinglist instead of becoming 1:1
> > chats. Unless of course you, as a mailinglist admin, don't want
> > discussion to happen on a particular mailinglist, then you don't set
> > it.
>
> That's a hack for dumb email clients which don't provide Reply to
> Mailing-list functionality.

Correct.  Reply-To was originally used for users who wanted any replies to be 
sent to an alternate E-mail address (i.e. when they sent mail from an address 
not accessible from outside of an intranet).  Since many E-Mail clients do 
not have the Reply to ML functionality, many MLs decided to use this header 
(in some cases stripping out the original Reply-To) for their own purposes to 
make their ML more usable by users of insufficient mail clients.

But that's no reason for KMail to limit itself just because the most popular 
choice for MLs at present is to set a Reply-To.  I was a bit weirded out at 
first when my R key stopped working as it had, but having quickly learned the 
L key I have come to appreciate the new behavior.

If popular mail clients do the "right" thing by implementing reply-to-list one 
way or another (whether it's default or not), then MLs can stop doing the 
"wrong" thing by mangling Reply-To headers.

In my opinion, as a user, if I simply press R and pay no attention to the To 
addresses, a mistake of it being sent to only one user is much better than a 
mistake of sending something to many users...and frustrated users would 
quickly learn of the L option.

I do think the Reply to mailing-list button should be added to the default 
toolbar in KMail for the 3.2 release though.  However I don't understand why 
exactly the button is not disabled when viewing an E-Mail without ML 
information, and even pressing L seems to send a Reply to Sender when it is 
pressed when viewing such a message -- my opinion on that is that the button 
and keyboard shortcut should be disabled for messages containing no ML 
information.

I've always been a bit in the dark about the Mailing List post address and 
folder contains a mailing list option in the folder properties though.

I remember at one point in time, setting this value made the R key reply to 
list instead of not, but then it stopped appearing to do anything, and I have 
no idea if/what it does now because I stopped going through the bother when 
it stopped working some time ago.  Configuration dialogs really need more 
descriptive tooltips and whatsThis text...  In the meanwhile, could someone 
please explain to me what this option does at the current point in time?

-- 
Casey Allen Shobe
cshobe@softhome.net
Jabber: sigthor@jabber.org; ICQ: 1494523; AIM/Yahoo: SomeLinuxGuy
Despite the rising cost of living, it remains a popular activity.
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