List administrivia

[Randall R Schulz]

Samuel,

"Munging" is manipulating or altering (also bending, spindling and / or 
mutilating).

The reason a mildly disparaging term is used is that it's a bad thing to 
do, mostly because "Reply-To:" is for mail _originators_, not mail list 
servers or any other agent between sender and ultimate receiver(s). As you 
say, some posters to this list include a "Reply-To:," usually in an effort 
to deflect replies away from their personal email address when sending to 
this list.

As Chris Faylor recently pointed out, that's what "Mail-Followup-To:" is 
for, and the Cygwin list server does inject that header.

Given the grievously common desire to have responsibility for properly 
directing one's mail removed from the replying party, reflected in the 
all-too-common request for and the horrifically common use of "Reply-To:" 
munging, I repeat this reference to the definitive and now-classic treatise 
on the evilness of "Reply-To:" munging in mail (or mailing list) servers:

<http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html>

Randall Schulz
Mountain View, CA USA


At 17:30 2002-08-03, Samuel wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Nicholas Wourms" <nwourms@yahoo.com>
>To: <cygwin@cygwin.com>
>Sent: Saturday, August 03, 2002 4:56 AM
>Subject: Re: List administrivia
>
>
> > This list doesn't engage in Reply-To: munging.
>
>
>Yes, the list does not.
>
>I am not sure I understand what "munging" is but some list members do use
>"Reply-To" in their headers.


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