At 11:43 AM -0500 11/14/00, Andrzej Kajetanowicz is rumored to have typed:
This is almost impossible with list that is growing and changing.
Um, nothing personal, but I've been running mailing lists for a _long_ time, and there is no problem writing and using boilerplate responses; one doesn't need to spend a lot of time sending personal responses to every comment or complaint - if you do, you'll drive yourself insane within the year. (And lists are _always_ growing and changing...or they're dying.)
The problem is that Reply-to-All sends message to the list and to the author. People do not want to get two messages one from the list and another directly from sender.
This is an excuse, and a silly one at that. If a user doesn't want two letters sent, they may easily change the To: address. They can either do it the easy way (Reply-To-All), or the intelligent way (actually selecting the address to which their message should go). Neither of these methods requires the munging of a Reply-To header field - the only one that does is the "I don't want to have to think and just want everything I type no matter how innane to immediately go to a few thousand of my most intimate friends" method.
Until we have button "Reply-to-the-List-Only" users will be confused beacuse there are always new users.
...who need to learn, not be coddled. They don't _need_ a "button," they need to understand how email works. (Besides, using your philosophy, a "Reply-to-the-List-Only" choice would make their lives _harder,_ since it would be yet another choice they are unable or unwilling to make.)
Personally, I've discovered that the more you expect from your subscribers, the more you will receive. And the less you expect, the less you'll get.
Later they complain on the list that their messages are not getting to the list not knowing that reply sends only to the author.
(*sigh*) In the first place, many messages shouldn't go to the list anyway, and _should_ go only to the poster (I can easily say this, not even knowing what subject your list deals with - like it or not, they are all the same in mechanics if not in topic). In the second place, we have cut-and-paste, drag-and-drop, and about a gadzillion other methods to change the address on an email message. And in the third place, I would certainly not allow whining about how the list is operated to reach the list - this is a matter between subscriber and list maintainer, and is not a matter for debate on the list. (If your topic is widgets, that's what the list talks about, not what a bad person the maintainer is because s/he won't add an annoying listname to the subject or something.)
If the user is too clueless to figure out how to send an email to the list, they frankly don't deserve to contribute to the list. They should be forced to actually _think_ about whether their message should go to the list, not coddled by munging Reply-To: headers.
Of course, if you don't _care_ about the quality of your list, and are only concerned about the _quantity_ of messages that people send to the list, then none of this applies, and you would want to encourage the brain-damaged to quote entire messages with a "Me, too!" reply. In that case, munging the Reply-To: header field is almost manditory.
By the way, since this has nothing to do with SmartList directly, and only touches philosophical disagreements on how a mailing list should be managed, I will not be responding on this topic to the SmartList mailing list again. I will cheerfully debate the matter in private email, but this "ain't got nuthin' to do" with configuring SmartList (since the precise changes required to effect this change, which I clearly think is wrong-headed, have been listed by others).
Again, I disagree with certain rabid quarters that munging a Reply-To header field is a bad thing that will cause the downfall of civilization as we know it; it isn't. It is simply a waste of time and energy, and coddles the clueless instead of asking them to be responsible enough for themselves to actually decide to what address their message should go. I know, I know, I ask too much expecting that people would actually spend a moment glancing at the To: header field before sending their message...how dare I presume the average Internet user is that responsible?
Charlie