On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 03:54:55 +0100, Alexander Dalloz <ad+lists@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > To all who follow this list by getting the mails through a Gmail account > and who mail with it here. > > It seems that GMail - which appears to be popular among the subscribers > - is setting the sender email address automatically too as the reply-to > address, though this is not necessary. It even leads to the fact that > when replying to list mails by Gmail account users the answer goes both > to the list (which is made reply-to address by the list manager > software) as well to the GMail account. I am receiving more and more > answers to my replies to Gmail account users directly to my personal > address, rather than the mail should have been addressed to the list. It > is ok for me to get personal mail, as long as I do not have the > impression that it should be list subject. So Gmail account users please > pay attention when continuing conversion of a list debate that the > recipient of your mail is the list and not someone who replied to your > list mail. This is valid too for others having set their sender address > explicitly as their reply-to address. Btw. such a setting is not > necessary if both addresses do not differ and is even contra productive. > Unfortunately Gmail users can't change that setting I guess. > > Thanks for attention. > > Alexander > Yes, what happens is that two copies of the message goes out, but there is a configurable option on the list to only send one copy if the user's email appears in the To: or Cc: fields. This allows the one going directly to the user to go through (as the list has no control over that) and does not send the email from the list. Thus, when a user replies to the email (without thinking), it goes only to the sender since it did not come from the list. I prefer to get the personal email since it makes it easier to tell when someone has replied to my message. I don't see how anyone would keep track of it otherwise, but they must do it somehow. I know you can set your the Reply-To manually, but I'm not sure what it would do with a blank email. If you don't like this feature and have gmail, you might try changing to see what happens. I am on another list that does not do the Reply-To spoofing, and I like this much better. To reply to the email, you use the Reply to All option and the email goes to the list and the author. I don't think this would work very well with as many "newbies" as there are, and no doubt there would be many emails not sent to the list that were meant to be (by experienced users as well as newbies, I'm sure). I don't want to start a flame war, just pointing out that there are alternatives. The moral here is don't just hit reply, but actually think and make sure you are sending to whom you want to send. This goes for any email communications. A little thinking now could save you from a lot of mess later. Jonathan
