> I inherited a listserv list which has "Reply-to" set to "List,Ignore".
> I'm trying to figure out what this does, and what the legal values
> for "Reply-to" might be, and what the effect is.
> To shorten a long story, it's a list where some of the traffic
> is email games, and when a player replies to the list instead of to
> the poster, it can damage the results of the game.  We want to avoid
> accidents.
 
For your games that setting should prevent "accidents" (but you will
still have brain-dead mail systems out there and the occaisional
creative joker).
Reply-to: keyword specifies what LISTSERV puts in that field when the
posting is distributed.  List,Ignore means it puts in only the list
address, regardless of whether there is a Reply-to: field in the
original or not.  List,Respect would allow the field to vary on
different messages; if the original had no Reply-to: field the
distributed message would have only the list in that field, though
it should still have the From: field of the originator.  If the person
puts in a Reply-to: field which matches that of the From: there would
be only the from when distributed, no Reply-to: field (at least with
short headers).  If there is a Reply-to: field which does not match
the From: field in the original, you will have both the From: and the
Reply-to: of the original, but again the list will not be mentioned
in the Reply-to: field.
 
Another option which might work for you would be Both,Ignore (with
Both,Respect you would have the same problem as with List,Respect).
With this, when someone hits his automagical Reply button the same
message would be sent to the list and to the originator of the message
being replied to.
 
All this assumes that everyone's mail system works properly, respects
fields, does things as the rules say to do them, etc.  If you have
people with gonzo mailers all bets are off; you can play with the
keywords until your great-great grandchildren plant you in the back
yard and it still will not work, if your subscribers do not learn how to
control the blasted things which are supposed to be so easy to use.
And they are easy to use.  Problem is they don't work properly.
 
Douglas