--On Tuesday, January 19, 1999, 6:22 PM -0800 Gary VanderMolen
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I use 'Reply to All' instead of 'Reply' when replying to list mail.
> It gets very consistent results regardless of how a particular list is
> set up. With membership in a dozen lists, I don't try to remember how each
> is set up with respect to "Reply-To".

There could be a couple of problems with this approach, depending on how
your mail client has implemented this feature and how the list is
configured.  In some cases, it would reply to both the list address and the
sender's address, and the sender would then get two copies of your reply.
In the "Reply-To= List" scenario, this would simply be annoying to the
sender, but in the "Reply-To= Sender" scenario, it may be violating the
list guidlines to send replies back to the list.

My recommendation is to simply use the normal Reply command, then verify
that your mail client has addressed the message appropriately before you
send it.

As for the list configuration, I agree that the "respect" option ususally
produces inconsistent results, because most users don't know how to
properly configure the Reply-To header in their mail client, and many mail
clients don't allow users to easily change it on a per-message basis.  If
users set their Reply-To header to be the same as their e-mail address for
all outgoing mail, it basically defeats the purpose of having it at all.

Alan