> > mind volume and don't mind odd topics.  The problem is that a few people
> > have their own addresses in the 'reply-to' line, which means that if
> > you're not careful, the response you intended for the whole list will go
> > just to that one person.  This is especially confusing to newcomers, who
> > often don't notice the odd 'reply-to' line in the header and can't figure
>
> So tell the few who know how to do it (I do that on rare occaisions myself)
> to please refrain from modifying their mail headers in this manner.
 
It would be much simpler to use the 'ignore' setting.  When I said
"confusing to newcomers" above, I was thinking of net novices, not
just list newcomers.  A list newcomer might have a modified mail header.
This means I would have to keep reminding people.
 
What I'm trying to find out is whether I'm overlooking some problem with
the 'ignore' setting -- whether on some people's systems, strange things
might happen.  On my system, I have only one reply command.  If I want the
reply to go to somebody other than the address given in the 'reply-to' line,
I have to change it manually (which is not a big deal, but would be a
slight bother if I did it frequently -- in involves entering ~h, deleting
the address on the 'to' line, and filling in the new address).  I think on
some systems there are two automatic reply commands, one to reply to the
address in the 'reply-to' line (which is normally the list), the other to
the address in the 'from' line (the original sender).  As far as I can
see from my non-techy perspective, changing 'respect' to 'ignore' wouldn't
affect a system of that kind, but I want to make sure.
 
Since the consensus among subscribers who had an opinion on this yesterday
was to change it, I went on and changed it (from 'respect' to 'ignore')
late yesterday since trying to change the list headers during the week
is almost impossible -- it's gotten to the point that on weekdays, even
at 4:30 a.m. it takes hours for mail to get to me from the listserv, which
means it would be hours before I could get the headers and hours before
I could get confirmation of their successful replacement.  If anybody
knows of a technical reason that my change is not good, please let me
know.  There's a chance that right now (4:45 a.m. on Monday) the listserv
(where it's 5:45 a.m.) is still responding quickly -- I haven't checked it
yet this morning.  Within the next couple of hours, however, it will have
moved into delay mode, stretching to delays of 6-8 hours by afternoon.
That means I'll pretty much have to leave the headers alone until next
weekend.
   --Natalie ([log in to unmask])