Most of our lists are set up so that using REPLY to respond to mail
sent from the list will cause the reply to be addressed back to the
list.  There are times when it desirable to post something to the
list with the intent to have everyone respond to the poster rather
than the list.  Sending out surveys comes to mind.

Fortunately, most of our lists are also set to respect internet
mail's Reply-To: header if it is present.  This means that if you
include a Reply-To: header in your posting to the list, you can
override the default of replying to the list itself and direct
replies to your posting back to any address that you choose.

Some mail programs can be set to generate a Reply-To header
automatically (bad idea in my opinion), but CMS is not one of
them, nor -- I believe -- is Exchange or Outlook.

In experimenting with CMS, however, I found that I could construct
my CMS NOTE in such a way that when the posting was distributed to
list subscribers, their reply would be directed back to me instead
of to the list.


Now, all this happens because we have most of our lists set up with
the keyword of "Reply-to= List,Respect" in the list headers.  So,
by default replies get addressed to the list, but if their is a reply
to header it will be respected and postings will be sent with a
reply to header containing the address the posters specified in his
or her reply to header when they sent the posting.

Here's an example to make this all much clearer (I hope).
Add a reply-to line to your CMS note when you are preparing it.
Here's the note I used to test this with.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 19 September 97, 16:36:17 EDT
From: Terry A. Moore                                 TMOORE   at CTNVM103
To:   TEST-L-TIMKEN LISTSERV List                    TEST-L-T at INTERNET
<TEST-L-T>:[log in to unmask]
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Another Test of Reply-To

Text of my note.... <snip, snip>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a normal CMS note with the addition of the following line added
just above the Subject: line...

Reply-To: [log in to unmask]

Note that this technique should work for any mail program that can
generate a Reply-To: header when posting to a list that is setup to
respect the reply to address.

Terry A. Moore
Timken LISTSERV Maintainer

P.S. One final note.  I've included a reply to in this posting to the
     LSTOWN-L-TIMKEN list, so if you reply, your reply should be
     addressed to me.  If you want to post a reply to the list, you'll
     need to add the list address ([log in to unmask]) to the
     distribution of your reply.