In response to the recent difference of opinion on Reply-To: defaults:
 
It seems to me that the list owner has to look at the topic, the
types of participants, whether membership is already restricted, or
in the other extreme, whether the list is gatewayed to NETNEWS.
On the biosph-l list, which if my memory holds is over
5 yrs old now, I found that nothing drove off professional and
academic participants than lots of chatty msgs, which often were
replies from net novices who either didn't think or didn't care that
a good number of people were getting their messages which were of
interest only to the sender: "Yes, send me a copy too," "I'd be
interested in your answer to that when you get it," etc.  Since
biosph-l is a mix of activists, scientists, management/regulator types
and students with other netizens thrown in, some groups have a low
threshold to what they see as pointless b.s.
 
In this case, I weighed the costs to posters of a small amount of
extra effort to post a reply to the list (e.g., cc:listaddress) against
the damage to the list of driving off some very valuable participants.
I really didn't have to think long and hard. The only bitching I got
came from one fellow who also believed that my sole reason in
life was to make his life easier in using biosph-l. I offered to give
him the list if he'd run it properly, and he shut up.
 
If a list has a fairly net-aware subscribership, if there have been
no serious problems with traffic and nonsense postings, then of course
the desirable thing is to make life as easy as possible for all concerned.
 
If not: setting reply default to the poster of the message does help.
As for hassles: if mailers are broken, get them fixed, or work around
the problem. If people complain that something takes time to learn and
figure out, then *perhaps* they have unrealistic expectations about the
investment needed. Every time I visit a decent bookstore (and increasingly
the midbrow ones as well) I'm amazed at the sheer variety of "internet" books
for sale. Many are fluff or raw listings, but some offer a handle on
things.  What I would have given for something like them five or six
years ago...There are more resources available to people who want to
navigate the net and make productive use of it than ever before. There's
some excuse for bewilderment but not for helplessness.
 
-dave phillips