Re: speeding up Octave development

[Ted Harding]

On 05-Mar-99 address@hidden wrote:
> John, 
> 
> I usually try to reply to the list and the person if I can answer
> someone's question, but one thing that sometimes gets in the way is
> that by default replies will go to the person, since the From: line
> is the person that sent the mail, and there is no Reply-To: line.
> Some of the other mailing lists that I am on set the Reply-To: line
> to the list address.  
> 
> I don't know if others feel the same way, but I have been bitten
> by this a few times.

The idea looks attractive but it can open cans of worms, mainly in the
area of defective destination hosts or mailrouters bouncing undeliverable
messages back to the list itself rather than to the sender of the message.
Similar for "Vacation" responses.

If that happens then you can get mail-loops (which only get worse as
normal users panic and send messages to the list asking what the hell's
going on).

The solution I personally stick with is to have my mailer client
configured to ask "Reply to all recipients?" and then check what I get
if I answer "No". If it doesn't go back to the list then I answer "Yes"
and delete unwanted destination addresses.

I agree with John that we should normally always reply to the list when
supplying our suggested solutions to readers' problems.

By the way, the octave list has been quite incredibly orderly -- I can't
remember a mail-loop, ever; nor any spam, ever!

Best wishes,
Ted.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <address@hidden>
Date: 06-Mar-99                                       Time: 12:19:59
------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------