My group has a problem with replies to messages. Most messages are sent by one of the three owners of the group, though we do want each subscriber to have the ability to post if they choose to. The problem arises when the subscribers receive a message from an owner and want to reply. The replies are frequently not meaningful to the entire group and intended only for the sender, often along the lines of “Thank you” or “Can I get more information?”. But when a subscriber hits REPLY, their response goes to all 700+ members of the group. And some of them are getting pretty cranky about it.

Before we transferred over from our Yahoo Group, we solved this problem by putting the Yahoo Group email address on the bcc line, in which case the reply only went to the individual who sent it. In our new group, even when the message was sent with the ?address on the bcc line, if the subscriber hits REPLY, it goes to the entire group. In fact, there’s a line at the top of the note that looks like this: