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Greetings all,

I've beaten up all I can find, read more than covers the topic and find myself very confused and more than a bit disappointed in the apparent non-function of REPLY GROUP AND SENDER.

I was hoping for an elegant means of allowing message recipients to reply to whom they wanted, fairly clearly (in a revealing way -- seeing who the addies are), and definitely easily. This whether from the web interface, webmail or an MTA (mail client.)

I've administered a number of listservers, Yahoo! Groups, and the like, using all of that mentioned.

I favour use of REPLY LIST in a (good) MTA (from 1996 to now) and REPLY (to Sender/Originator.) The non-munged approach. (My mobile MTA (K9 Mail) forces use of REPLY ALL. sigh.)

I became Owner of a Y!G a couple of weeks ago to help save it. It was set for Reply Group. After several days of reading, trying different settings, and testing from and between the three chief means of accessing messages I've given up and have set it here to REPLY GROUP.

Just what is expected to happen when one sets it to REPLY GROUP AND SENDER?

I've seen seemingly unpredictable responses, with up to three choices, and _no_ choices! I can hit up REPLY or REPLY ALL (REPLY LIST not appearing in Fossa Mail, Thunderbird fork) and get no satisfaction.

Sorry, super tired after learning at a great rate, working for days to achieve an optimal (plus cheap) save and feeling confounded in spite of prior knowledge, trying to not assume overly much, toward a satisfactory response. I feel like I've gone dumb and have disappointingly decided to press on with the lowest common (munged) denominator. <grin>

So, a wordy plea to make my case and help my understanding in this matter. I'm sure there may be some good questions about settings I've tried. I'm really beyond that.

What can be achieved? What needs to be set to do it?

Cheers, John
- not much used to Good Enough For Now
--
J.D. Erskine
Victoria, BC

On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 07:30 AM, JD Erskine wrote:

Just what is expected to happen when one sets it to REPLY GROUP AND SENDER?

Exactly that, the reply will go to both the group and the sender.? Reply List was used for a very short time, but it created too many problems.? How Reply or Reply All work depends on the email client.

Duane
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On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 02:30 PM, JD Erskine wrote:

I favour use of REPLY LIST in a (good) MTA (from 1996 to now)

What's an MTA?

and REPLY (to Sender/Originator.) The non-munged approach.
Just what is expected to happen when one sets it to REPLY GROUP AND SENDER?

What I see on most io-groups is that when I click the "reply"- button, I see a box to compose a message in, and below it I see a green button on the left saying "Reply to Group" and a grey one to the right saying "Private".

I know that when the list-owner wants to, (s) he can disable either or both. I'm just not in any groups where that makes sense

groetjes, Ronaldo

MTA (mail transfer agent) is the technical name for an email program, for example, Eudora or Thunderbird. Outlook is an MTA but some people would argue that it doesn't meet the definition of a "good MTA" as mentioned by J Erskine, primarily because of its divergence from standards. The web-based services (AOL. Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail/Live/Outlook) also qualify as MTAs.

One piece of the discussion here revolves around the fact that the user who is using his MTA may have up to four options:

1. Reply to group (placed in the footer by Groups.io)
2. Reply to sender (private message, placed in the footer by Groups.io)
3. Reply (an option in the mailer, usually treated as Reply to Sender, and generally quotes the current message)
4. Reply All (an option in the mailer, usually sending to everyone in the To: and Cc: fields, and generally quotes the current message)

Confusion exists for the novice user who responds via email, using the MTA he's familiar with. Suppose he wants to send a private message to the sender. In Yahoo, the display name appears to be the sending individual, although the actual email address is that of the group. So the user selects his customary option (3), the MTA's Reply, and sends to the group instead of the individual--with quoted text which is frowned upon in some groups.

Now suppose the user wants to reply to the entire group. He may select his customary option (4), the MTA's Reply All. Since there are no Cc:s in a Yahoo group message, it has exactly the same function as option (3) and replies to the entire group. This time it's what the user desired--but again with quoted text.

I never even attempted to train the users of our Yahoo group. I'm not sure it would have worked.

Larry

On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 11:50 PM, Laurence Marks wrote:

MTA (mail transfer agent) is the technical name for an email program, for
example, Eudora or Thunderbird.

Correct term for Thunderbird and similar programs is MUA (mail user agent). The term MTA is for programs (such as Exim, Postfix, sendmail) transmitting emails from server to server.

On 2019.12.12 1730, Lena wrote:

On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 11:50 PM, Laurence Marks wrote:

MTA (mail transfer agent) is the technical name for an email program, for
example, Eudora or Thunderbird.

Correct term for Thunderbird and similar programs is MUA (mail user agent). The term MTA is for programs (such as Exim, Postfix, sendmail) transmitting emails from server to server.

You are quite correct. I tumbled to my misuse this morning. Was sooo tired last night, and perhaps had been talking overly much with a sys admin friend about their world.



I'll go hold my head now over the whole Reply thing.

Cheers, John

John,

I was hoping for an elegant means of allowing message recipients to
reply to whom they wanted, fairly clearly (in a revealing way --
seeing who the addies are), and definitely easily. This whether from
the web interface, ...

In the Groups.io web interface the default Reply To is set by the group. This is reflected in the button (under the message composition box) saying Reply to Group, Reply to Sender, Reply to Mods, or Reply to Group & Sender. By design, the web interface does not reveal the email address of the original poster when replying to Sender or Group & Sender.

If the group doesn't check the "Remove Other Reply Options" box then the user can toggle between reply destinations using the silver buttons to the right of the Reply and Discard buttons.

webmail or an [MUA] (mail client.)

Groups.io attempts to influence the behavior of the user's email interface (MUA) by inserting a Reply-To header field matching the intent of the group's setting. However, not all email interfaces respect that header field, and among those that do they have a variety of responses. Alas.

I've seen seemingly unpredictable responses, with up to three choices,
and _no_ choices! ... Thunderbird ...

When testing Reply to List functionality I followed advice to use the configuration editor to change the default behavior:
mail.override_list_reply_to;false

In my opinion Thunderbird's default behavior is broken, but the developers obstinately assert that the world is wrong, not them.

As Duane mentioned, Groups.io briefly included the List-Reply header field, but it caused too much trouble with too many users' interfaces.

Shal


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If the group doesn't check the "Remove Other Reply Options" box then the user can toggle between reply destinations using the silver buttons to the right of the Reply and Discard buttons.

Any reason the user can't just change the "to" field manually by changing the the group name to an individual name if desired for an individual message? Will that not usually work?

Sandy

Shal

On Fri, Dec 13, 2019 at 02:41 PM, Sandy Kozinn wrote:

Any reason the user can't just change the "to" field manually by changing the the group name to an individual name if desired for an individual message? Will that not usually work?

In their email client, yes.? Online, no.

Duane
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I do that all the time Sandy, I did it on YG and I do it here.? It's way simpler than going through the opening another window, scrolling through the message in the other window.? Works great.

Terri

[Mod Note: This appears to be in reference to?/g/GroupManagersForum/message/26076]

In one of my Ygroups we actually sent out a monthly message with a proven technique for responding to an email message, snipping the message, changing the "to" line, and other matters.?

These were sent out automatically on the first (or, as time went on, within a week of the first.....usually).

Sandy

At 04:28 PM 12/13/2019, you wrote: