Re: [Evolution] Reply for list messages should go back to the list

[Patrick O'Callaghan <poc usb ve>]

On Tue, 2010-07-13 at 11:40 -0400, Paul Smith wrote:
> On Tue, 2010-07-13 at 16:18 +0100, David Woodhouse wrote:
> > > > So how would you get Reply to Author if it _is_ a list message?
> > >
> > > Message->Reply To Author
> >
> > That's a *really* bad idea. The standard reply button and Ctrl-R should
> > give a *private* reply. Changing that to suddenly send *public* replies
> > is asking for trouble.
>
> I'm afraid I agree with David (assuming I understand the proposal
> correctly).  Having standard key sequences and buttons change meaning
> based on whether the message being replied to is a list or not seems
> like bad design to me.  I would definitely swear at such software daily.
> Even moreso if, as David mentions, you change from a normally private
> reply type to a public reply type.

I understand this point of view.

> I would be OK with having a separate button that was "reply to list"
> that would be greyed out when the current message was not a list
> message, or something.

I would prefer David's counter-proposal (see parallel thread or the BZ
page) in which Reply To List has the effect of Reply To All when list
headers are not detected (currently it does nothing so there's nothing
to lose). Of course this is still "Having standard key sequences and
buttons change meaning based on whether the message being replied to is
a list or not" but is perhaps less upsetting than the original idea.

> I'm afraid I don't agree with the militant publicists here: there are
> definitely not-rare times when I want to reply to a person privately,
> even from a public mailing list.  I don't agree that just because a
> correspondence starts publicly, it's required that all aspects of that
> correspondence remain public at all times.

I don't think anyone is proposing that. My original proposal includes a
Reply To Author option for these cases. In fact (this is not in the
original idea) Reply To Author might still be worthwhile for replying to
the real sender on munged lists, if that can be made to work reliably.

poc