[Techtalk] Configuring Mailman to CC replies to the list

[Jenn Vesperman]

On Mon, 2002-09-16 at 17:44, Sujita Purushothaman wrote:
> Hi  everyone,
>  I need to configure Mailman to CC (or BCC) the list  when someone
> replies to a post; I don't want the reply to go only to the list, it
> needs
> to go to the person the reply is for, as well as the list, because the
> person is not necessarily a member of the list. I know that if people
> hit "Reply All" instead of Reply, it will go to both the poster & the
> list;
> Problem is some people will still acccidentally hit Reply, instead of
> Reply All. How do I do it?

You can't. It's not built into SMTP - the mail transport protocol. The
reply and reply-all options in a mail client are client software, not
mailing list software. They're based on headers in the mail transport
protocol.

The protocol allows for several headers that client programs MAY (not
must, but may) use when replying. These headers are:

From
To
Reply-To
Return-Path
CC
BCC

Most of these headers have specific things that they MUST be based on,
the only one that the mailing list software is allowed to munge is
'Reply-To'. (It MAY be allowed to munge 'From', but I don't think so.)

There are two interesting articles on reply-to munging by mailing lists,
one called 'Reply-To Munging Considered Harmful'. The other is the
rebuttal to that, and would show up on a Google search for that topic.
I recommend reading BOTH and making up your own mind.


(Note that I did not have the RFC for SMTP open when writing this, so
please forgive and correct inaccuracies of detail.
I'm sure I'm right in the broad sense, so if I'm wrong in that I'd
appreciate a citation, preferable the section of the RFC where I've
screwed up.)



Jenn V.
-- 
    "Do you ever wonder if there's a whole section of geek culture 
        	you miss out on by being a geek?" - Dancer.

jenn at anthill.echidna.id.au     http://anthill.echidna.id.au/~jenn/