OT -- > GMail and Reply-To: Advice

[Paul M. Bucalo]

On Fri, 2005-02-25 at 12:21 -0600, Gustavo Seabra wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:31:38 -0500, Paul M. Bucalo
> <pmbuc at pmbservices.com> wrote:
> > Anyone using a GMail account for lists should be aware of a kludge-fix
> > that will remove the unwanted Reply-To in sent emails. I wish I could
> > take credit for figuring this out. Just have friends smarter than me:
> > 
> > 1. Login to your account online
> > 2. Click on your "Settings" link
> > 3. Under "Reply-to address:", check the blank choice below your email
> > address, then enter into the empty box "< >" (without the quotes!)
> > 
> > Emails that I have sent from GMail to my POP3 accounts show nothing
> > listed in the Reply-To: field.
> > 
> > Would this trick work for other Web-based email accounts? Don't know,
> > but it would be worth trying.
> > 
> > Paul
> 
> Ok. If I do that, what happens to my personal e-mail? Will people
> still be able to reply directly to me? (sorry if it is too stupid a
> question.)

Of course! :0)

The "Reply-To:" field would be useful when you are emailing from one
account address, but would like the replying party to redirect their
reply to another email address instead instead. Many lists fill the
"Reply-To:" with their own reply address so that a list member would
only have to click on the "Reply" button in their favorite email client
and properly post their reply to the list, exclusively. 

This is what the headers of one of your previous posts looked like in
Evolution on my laptop, before you made the change:

                              From: 
Gustavo Seabra
<gustavo.seabra at gmail.com>
                          Reply-To: 
Gustavo Seabra
<gustavo.seabra at gmail.com>, For
users of Fedora Core releases
<fedora-list at redhat.com>
                                To: 
skimble04 at gmail.com, For users of
Fedora Core releases <fedora-
list at redhat.com>
                           Subject: 
Re: Werid Mozilla Firefox Problem on
Fedora Core 3
                              Date: 
Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:11:41 -0600
(13:11 EST)

Notice that the "Reply-To:" has *vour* email address, as well as that of
the list's. If I were to click on Evolution's "reply" button, I would
end up sending the same email to you *and* to the list. You would end up
getting doubles and wonder why.

Now, after you made change, here's what one of your post's headers look
like:

                              From: 
Gustavo Seabra
<gustavo.seabra at gmail.com>
                          Reply-To: 
For users of Fedora Core releases
<fedora-list at redhat.com>
                                To: 
For users of Fedora Core releases
<fedora-list at redhat.com>
                           Subject: 
Re: OT -- > GMail and Reply-To:
Advice
                              Date: 
Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:21:54 -0600
(13:21 EST)

See the difference? Anyone replying to your post, regardless of email
client or operating system would send it to the list. This is why lists
tend to fill this field with their own list address.

Unfortunately, not all programmers (as in those working Google's GMail
and Spymac.com's Gigabyte email client) understand this, else there
would be a provision in the settings to turn off this feature, or make
it something you must turn on only if you want it. This is why I
abandoned the use of Spymail. You can't even choose what that field will
hold. 

I haven't seen much said here, but from what one friend has told me
about some other lists, GMail posts are being filtered personally or
blacklisted. Is this true? Don't know that it is, but the fact that it's
being said suggests a lot of people are annoyed with the problem.

HTH,

Paul