Group reply To-vs-Cc recipients

[Kevin J. McCarthy]

Someone opened a ticket asking about Mutt's group reply behavior.

By default (i.e. ignoring Mail-Followup-To, $reply_self, $reply_to,
etc.), the To recipients are added to the Cc list of the reply. The
ticket reporter thought it made more sense for To recipients to remain
in the To list of the reply. Apparently, Thunderbird does this, but not
sure about other clients.

Have no fear, I have no intention of changing default behavior. But I'm
curious about opinions on this list. Is this "established proper"
behavior, or is this something reasonable to have an option for?

Thank you!

[Ian Zimmerman]

Post by Kevin J. McCarthy
Someone opened a ticket asking about Mutt's group reply behavior.
By default (i.e. ignoring Mail-Followup-To, $reply_self, $reply_to,
etc.), the To recipients are added to the Cc list of the reply. The
ticket reporter thought it made more sense for To recipients to remain
in the To list of the reply. Apparently, Thunderbird does this, but
not sure about other clients.
Have no fear, I have no intention of changing default behavior. But
I'm curious about opinions on this list. Is this "established proper"
behavior, or is this something reasonable to have an option for?

I am curious to know in what context "someone" felt it would make a
difference.

[Kevin J. McCarthy]

Post by Ian Zimmerman
I am curious to know in what context "someone" felt it would make a
difference.

The ticket number is 98, but I thought mutt-users would be a better
place to have a discussion.

I can't speak for the reporter, but my understanding was the desire to
preserve the distinction between primary recipients, towards whom the
conversation is directly relevant, and others who may be just being kept
in the loop.

[Derek Martin]

Post by Kevin J. McCarthy

Post by Ian Zimmerman
I am curious to know in what context "someone" felt it would make
a difference.

The ticket number is 98, but I thought mutt-users would be a better
place to have a discussion.
I can't speak for the reporter, but my understanding was the desire
to preserve the distinction between primary recipients, towards whom
the conversation is directly relevant, and others who may be just
being kept in the loop.

A reply is inherently a response to something someone else said, and
as such that person is the only specific recipient, and all other
recipients are receiving a carbon copy. I believe Mutt's current
behavior is correct in the spirit of how these fields are meant to be
used.

That said, FWIW, I almost never even look at the mail envelope, unless
I'm writing a "sensitive" response, so that I can make a decision as
to whether or not the recipient list needs to be pruned. I mostly
think the notion that "If I'm only on the CC list I can ignore this"
is idiotic... Like most people, anything superfluous that I can
ignore, I certainly will; so putting me on the CC list, if that is
your intent, is a waste of your time. But I think recipients should
generally know whether they can or should ignore a thread from its
context and their relationship to the issue. Rely on the message
envelope to decide that for you at your own peril.

[Mihai Lazarescu]

Post by Kevin J. McCarthy

Post by Ian Zimmerman
I am curious to know in what context "someone" felt it would
make a difference.

The ticket number is 98, but I thought mutt-users would be a better
place to have a discussion.
I can't speak for the reporter, but my understanding was the desire
to preserve the distinction between primary recipients, towards whom
the conversation is directly relevant, and others who may be just
being kept in the loop.

That's the meaning of To:/Cc: fields according to RFC5322
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322#section-3.6.3

«The "To:" field contains the address(es) of the primary
recipient(s) of the message.»

«The "Cc:" field (where the "Cc" means "Carbon Copy" in
the sense of making a copy on a typewriter using carbon
paper) contains the addresses of others who are to receive
the message, though the content of the message may not be
directed at them.»

A distinction makes sense, otherwise Cc: would be an exact
duplication of To:, hence redundant.

The same RFC requires that all original recipients should be
included in reply (so at least Cc-ed).

But given the RFC distinctive meaning for the original To:/Cc:,
it make sense to preserve it in reply-to-all. Or dump the Cc:
field altogether and always list recipients in To:. :-)

Mihai

[Erik Christiansen]

Post by Mihai Lazarescu

Post by Kevin J. McCarthy

Post by Ian Zimmerman
I am curious to know in what context "someone" felt it would
make a difference.

The ticket number is 98, but I thought mutt-users would be a better
place to have a discussion.
I can't speak for the reporter, but my understanding was the desire
to preserve the distinction between primary recipients, towards whom
the conversation is directly relevant, and others who may be just
being kept in the loop.

That's the meaning of To:/Cc: fields according to RFC5322
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322#section-3.6.3
«The "To:" field contains the address(es) of the primary recipient(s)
of the message.»
«The "Cc:" field (where the "Cc" means "Carbon Copy" in the sense of
making a copy on a typewriter using carbon paper) contains the addresses
of others who are to receive the message, though the content of the
message may not be directed at them.»

Yes, the separate fields replicate paper based systems with a long history
of established use. Any lack of awareness of the clear distinction
between the fields merely reveals a lack of experience of situations in
which it is important, such as in many a corporate culture. Where the
recipients are all in-house but from differing departments or teams,
then leaders will be in the To: list, and significant lieutenants (and
departments passively involved) in the Cc: list. The latter to review
the content, but reply may need to be from a leader to be acceptable.
I have been involved in cross-corporate exchanges (in between physical
meetings) where corporate relationships, contractual implications, and
domain of responsibility are important considerations. And being on the
Cc: list implied a responsibility to read and consult - not reply
unilaterally.

Thread comment: It's OK to be unaware of the usefulness of RFC features,
but it does seem odd to pretend that they're not useful just because
it's only others who need them.

Erik

[Derek Martin]

Post by Erik Christiansen
Thread comment: It's OK to be unaware of the usefulness of RFC features,
but it does seem odd to pretend that they're not useful just because
it's only others who need them.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this, but for the sake of
clarity about RFC features, here's what RFC 2822 says on the matter
(3.6.3, paragraph 6):

When a message is a reply to another message, the mailboxes of the
authors of the original message (the mailboxes in the "From:"
field) or mailboxes specified in the "Reply-To:" field (if it
exists) MAY appear in the "To:" field of the reply since these
would normally be the primary recipients of the reply. If a reply
is sent to a message that has destination fields, it is often
desirable to send a copy of the reply to all of the recipients of
the message, in addition to the author. When such a reply is
formed, addresses in the "To:" and "Cc:" fields of the original
message MAY appear in the "Cc:" field of the reply, since these are
normally secondary recipients of the reply.

It recomments Mutt's current behavior, for precisely the reasons I
gave in support of it. The person who opened the ticket stated that
the expected behavior is for the recipients in the To: field to be
preserved, but the RFC clearly states otherwise.

Also FWIW, I've been a member of the Mutt community since about 1996,
and this is the first time I remember anyone ever bringing it up. If
it's happened before, it certainly has never been a hot issue. 22
years of virtually no one complaining does not exactly scream that it
needs attention... Given that, I think the benefit of making this
configurable is not worth the risk of introducing a new bug that comes
with every change and with every increase in code complexity.

That said, in this case I imagine the required change is probably
small enough and simple enough that it's not a very interesting
consideration either way. Still, Mutt is such a beast to configure as
it is, with so many configuration options, by default I lean heavily
against adding more options unless it can be shown that there's
significant benefit. I think the available information suggest that
there is not.

[Erik Christiansen]

Post by Derek Martin

Post by Erik Christiansen
Thread comment: It's OK to be unaware of the usefulness of RFC features,
but it does seem odd to pretend that they're not useful just because
it's only others who need them.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this, but for the sake of
clarity about RFC features, here's what RFC 2822 says on the matter
When a message is a reply to another message, the mailboxes of the
authors of the original message (the mailboxes in the "From:"
field) or mailboxes specified in the "Reply-To:" field (if it
exists) MAY appear in the "To:" field of the reply since these
would normally be the primary recipients of the reply. If a reply
is sent to a message that has destination fields, it is often
desirable to send a copy of the reply to all of the recipients of
the message, in addition to the author. When such a reply is
formed, addresses in the "To:" and "Cc:" fields of the original
message MAY appear in the "Cc:" field of the reply, since these are
normally secondary recipients of the reply.
It recomments Mutt's current behavior, for precisely the reasons I
gave in support of it. The person who opened the ticket stated that
the expected behavior is for the recipients in the To: field to be
preserved, but the RFC clearly states otherwise.

It clearly states that it "MAY" be otherwise. There will doubtless be
use cases where that is fully acceptable, and cases where it can be
tolerated. It does, though, seem a pity to arbitrarily munge the user's
recipient preferences, rather than preserve them. It does seem to
violate POLA.

Erik

[Francesco Ariis]

Post by Ian Zimmerman
I am curious to know in what context "someone" felt it would make a
difference.

I suspect work related setting. Cc: is indeed "being kept in the loop"
while To: is "addressed specifically".

I have never noticed mutt behaviour, but the above seems a sensible
behaviour.

[Erik Christiansen]

Post by Francesco Ariis

Post by Ian Zimmerman
I am curious to know in what context "someone" felt it would make a
difference.

I suspect work related setting. Cc: is indeed "being kept in the loop"
while To: is "addressed specifically".
I have never noticed mutt behaviour, but the above seems a sensible
behaviour.

+1

Spontaneous increase of entropy isn't usually user-friendly. If I hadn't
retired ten years ago, it'd make more of a difference here, but letting
the CC list know they can leave the message on the back burner is
fractionally as important as signalling the TO recipients that they
can't.

Erik