524277 - Ignore Reply-To when List-Post is set

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Message Reader UI, defect)

Description

[Matěj Cepl]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090911 Fedora/3.5.3-1.fc12 Firefox/3.5.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.4pre) Gecko/20090918 Fedora/3.0-3.9.b4.fc12 Lightning/1.0pre Thunderbird/3.0b4

I am subscribed to an overzealous email list which sets BOTH Reply-To header and List-Post, and changes even From header. So I have messages with these headers (headers irrelevant for this post are omitted):

From: "Jane Doe ([e-mail])" <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: "Name Of The List For Humans" <[e-mail]>
To: "Name Of The List For Humans" <[e-mail]>
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]>
Subject: novinky ze severu
Priority: non-urgent
List-Help: <mailto:[e-mail]?subject=HELP>, <http://www.example.com>
List-Archive: <http://www.example.com/conference/ourlist>
List-Post: <mailto:[e-mail]>
List-Subscribe: <mailto:[e-mail]?subject=SUBSCRIBE%20ourlist>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:[e-mail]?subject=UNSUBSCRIBE%20ourlist>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-2"

Yes, of course, the only proper reply to such screwed up headers is to change provider of the email list for somebody who doesn't terrorize its users, but I am not the owner of the list and I cannot change it.

I don't want to get into weird discussions about "Reply-To Is Considered Harmful" (I think it is, of course), but I hope at least in this case, it is indisputable that Reply-To WHEN List-Post is set as well IS harmful (and Thunderbird finally knows about Reply-To-List; BTW, thank you for that). Could you find one good legitimate reason for doing so?

Could we get an option that make Thunderbird ignore Reply-To WHEN List-Post header is set up as well?

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.get a message from this list
2.try all methods of replying to the message to send a message just to the original author of the message
3.
Actual Results:  
there is no way ... all Reply-To-Author, Reply-To-All, and Reply-To-List end up with new message being sent only to the list.

Expected Results:  
FREEDOM!!!

Comment 1

[Matěj Cepl]

There is precedence for this option. Mutt (as always) has this:

3.92. ignore_list_reply_to

   Type: boolean
   Default: no

   Affects the behavior of the <reply> function when replying to messages
   from mailing lists (as defined by the "subscribe" or "lists" commands).
   When set, if the "Reply-To:" field is set to the same value as the
   "To:" field, Mutt assumes that the "Reply-To:" field was set by the
   mailing list to automate responses to the list, and will ignore this
   field. To direct a response to the mailing list when this option is
   set, use the <list-reply> function; <group-reply> will reply to both
   the sender and the list.
   
This is even more agressive than what I suggest (and I would certainly prefer it), but it gets closer to the "Reply-To Considered Harmful" flamewar^H^H^H^H^Hdebate which I try to avoid.

Comment 2

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

We'd be very unlikely to take a fix for this in the TB 2 releases which are just for security & stability only.

Comment 3

[Matěj Cepl]

Yeah, sorry, about 1.8.1 gecko, I meant 1.9.1 (aka "Whatever comes after TB3") which is not available.

Of course related bugs are bug 77304 (nice eight years old bug, and no I don't
this is a duplicate), and of course part of the unfortunate behaviour is caused
by bug 505374

Comment 4

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

This one's been bugging me for a while, and I'm digging around in that code for 3.next anyways, so I'll see if I can get something coded up for this.

(I'll probably only override the Reply-To if it's the same as List-Post, since that should give us most of the benefits.)

Comment 5

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

I like that plan, since, after all, the Reply-To could have been set by the sender's MUA.

Comment 6

[John Wilcock]

The absence of the Sender: header seems to be a common factor with bug 528039 (which I suppose is thus effectively a duplicate of this bug).

Comment 7

[David :Bienvenu]

Doesn't sound like a blocker, but wanted.

Comment 8

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

I'm not really working on these, so I'm freeing them up for a community member to take.
(Filter on [ossifrage] to delete all the notifications.)