You know some one, some where, in some early mailing list incarnation, must have hit reply and broadcast a *CLM to the world instead of to an individual.
*CLM: Career Limiting Move
I use what is considered by the anti-reply-to fanatics to be a 'smart' mailer (mutt) but even still I run across the issue you describe all the time, instinctively hitting Reply to a list rather than pressing "L" (configured on my system as Reply To List).
So the software may not be brain dead but perhaps I am !
Its annoying, but, I don't find it that annoying so I quit the wrongly addressed reply.
My guess is that there would be a lot of CLM's made if the default behavior for all lists were governed by Reply To, if for no other reason that we now have decades of prior use experience with the way as it is now.
The good news: if or when this is the biggest problem left in the world to solve, the world will have magically become a much better place !
Cheers
I have never known, seen, or heard of a CLM broadcast via a list in the 'real world'.
Such results may be possible in teh lab, but are rarely seen out of it. (I posit) 
If they are that common they must be archvied, perhaps someone can show us a few as examples, to support the claim that they are common...
I use mutt, so I'm one of those pretentious wine-swilling elm-like users you speak of.
My objection to Reply-To setting on lists is that in mutt/elm, it's difficult to reply to *just* the sender. If Reply-To is set, then both 'r' and 'g' (reply and group-reply) reply to that address. If Reply-To is NOT set, then 'r' replies to sender and 'g' replies to everyone. With Reply-To set, I sometimes forego responses because I don't want to waste the entire lists' time.
Admittedly, this is because I'm using an evil, technologically advanced mailer. Sorry for that.
--titus
p.s. RE CLMs, I've seen a few on some local Caltech mailing lists. Can't exactly broadcast 'em tho, the lists are private... still, you're right, it's less than one a year.
"My objection to Reply-To setting on lists is that in mutt/elm, it's difficult to reply to *just* the sender."
...
"Admittedly, this is because I'm using an evil, technologically advanced mailer"
Doesn't sound that advanced to me
Fuzzy
You should read what Karl Fogel has to say about it in his book, Producing Open Source Software. Can be downloaded online for free.
"It limits a subscriber's freedom to choose how he or she will direct a response. -- Not true - all reasonable mailers preserve the original from address as part of the email."
Er, perhaps you need to re-read the source document again. Preserving the From header field isn't the issue; the Reply-To field is what's being broken.
You seem to be conflating the From field with the Reply-To field, since you use this confusion to dismiss most of the rest of the points.
One of the problems is that adding a Reply-To that points to the list may overwrite an existing Reply-To. Some mail relays force you to use a "From:" that's in their domain (Gmail is a well-known example).
About reasonable mailers: Evolution, Sylpheed, Mutt, etc. (even some Windows mail clients IIRC) support "reply to list". Some are even intelligent enough to choose between "reply" and "reply to list" automaticly. (Yes there are mail headers to identify a mailing list...)
Also, IMHO people who use "reply to all" to reply to a list are very annoying: I don't want to get a message twice or more (Mailman has an option to minimise this annoyance a bit, but most mailing list managers don't).
"Also, IMHO people who use "reply to all" to reply to a list are very annoying: I don't want to get a message twice or more..."
In mail clients like Thunderbird (and lots of others) this is the only way to reply back to a list not configured with "Reply-To".
Fuzzyman
"Er, perhaps you need to re-read the source document again. Preserving the From header field isn't the issue; the Reply-To field is what's being broken."
So the "From" header is still preserved, but his mailer won't let him reply to it - so it's other mailers that are broken. Right ?
Fuzzyman
"One of the problems is that adding a Reply-To that points to the list may overwrite an existing Reply-To. Some mail relays force you to use a "From:" that's in their domain (Gmail is a well-known example)."
That's a fair point - although it falls squarely back into the "clobbers the rest of us because some people are using a dumb mailer" argument.
Gmail now have a "send-as" option right ?
Fuzzyman
"So the "From" header is still preserved, but his mailer won't let him reply to it"
It's sounding more and more like you haven't read the document correctly.
The Reply-To field indicates where an individual response to the sender should be addressed. On most messages, it's the same as the account where the mail was sent from (the From field), so Reply-To is not set.
Setting Reply-To is for the sender of the message to do, to allow individual replies to get back; or *not* to set, to allow individual replies to default to the sender address.
Munging this after the message leaves the original sender is *breaking* the function of Reply-To. That's the breakage being referred to; it has nothing to do with the client of the person who receives the message.
"The Reply-To field indicates where an individual response to the sender should be addressed."
Rather than where replies should go ?
Is that defined in an RFC ?
Fuzzyman
RFC 2822 defines the purpose of the Reply-To field. "When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it indicates the mailbox(es) to which the author of the message suggests that replies be sent."
It's for the author of the message to set Reply-To. The standard defines the meaning of that field, and recipients of the message can reasonably expect that the field is set (or not) the way the author wants it.
Commenting by HaloScan
