I actually agree that this is currently a big problem. My group is set to reply-all, but often, topics are set to private-reply. In that case, as well as when someone purposely selects "private reply" in a reply-all (i.e., default) topic, you can't see the addressee when you reply.

This has resulted in numerous cases of private replies going to the wrong person. Some people don't realize that "private reply" means you're replying to the person whose post you are directly under, and mistakenly assume that their reply is going to the OP. Even if they do realize, some people goof and reply underneath the wrong message. 

I strongly agree that adding the addressee would be a boon by reducing (if not entirely eliminating) this kind of error.
--
J

Messages are the sole opinion of the author, especially the fishy ones.
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. - Desmond Tutu

On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 09:33 PM, Jim Higgins wrote:

Not all groups are "conversation groups"... and with the ability to insert a"Reply-to:" header we have lost the ability to expect that responses are limited to group, sender or moderator (or some combination of those).

This is a case where the type of group is completely, utterly irrelevant.   If you want what you say you want then manage a private mailing list within your e-mail client.

Groups are meant, whether conversation/announcement only to go to ALL MEMBERS of a group when you reply to the group.  You, for any you, don't get to pick and choose and shouldn't be able to via the group mechanism itself.  You have lots of other very easy methods to carry on private conversations with select group members.

I just don't get why people want to circumvent the core feature of a medium that has been in existence as long as this one.  I've been around since the days of Usenet.  You never got to "pick and choose" who you were responding to when you sent a reply to a group message or created a new message going out to the group.

I, as a member of a group, have every right to expect that anything not sent as a private message is going out to the group, not the members of your choosing (for any you, not you personally).
 
--

Brian - Windows 10 Home, 64-Bit, Version 1803, Build 17134 
     Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.

          ~ H.L. Mencken, AKA The Sage of Baltimore

I am 100% against this idea. It is already too easy for users to harvest other user's email addresses and is not necessary for communication of information.

--
Gerald

Received from Brian Vogel at 9/20/2018 06:56 PM UTC:

On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 02:30 PM, Jim Higgins wrote:

reply will go plainly visible and editable before the reply is sent.

Why? If you are part of a typical conversation group on a service such as this one replies can, and should, always go to all current members of the group.

Groups can be set up to reply only to sender, therefore it must be Gio's opinion that your opinion above isn't shared by Gio. Nor was it shared by Yahoo Groups. Nor is it shared by group owners who have chosen to set up their groups to reply to sender rather than to the entire group.

And... unless I'm recalling incorrectly, a feature was recently added to allow a sender to insert a "Reply-to:" header that could direct a reply to a 3rd party who is neither the sender nor even a member of the group. I think we should have an opportunity to see exactly where any response is going so we can decide whether or not to send the response.

You can't do this via the e-mail interface and shouldn't be able to, either.

I shouldn't be able to see where my response is going? Seriously?!!!!!!

It's precisely because I can't do this via the web interface that I'm requesting this feature to be added. I can see who I'm replying to when I create a reply in my home email client (as I am now), why not via the Gio message editor also? It's "standard" in any email client I've ever seen that the person creating a response can see the address to which he is responding. And being able to do so is even more important when the ability exists to put any darn thing someone wants to into a "Reply-to:" header.

Private responses can go to one or more members of your choosing, but replies to a conversation group should always go to all members of the group. If you want a side group then do that by e-mail.

Not all groups are "conversation groups"... and with the ability to insert a"Reply-to:" header we have lost the ability to expect that responses are limited to group, sender or moderator (or some combination of those). If there is going to be an unexpected reply-to address added to a reply, I want to know what it is before sending that reply.

Why would you object to that?

Jim H

On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 02:30 PM, Jim Higgins wrote:

reply will go plainly visible and editable before the reply is sent.

Why?   If you are part of a typical conversation group on a service such as this one replies can, and should, always go to all current members of the group.

You can't do this via the e-mail interface and shouldn't be able to, either.

Private responses can go to one or more members of your choosing, but replies to a conversation group should always go to all members of the group.  If you want a side group then do that by e-mail.
 
--

Brian - Windows 10 Home, 64-Bit, Version 1803, Build 17134 
     Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.

          ~ H.L. Mencken, AKA The Sage of Baltimore

Ronaldo,

            If you read what others have said, you'll get why the need is there.   It is a grand PITA, particularly if you can't see, to attempt to extract the originating member's e-mail address from the headers on the message.

            I can do that with ease, but others can't.

--

Brian - Windows 10 Home, 64-Bit, Version 1803, Build 17134 
     Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.

          ~ H.L. Mencken, AKA The Sage of Baltimore

Yes, there is no Reply-to-Sender footer link on your post. If I want to reply to you privately I can manually copy & paste your address in the email headers. Or go through the Group page, as you say.

Not a big deal to me personally. It's just that we can't realistically tell subscribers to "take it off list" and expect them to comply.

Drew

On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 12:03 PM, Michael Pavan wrote:

I believe Groups.io will be useful to more people/groups and function best, if it can be set to meet all needs rather than pared down to the desires of a few.

I should be free to express my opinions just as much as you are.

That being said, I am not trying to say what a number of people wish to say I am.

I would never term a "one-way group"  a group, but a list, or an "Announcement Cluster."  But that's neither here nor there.

When I say group/forum, I mean what was traditionally meant, a collection of people in multi-way communication.  Hence, my original comments stand in that context.

If folks need and want one-way communication from a central point out to a collection of people managed by a membership roster, more power to them.
 
--

Brian - Windows 10 Home, 64-Bit, Version 1803, Build 17134 
     Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.

          ~ H.L. Mencken, AKA The Sage of Baltimore

When replying to a message via Groups.io online, I'd like to see all addresses to which that reply will go plainly visible and editable before the reply is sent. Figleafing in conformance with group settings is OK.

Currently the address(es) a reply is directed to are not visible.

Jim H

So, Drew, the footers for your post don’t have a Reply to Sender link.

No way through email off-list, only through the Group homepage. (Reply, then change reply to Private.)

At least to your post on Beta.

Frances

Received from Brian Vogel at 9/20/2018 03:57 PM UTC:

I repeat, at the Group Level. I understand individuals might want to reply to sender. What triggered me to start all this in the first place is the fact that when one receives a message in plain text format there is no convenient way to actually do just that. But why you would ever want every response that anyone makes to go back only to the sender, which is what I take setting "Reply to Sender" at the Group Level, to mean is what I cannot fathom ever doing.

You don't need to fathom it. There's a valid need for "Reply to Group" groups and the solution to your dislike of them is to not join them or not click the "Reply to Sender" option if offered.

I don't like cats anywhere near me (apologies to J_Catlady). The solution to that phobia that originates from a bad childhood experience is to stay away from cats, not to suggest that no one else should have a cat.

Just saying.

Jim H

On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 10:29 AM, Brian Vogel wrote:

it would be insane for a group owner to make the default behavior when someone replies to a message in e-mail "Reply to Sender" as the default for the whole group

This is the very thing that Freegle or Freecycle groups use since any negotiations are done off-group.

Duane

Received from Brian Vogel at 9/20/2018 03:08 PM UTC:

On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 10:57 AM, Michael Pavan wrote:
All 4 options should be fully functional and operate in the same manner.

I would think whichever one of these was set by the Group Owner, that one is the default behavior when someone replies via e-mail.I can't imagine what earthly purpose the "Reply to Sender," or "Reply to Moderators," options at the Group Level would have if a group is to function as a group.

Some groups aren't set up to function as a "group" - meaning as a forum for roundtable discussion. They may primarily be set up to distribute announcements... in which case it might be better to direct queries only to the sender because he's the only one who can answer them.

Jim H

Yes, there is good reason to be able to take a group discussion "off list". Unfortunately, the email mechanism to do so easily (the List-Post header) caused a lot of confusion when it was tried in Groups.io for reasons I don't remember. So, taking a discussion off list means having to manually copy & paste the From field to the To field, etc.

I'm not keen on having additional footer links however.

Drew

I think what you are finding is the difference between posts SENT in
plain text as against html. All my email is sent plain text and comes
through without an html section.

Having different arrangements for footers in plain text and html is not
ideal by any stretch. I also have the situation where I receive an html
post and there is no footer in the plain text part (the section I by
default choose to read) and I have to switch to the html part to see
them. Similarly if there is an attachment sent as a link that often
only appears in the html section if one is present. It leads to
confusion if I try and tell people where to look for the 'reply to
sender' link and then they come back and say they can't see it because
they are receiving plain text.

Dave

On 20 Sep 2018 at 9:58, Frances wrote:

I won't weigh in the pros and cons but I wanted to say that I notice the
differences in your footers, posters! 

I "followed" this thread.
In my email (Apple Mail on my laptop AND on my iPhone) I see in the
footers:

Michael P - no link to reply to sender of the message.
Brian V - a link to reply to sender
Dave S - no link to reply to sender
Mark Fletcher - a link to reply to sender
Lena - no link to reply to sender
Bob B - a link to reply to sender (thread starter)
Steve B - a link to reply to sender

http://davesergeant.com

Another vote NOT to get rid of plain text, I much prefer it.

Barb

Received from Brian Vogel at 9/20/2018 02:06 PM UTC:

On Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 11:51 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

I could do some work to emulate reply to sender/reply to group functionality through the website for plain text emails

I see no point in doing any extra work for "Reply to Group" as that's the default behavior when one replies to any message (not private, mind you) one receives from Groups.io.

Not so. The group owner can set the group so the default action for a reply is to send the reply to the sender of the message being replied to. Some repliers who reply from home may configure their email clients to "Reply to All" and those clients are then prone to reply to the group AND to the original sender. And some email clients default to "Reply to All" - which is a horrible default IMO. And then on Groups.io we have either recent changes in this area... or pending requests for changes... that may lead some to feel a real need to look carefully at where the reply is really addressed to before hitting the SEND button... yet the message editor on Groups.io doesn't give a clue as to where replies made online are going... not even fig leafed addresses. IMNSHO, that needs to be "fixed" before any more changes are made in this area. Email senders/repliers should see (figleafing OK) where they're sending.

It would be nice to have some way for plain text recipients to be able to do a direct reply to sender without having to post a, "Can you send me your e-mail address so I can contact you off-list?," message, which happens with some frequency.

That's easy. Stop reading mail on the Groups.io site and instead let Groups.io send it to your home email address. There you'll find that all email addresses are clearly visible... and your email client should reveal who replies are going to.

Personally, and I know this is not going to happen, I would simply eliminate the plain text e-mail option. It's a hold-over from an era long gone now. Even screen readers were long ago updated to be able to handle HTML e-mail messages once these became the norm rather than the exception.--

Not in my experience. HTML email - meaning email containing formatting deliberately applied by the sender - is NOT the norm. The norm is for most senders to type plain text - no deliberately applied formatting or decoration - and then the email programs wrap a bunch of totally pointless and useless HTML tags around that plain text. Strip away all of those HTML tags from most email sent by individuals (and replace HTML line breaks with CR/LF) and the appearance of most email doesn't change one iota. The only result of selecting to send HTML email in most cases is to inflate the size of the email by a significant percentage that can easily exceed 250%. In short, we do not need to - and should not - get rid of the plain text option.

Jim H