Replying to E-mail Lists

You've asked us, "As a list services recipient, how do I know if my reply will go to the sender or to the whole group when responding?"

This varies. Most lists are set up so that replies go to the entire list. That fosters broad discussion but occasionally surprises people who assume their reply to a given message will go only to the sender. In fact, many other lists are set up that way. The ITC newsletter is an example. While Kathy Hendricks sends out the newsletter to a couple hundred people, a reply to it would go only to her, since that's the way the list is set up. If you'll look in the header of her e-mail to the list, you will see a line that says:

Reply-To: Kathy Hendricks (khendricks@montana.edu)

That indicates that the list has been set up such that replies will go only to her. On the other hand, a list like the Harvard alumni mailing list, which is set up to foster communications among all subscribers, would have a Reply-To: line that said something like:

Reply-To: Harvard Alumni List (alums@listserv.harvard.edu)

If you don't see the Reply-To: lines in the headers of the messages you receive, it may be that the "full headers" switch in your mail software is turned off. Call the ITC Helpdesk at 994-1777 for help in turning full headers on and off. Whether or not you can see the headers, when you reply to a mail message your mail software will always show you the address your reply is going "To:" If that address is an individual's name, you're safe. If it's the name of a list, and unless that's what you want, you should probably cancel the message and start over (with Send rather than Reply), manually entering the address of the individual to whom you want to reply.

For related information about list services, please see the articles "Subscribing to E-mail Lists" and "Posting to E-mail Lists".

Please contact Allen Porter (ahporter@montana.edu) for additional assistance.

Updated November 25, 1997