Quoting Brian May via luv-main (luv-main@luv.asn.au):
I also find it confusing in that some mailing lists set Reply-To: to the mailing list, and others such as LUV set it to the sender.
Yes. Neither should occur. It's not the mailing list's header to set, but rather the user if he/she has a use-case where it is useful.
Some mailing lists I have to "reply-to-sender" to reply to the list, others I have to use "group-reply", yet others I have to use "group-reply" and then manually alter the To: and Cc: headers to ensure I don't get flamed for CCing people who don't want to get CCed.
Reply-all MUA semantics is the normal and intended, standards-compliant way to respond to groups (including to mailing lists). This works even on mailing lists whose administrators meddle with Reply-To:. If your MUA doesn't do that, file a bug. Reply-sender MUA semantics is the normal and intended, standards-compliant way to respond to sender only. This works except where a mailing list adminstrator has made standards-infringing use of Reply-To:, in which case the user must act to manually overcome that obstacle. Absent that artificial obstacle, if your MUA's reply-sender functionality doesn't work, file a bug. This is why MUAs have two 'reply' modes. (Back in the early 1990s, a few MUAs existed that (allegedly) couldn't yet do reply-all. They're no longer around.)
Yes, sure there are lots of debates and dicussions about which one is "right" or "wrong"....
IETF settled the alleged debate in 2001 via RFCs 2822 and 2369. http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/netiquette.html#replyto People still arguing either haven't gotten the message over the last 14 years, or refuse to heed it.
...however it is a shame that there isn't a single standard that everyone adheres to for how to process the headers for mailing lists.
There _is_ a single standard. Some people choose to violate it.