In <2025E651-06D0-11D9-9556-000393DB5366(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu> Keith
Moore <moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu> writes:
No, that just illustrates the problem we are discussing. Approximately
50%
of users (or slightly less by my counting) are happy for repliers to
use
"reply all". But you must not let the fact that you yourself are in
that
50% blind you to the fact that the other 50% (or slightly more by my
counting) are vehemently opposed to any default action that results in
their receiving duplicate copies.
a) I don't have any reason to have confidence that your 50% figure is
representative of the preferences of Internet email users.
It seems to be representative of the participants in this thread.
b) you are conflating at least two things here - one being whether
people want to get duplicate copies of a message sent to a particular
address (IMHO it's fairly safe to assume that most do not want
duplicate copies), another being whether senders prefer that replies
reach everyone who received a copy of the original message - or at
least, don't mind having this as a default.
Possibly so. But you now seem to accept that the number who find duplicate
replies "obnoxious" is nearer 90% than 50% (which indicates that some
change to protocols and/or practice is definitely needed).
As to the number of people who would routinely intend replies to go to all
of the original recipients, even where mailing lists are not involved, I
would expect that actually to be considerably less than the 50% I allowed.
ISTM that the only reason that people use Reply-to-All when responding to
mailing lists is that it is the only way of ensuring (without inspecting
the headers carefully and cutting/pasting as necessary) that the reply
goes to the list at least. It is just the easiest and safest thing to do,
irrespective of whether others find it "obnoxious".
--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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