On Sep 22, 2004, at 4:25 AM, Philip Hazel wrote:
On Tue, 21 Sep 2004, Keith Moore wrote:
Many assumptions that are reasonable in USENET are less reasonable in
email. For instance, it's meaningless to talk about USENET
discussions
that don't involve any newsgroups, but it's perfectly reasonable to
have
email discussions that don't involve mailing lists.
True, but I thought we were discussing a problem that arises when a
mailing list *is* used for a discussion. In that situation, it does
become more like USENET, and users have similar expectations of the
two.
There are still significant differences. For instance, in a USENET
discussion it's assumed that everybody can read all of the "major"
newsgroups, so there's less reason to followup to multiple newsgroups.
Another difference: a USENET discussion inherently takes place within
the context of one or more newsgroups, whereas a message in an email
discussion that is mostly taking place outside the context of any list
might cc a list that only has a peripheral interest in the discussion -
because people on the list need to know.