ietf-822
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Re: reply etiquette

2004-09-29 08:17:01

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004, Keith Moore wrote:

The courtesy other people see as common is in ridding a recipient of the need
to see multiple copies of a message.  That's a valid concern, but it is
presumptuous to assume that a recipient is on the list, and that the recipient
reads the list traffic in the same way that he reads other traffic.

I do not read list traffic in the same way as I read other traffic. 
However, when you reply to my postings, sending both to me and to the 
list, BOTH copies of the message end up in my ietf-822 folder, and 
that's the way I want it. Well, I don't actually want both copies, but I
certainly don't want either of them in my main inbox. You do not get my
attention any faster by sending me a personal copy. (If a copy 
accidentally ends up in my inbox, I curse, and move it to the list 
folder for later attention.)

I post that paragraph by way of an example of how it could be considered
presumptious to assume a recipient wants to see responses to his/her
list postings in any different way to any other list postings. That
seems to be what you are presuming...

It is clear (to me at least) that any discussion of culture and/or
courtesy and/or presumptiousness is going to go rapidly down a rathole.
I don't think we can start from that end and then design mechanism
afterwards, because there are too many variables.

It may be unpalatable, but if we do anything (and I suspect that if we 
don't, something will "just grow"), I think we have to add a little bit 
of mechanism that we hope people can tweak to suit their culture and 
courtesy expectations sufficiently for them to live with it. (The 
currently available mechanism isn't enough; if it were, we would not be 
having this discussion.)

Philip

-- 
Philip Hazel            University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10(_at_)cus(_dot_)cam(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk      Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 
1223 334714.


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