[answering one more message while I wait for a CD to burn...]
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...
nope. I don't presume anything about how recipients file their
incoming mail. What I presume is that if I reply to a message that
someone sent, it's simple courtesy to ensure that he reliably gets a
copy of the reply. It's also simple courtesy to explicitly notify
other recipients of the message that the author of the subject message
was sent a copy of the reply - so that they know he was not snubbed.
The alternative of removing the author from the recipient list presumes
a great deal - that the author of the subject message is (still) on a
mailing list associated with another of the recipient addresses, that
the other recipients of the message know that the author is still on
that mailing list, and that the author of the subject message will see
the list traffic in a sufficiently timely fashion. None of these is a
safe assumption in general. Even if a reply author knows one or two of
these, he's unlikely to know all three.
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.
It is clear (to me at least) that message authors should be clear in
their intentions about who should receive a message, and that it's up
to recipients to arrange their incoming mail according to their
preferences.
Keith