On Wed, 29 Sep 2004, Keith Moore wrote:
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.
nope. I don't presume anything about how recipients file their incoming mail.
Er, you wrote this: "it is presumptuous to assume ... that the recipient
reads the list traffic in the same way that he reads other traffic."
My point is that it is equally presumptious to assume the opposite. It
seemed to me that you were saying "I can't assume the recipient will
read list traffic like other traffic, therefore I will send him some
other traffic, _presuming_ that he will read other traffic more
quickly". Apologies if I misinterpreted what you were saying. (And I
pointed out that I, for one, will _not_ read your other traffic to me
any faster than I will the list posting.)
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.
And unfortunately it seems that your courtesy is different from several
others'. That's the problem with culture. What's the solution? I can see
none other than providing sufficient switches/knobs in the software so
that people can configure it to suit themselves.
Philip
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10(_at_)cus(_dot_)cam(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk Cambridge, England. Phone: +44
1223 334714.