List replies (was Re: cacha?a and OFF TOPIC)

[Bruce Dykes]

-----Original Message-----
From: Bookrat <bookrat at BOOKRAT.COM>
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, March 08, 2000 2:34 PM
Subject: List replies (was Re: cacha?a and OFF TOPIC)


>Long-winded answer:
>
>The broader philosophical question is this: when one hits the "Reply" key
>in answer to a list posting, where *should* the reply go?  There are two
>intuitive answers: to the list itself, or to the original sender.  There's
>no one right answer to the question.  Some people like to have replies go
>to the list, which encourages keeping discussions on-list at the expense of
>increasing list traffic; some like to have replies go to the sender, which
>tends to cut down on list traffic at the expense of taking some interesting
>discussions off-list.


This is a situation that's best fixed by a DWIM (do what I mean - it's in
the jargon file 8-) key.

I have two reply options that should be common to all mail readers: Reply to
Author, and Reply to All. Simple Reply to Author goes to the list 99.9% of
the time, and I simply fix the .1% where it decides to go to the author.
I've not tried Reply to All for the list, but what that does is copy
everybody in the To: and CC: headers, and the author, to your reply. I often
use that and delete uninterested parties.

As far as whether to reply to author or list, for that we rely on sender's
judgement. Stuff which strays from topic (outside of the degree permitted on
the list) should go to direct to author, on topic should go to list. Some
lists, wordlists in particular, are more tolerant of a broad degreee of
topical latitude. And of course, the author may request a direct email
regardless of topicality.

bkd