Procedural Issues

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 9 Nov 2005, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> Oh, by the way, [Tony's]  message didn't go off-list for some reason.

I mention the following in the feeble hope that it may influence usage!

Watch your mail client software carefully.  Increasingly they ignore the
standard conventions in interpreting e-mail headers.  It may be possible
to influence their behavior by working with their configuration options.

Mail from a list goes out in one of two patterns, depending on how the
list is configured.  If the list is configured for use in sending out
announcements, discouraging discussion, it will simply provide the
sender's address in the from-header of mailings.  Any reply should go to
the sender, not the list.

If the list is configured to encourage shared discussion, and the Siouan
list is, the list provides the original sender's address in the
from-header and the list address in the reply-to-header.  A mail client is
then supposed to reply by default to the reply-to-header address, and
offer an option of replying to the original sender instead.  Some mail
clients reply always to the original sender or to both or default to the
original sender with the list as an option, etc.

To avoid glitches, always check the address to see what it's actually
doing.  In a pinch I can remove private mail from the archive with the
help of the folks at Linguist, but I can't remove from the mailboxes of
everybody on the list.

By the way, it's never necessary to reply to both the sender and the list
as some correspondents on this list tend to do.  It's possible that some
confusions are caused because correspondents (or their mail clients) reply
to the original sender and cc the list or vice versa. The original sender
will always receive any reply sent to the list.  Send only to the list (to
reach everyone) or to the list member (to reach them alone).  Of course,
it's perfectly legitimate to write to the list and cc someone who is not
on the list.

I'm not sure exactly where Tony got crossed up, but I don't think he need
fear that his contribution embarasses him!

Another procedural issue.  I may be the last peron on the list not using
HTML-activated email, but, please, for the sake of any such individuals,
don't reply on bold face or color or alternate fonts alone to distinguish
between your comments and someone else's.  In a non-HTML mail client all
such distinctions disappear, producing a conversation in which everyone
sounds exactly alike.

Most mail clients have more or less automated management of "indentation"
marks as a scheme for extended quotations.  In older mailers these may
look like a "greater than" sign in the margin, though more modern clients
like Eudora display these as a bar in the margin.  Most mailers (even poor
old pine) allow you to automatically reformat paragraphs under the domain
of an indentation mark.  If you find yourself manually inserting "greater
thans,"  then drop me a line off list and maybe we can figure a away
around it.  If manual insertion indeed seems to be necessary, please don't
bother.  In a pinch you can always fall back on a "quotative" line or
phrase before each speaker's part.