[Lias] recipients Was: (no subject)

Leon Brooks leon at cyberknights.com.au
Fri Mar 28 12:55:02 UTC 2003


On Friday 28 March 2003 12:17, Paul Gear wrote:
> ken_yap at users.sourceforge.net wrote:
>> No, the accumulated wisdom on mailing lists is that once in a while a
>> reply that was meant to be private will get sent to the list by accident
>> and embarrass the participants. Or worse.

>> Either the OP should set a Reply-To:, as I normally do, or the responder
>> should edit the destinations. In any case I always check the
>> destinations before I hit send, everyone should. And please check your
>> Subject: line too.

> Agreed, but it's a matter of statistics.  I reply to the list rather
> more often than the sender, and i'm sure most others are the same.  I'd
> estimate 90-95% of replies i make are to the list...

Most of the lists I inhabit are set to reply-to-list, as are all of the lists 
I manage. In most places, the lists which don't do this are announce-style 
lists. I notice clear exceptions among the Debian community and (probably 
consequentially) on LA's server. OTToMH, my config there for ALLIES says 
reply-to-list but warns of this in the sign-on message.

I always expect replies to go to the list. Sending private email is a 
deliberate act for me. However, for someone not expecting reply-to-list, you 
can create an awful lot of damage instantly with a thoughtless `private' 
email which you actually send to the list.

So... I favour reply-to-list, but I don't favour switching over a list whose 
denizens are *used*to* reply-to-sender.

Cheers; Leon

-- 
http://cyberknights.com.au/     Modern tools; traditional dedication
http://plug.linux.org.au/       Committee Member, Perth Linux User Group
http://slpwa.asn.au/            Committee Member, Linux Professionals WA
http://linux.org.au/            Committee Member, Linux Australia




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