On Tue, 5 May 1998, John Witherspoon wrote:

> I am under "attack" (again) from a small faction on one of my lists because
> replies are defaulted to be sent back to the entire list (Reply-to= List)
> instead of to individual message senders.  I have been asked in so many
> words to "justify" this setting and am looking for some pros and cons from
> other list owners.

        On my list, too, some subscribers have asked that replies go
back to the original poster, who would then be responsible for sending
to the list a compilation of responses.  Here are four of the reasons
I've offered to explain why the list will continue to be set to
have responses come back to the list rather than to the poster:

        1) Many WMST-L subscribers have a fairly limited facility with
e-mail.  They know how to send and to reply, but many do not know how to
put messages together, edit out the extraneous headers and routing
statements, and put everything together in one neat bundle.

        2) Even for those who DO know how to edit, I'm not at all convinced
that having responses go to the person rather than to the list is a good
idea.  If people respond to the list and they provide inaccurate
information, someone else will quickly correct them.  That's not the case
when the responses go privately to the person.

        3) Timing is a problem no matter how skilled one is at editing.
Each time I have tried to compile messages, I've never been sure when to
send the compilation to the list.  If I send it too soon, I'll miss a
number of late responses; but if I wait until all are in, people have
forgotten about the initial query and have shifted their attention to other
matters.

        4) Though sending a compilation of responses has many problems,
even worse would be NOT sending such a compilation.  Then the list would
become an exceedingly boring place where we see questions but few
responses.

        I hope this helps.

        Joan Korenman, WMST-L listowner

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*    Joan Korenman                              [log in to unmask]           *
*    University of Maryland, Baltimore County                               *
*    Baltimore, MD 21250                        http://www.umbc.edu/wmst/   *
*                                                                           *
*    The only person to have everything done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe  *
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