Dear All,
A word about the settings for this list, in response to David
Yeandle's posting. David is right that the default reply setting is
'reply to sender' rather than 'reply to list', and this is indeed
intentional. It is the standard setting which is automatically
implemented by Mailbase when a new list is set up, and so far I have
not been minded to change it. The Mailbase guide suggests a list
owner might want to change the default setting to 'reply to list'
when a list is new, in order to generate traffic, however it also
notes: 'Your list will be busier, but a lot of the messages may be
very trivial'.
At some time or another most e-mailers accidentally hit/click the
wrong button and send a message to the wrong address: the current
list setting makes it less likely that for this reason private
messages will end up being sent to the whole list, as often happens
on other lists to which I subscribe. Many people (especially those
new to mailing lists) in any case assume that when they click on
'reply' they will be replying to the individual mailer rather than
the list as a whole. On the other hand if you specifically want to
override the list's default 'reply to' setting for your individual
message, most e-mail programs should allow you to do so (as I am
doing with this message in Pegasus Mail).
Unfortunately if a list has a default 'reply to list' setting, even
when people specifically ask for private replies to their message
this is often ignored. Last week a message was sent to another list
to which I subscribe, saying that if people wanted a copy of an
embargoed press release they should contact the sender privately.
Because the list was set for 'reply to list', by the following
afternoon 16 people had inadvertently sent messages to the whole
list asking for a copy.
It seems to me that one of the main reasons a list like this exists
is to enable people to perform snap surveys by submitting questions
like David's yesterday, but my view is that the best way to carry
out such a survey is to solicit private responses off list, collate
them and post a summary back to the list, which can then serve to
prompt discussion. If you use any information you receive from other
list members to produce a more lengthy analysis, by all means send me
a copy of your file (word-processed document, spreadsheet, HTML file,
whatever) and I can save it at Mailbase, from where it can be
retrieved by e-mail or over the Web by those who are particularly
interested in the results.
If anyone else has strong feelings on this (either way), post them
in to the list and we can discuss this further.
Duncan
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Dr Duncan Large
Department of German
University of Wales Swansea
Singleton Park
GB-Swansea SA2 8PP
Tel: (+44) (0)1792 205678, #4729
Home Tel/Fax: (+44) (0)1792 204167
http://www.swan.ac.uk/german/large.htm
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