[Air-l] Answering questions on mailing lists & general mailing list notes

[Nicole Ellison]

I respectfully (as I've done in the past) disagree. This suggestion  
(to change the default reply setting) gets floated every year or so,  
usually after some dreadfully embarrassing mishap where a clearly  
private message has gone to the entire list. If we are concerned  
about the effects a public reproach has on participation, think about  
the effects of one of these! I think the AOIR membership is  
technically sophisticated enough to click "reply all" when they have  
a message that should go to the entire list, and to suggest that  
"changing it to reply-to sender would take the  communal spirit of  
the work away and make it into a request-for- help" is to suggest  
otherwise. Clearly the expectation among users is reply goes to  
sender, reply all goes to all, so why should AOIR users have to think  
about how AOIR is different every time they wish to post? As far as  
the effect on the well-being of the list, which I share as a concern,  
I believe that messages that unnecessarily and unintentionally go to  
all has a detrimental effect, both in terms of the examples of public  
humiliation I give above as well as contributing to a worsened signal  
to noise ratio which we've all observed. In contrast, as I see it,  
the worst case scenario of a default reply to sender is that a  
message meant for the list has to be resent once the poster realizes  
this. Perhaps we could try it out for a while and see what effects,  
if any, changing the default has.

-Nicole

On Dec 15, 2006, at 10:13 PM, Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:

> This would be... one of the situations where .... if I were a list
> admin... I would say 'over my dead body'.  Because air-l is not about
> the individual benefit, though we do wish to benefit everyone that
> contributes and participates, but air-l has been about the group of
> interested parties.  changing it to reply-to sender would take the
> communal spirit of the work away and make it into a request-for-
> help , which while a good format, is not the sort of thing that air-l
> has been, nor the thing that it is at its best.   At its best it is a
> group of people working together to establish a body of knowledge
> that we all share in common, and thus the 'common' or communal space
> overrides the individual.  at least, ... that is why we made an
> organization didn't we?
> On Dec 15, 2006, at 8:44 PM, Richard Forno wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 12/15/06 4:02 PM, "David Brake" <d.r.brake at lse.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>> Good points to mention, David.
>>
>>> 2) Please make sure (for your own sake as much as anyone's!) that
>>> your private responses are sent directly to the person and not to  
>>> the
>>> list? If you hit 'reply' any response will go to the list
>>
>> As a list admin for several lists myself, may I suggest that our
>> illustrious
>> list admins here consider changing the default AIR-L "reply-to" so
>> that such
>> replies go directly to the sender of the original note as opposed
>> to the
>> entire list?   That way, if you hit "reply-to-all" you know
>> everyone will
>> get it, but if you hit "reply-to" (as most folks do automatically in
>> responding to e-mail) it will only go to the sender of the note  
>> you're
>> responding to.   Granted, we *want* to facilitate discussion here,
>> but it's
>> just a suggestion offered up for consideration.
>>
>> I know in my case a few times I've sent stuff meant as a reply to
>> someone
>> and watched it going to everyone.  :(  Many times, both here and
>> elsewhere,
>> I go so far as to place something like "Off-List" in the subject
>> line so my
>> intended recipient(s) know it's not coming from the list.
>>
>> Anyway, just a thought.
>>
>> -rf
>>
>>
>>
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>
> jeremy hunsinger
> Assistant Professor
> Pratt Institute
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