[Air-L] Some data on Change of default reply setting on air-l

[Matzat, U.]

On 11 May 2009 at 20:40, air-l-request at listserv.aoir.o wrote:
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 09:25:34 -0400
> From: Alex Halavais <alex at halavais.net>
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Change of default reply setting on air-l
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
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>         <e0fe0c740905110625n71f690dfle9e0775ed700d1cc at mail.gmail.com>
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> 
> May I ask a naive question? Several have suggested that changing the
> list to default to reply-to-author will have significant detrimental
> effects on the community, ranging from harm to ruin. Some have indicated
> that this is a well-researched fact.

I have done a study on the determinants of sending answers/providing
information in academic emailing lists. While I was interested in other
things, one of the many control variables indicates whether the default
reply is to the group. This control variable has a significant positive
effect on the likelihood of sending an answer to the whole list. The study
compares the posting behavior of researchers in 47 academic emailing lists
over a period of 2 months. For more details see Table 2 in the following:

Matzat, U. (2009). "The Embeddedness of Academic Online Groups in Offline
Social Networks: Reputation Gain as a Stimulus for Online Discussion
Participation?" in: International Sociology, 24, 1: 63-92.

Nevertheless I prefer the new setting (but not the sudden way it was implemented). 
Although I am on digest, it is hard for me to follow the discussions and only some 
of the postings are valuable to me. 

Best regards,
Uwe