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

[Nicole Ellison]

Hi all,

Like many of you, I've got a lot to do on this lovely Monday morning, but wanted to make a few quick points.

1. As Alex notes, experience is important. But they will differ. For instance, one person argued that seeing the "reply" go to the whole group somehow increases the poster's sense of community. This is not the case for me, at all.  

2. Technical setups will also differ. I've received emails addressed to the group and to me personally, but I only get them once. Also please note that emails can be sent without an address in the To: line (as with this email), so you don't need to cut and paste the AOIR address from the CC to the To line with the new system (and perhaps won't have to delete other addresses - additionally, it may be possible to have the system remove the individual addresses when reply-all is hit).

3. Like Alex, I'd also be curious to hear about any research or theory that might enlighten us on this issue. For instance, people have pointed out that there have only been a handful of cases in the last year or so in which replies have unintentionally gone to the list. If we agree with tenets of Bandura's Social Learning theory, we learn by watching others and seeing whether their behaviors are rewarded or punished. So even though the number of instances are small, we don't know whether some members (newbies for instance) are seeing others post to the list by mistake and experience negative outcomes, thus teaching them that posting is difficult and/or likely to result in embarrassment, etc. Thus the handful of cases might actually have a larger negative impact over time on the health of the list. (Just throwing this out there as a potential theoretical approach we could apply.)

4. I think the unfortunate way it was introduced, which Charles has explained, means that it's not really going to get a fair shake because the change is wrapped up in other feelings of resentment, etc. 

5. The list is multi-disciplinary, thus assumptions that everyone will have the same training and exposure to research/theory (e.g. "sociology 101") don't move us forward, in my opinion.

Thanks, 
Nicole 

Quoting "Emma Duke-Williams" <emma.dukewilliams at gmail.com>:

> 2009/5/11 Ralf Bendrath <bendrath at zedat.fu-berlin.de>:
>
>>
>> I guess this assumption can be taken as falsified after a short look at
>> all the group discussion taking place right now - after the change?
>>
>> ;-)
>
> Aye, but how many "replies" have gone just to the sender, rather than
> to the list ...also, because of the change, folks are actively
> thinking about what they're doing with their reply buttons ;)
>
>
>
> --
> Emma Duke-Williams:
> School of Computing/ Faculty eLearning Co-ordinator, University of
> Portsmouth, UK.
> Blog: http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/emmadw
> SL: Emmadw Rickenbacker
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