Date   : Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:27:49 +0000
From   : navalenigma@... (Steve O'Leary)
Subject: Mailing list headers (was: BBC Master 128 problem)

>From: Andrew Benham <adsb@...>

>To quote from http://www.karnaugh.za.net/show?id 6:
>
>"""The argument about "user effort" is simply stupid. If you are
>incapable  of understanding that your MUA has two buttons "Reply"
>and "Reply All" and which one to click, you should at this point
>switch off your computer. It will be a cold day in hell before user
>laziness is a good reason for standards incompliance. If someone
>managed to subscribe to a list, they can damn well learn how to use
>it properly. If it were a list where the topic of discussion was
>sewing, this could be understandable, but often this is not the case.
>"""

What an odd rant, standards are not always very well set and often change 
and evolve for the better as users needs and requirements change. They are 
not the ultimate truth, they are designed by humans and prone to not being 
perfect or in some bad cases not even fit for purpose.

Ignoring the user in this such patronising and aggressive way is not the way 
to go. You will always get one or two odd requests but when something is 
asked for by a reasonable proportion and does indeed save time and effort 
for most it sounds like people should at least listen to the request without 
dismissing it so swiftly because it doesn't fit a current standard.

Saying something that makes life easier is just laziness is possibly 
correct. But would that mean we should be entering our emails with punch 
cards instead of keyboards direct to screen and feeding them into a reader. 
I mean both would give the same result but one is an awful lot quicker, but 
then I'm obviously lazy for wanting to save some time !

For me when someone posts to the lists they are opening up that topic for 
public discussion and it's logical that that is where replies should go back 
to in the vast majority of cases otherwise knowledge remains private. The 
percentage of mails I want not to go back to the list is very much lower 
than 1%.

The writer of that article seems to prefer most replies to be private with 
few going back to the list, that's his view of how it should work, fine, it 
gives him the easiest (laziest !) option for replying. But for me it doesn't 
make sense.

To quote some more  from that article;
  "List administrators often say that they want to force people to reply to 
the list to "include everyone". This is simply naive, and your list is in 
some serious trouble if you are having to generate traffic by forcing people 
to post to it. "

I really don't buy that at all. Why is it naive ? I want to see all replies 
and I want all my replies with the very very odd exception to go to the list 
for all to read. Without replies to the list the list would just be a series 
of questions with the odd statement. With people perhaps getting incorrect 
answers from a person that is not cross checked by the group on the list. 
It's not about generating traffic it's about furthering knowledge. Just 
doesn't make sense to me the other way round.

It may well fit the standard, doesn't make it right as time marches on.

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