List behavior (was Re: [sumo] "gaijin yokozun"Akebono's story to tell)

[Carl Freire]

At 4:01 AM -0400 8/15/06, MBtatton at aol.com wrote:
>Joe, (Klemmer) - why, when clicking on a person's private mail address at the
>head of  thread / post does it go to the SML as a whole. Admittedly my fault
>for clicking, typing and sending without checking but click on an address and
>tis waht you expect to appear - non?

FWIW, I think most--though certainly not all--people prefer it that 
way.  When you're on a conversation over a mailing list, one would 
think that your first instinct is to want to respond to people on 
that mailing list, not to send someone a private message.  Odds are 
most of your messages sent in response to something on the list are 
intended for the list, hence the efficiency and logic of making that 
the default mode.

At least, that's always been the logic of mailing lists as I 
understand it: hit reply, and your reply goes to the list. 
Personally, I can't stand a mailing list that operates any other 
way--makes me want to not even bother to trying posting anything in 
the first place.

My two yen, though I regret that this is likely to start an 
ultimately pointless thread on the merits of one form of "reply-to" 
behavior vs. the other.

Cheers,
Carl
-- 

**********

Carl Freire
cfreire-[AT)-ix.netcom.com
Tokyo, Japan