Re: Reply to List? Sender?

On Mon, 13 Mar 1995 09:08:23 EST,
  Chris Fahrner <cfahrner_at_OCTRF.ON.CA> wrote (in part):

> Hi (whom ever you are).
  :
TO_CHAR info deleted
  :
> Chris Fahrner
> cfahrner_at_octrf.on.ca
> Senior DBA - Ontario Cancer Foundation
>
> Pet Peeve:
>
> As a newbie on this list I noticed it replaces the from id
> with the list id so you cannot reply directly to the
> questioner, unless they include their address in the message
> body (I get my mail though cc-mail which strips everything
> but the from id). The policies of other lists I am on is,
> reply to the sender and they post a summary noting what
> did/did not work. Is it different here? (The list welcome
> message was not clear).
> :-( caf

I am active on a few mail lists and most of them use the list id as the from id ... only one list sends "from" the posting user. We had an on-line debate about this issue on one of these lists a while ago (one of SCT's "Banner" lists for those of you who are curious). The concensus was that since most of the issues were of general interest, the list should be used as the "from" address. In my personal experience, I have replied about 80% of the time to ORACLE-L and only 20% directly to the user ... people can always delete the issues they are not interested in without reading them and I would prefer to see both the questions and the answers. The Banner list recommendation was also to have everyone include their address in the body of the message ... most people do ... but not all ... :(

Since my mail program doesn't strip anything from the message, I don't really need the user to include their address ... therefore my opinion is probably suspect. IMHO (and it really *should* be humble), having the mail come "from" ORACLE-L makes it much easier to read. I can perform a "dir/from=ORAC" to select out the Oracle messages. With 50-80 messages per day, I need this to separate the message threads from the various lists.

It's also important to note that:

• there are fewer messages on SCT's lists than on ORACLE-L, and
• ORACLE-L subscribers are not all on SCT's list ... not yet anyway ... ;)

Maybe it is time to have a "from address debate" on this list, too?

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