Bottom line, I can understand that there was a time when reply to author made sense for a lot of lists, but I don't think that is the case anymore.
Hi Paul,
I feel that it really depends on the nature of the list - the purpose, the participants, the number of participants. A small staff list? Reply-to-list, no question. A music list with 20,000 subscribers. *Please* make it reply-to-sender. And if the question is what should be the *default*, I'd say Reply-to-sender. Why? Because it is the option that makes the list admin think about what kind of list they have, just as it makes a member think about who they really want to send their reply to.
I have a large hobby-related list that was set to reply-to-list once upon a time but as the list grew there were far too many "me too" posts and the like. Replies that were most appropriate for the original sender were being sent to the list. The value of the list deteriorated. People fled. By changing the list to reply-to-sender, members had to actually *think* about who they ought to be sending their replies to.
An interesting things to note: I was somewhat concerned that important group discussions would decrease after making the change. That the list would become less valuable through a problem other than noise. I was concerned about bilateral discussions happening. Then it occurred to me that those one-on-one communications are every bit as important as the group interaction. Indeed, on my list, there now many valuable mentor/student relationships that have developed and I am often thanked for facilitating them.
- Kevin
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