This message is from the T13 list server.

> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Thu 1/16/2003 8:47 AM

> ... at least once a month.
>
> Someone will post a question to the reflector.
> All of us see it - - -
> but replies are explicitly sent directly to the
> sender, WITHOUT copying the reflector.

To post to t13 is to plea for help, almost publically.

Yes, a reply-to-all helps more people than does a
person-to-person reply.  But person-to-person help
remains far better than none: I certainly don't wish
to discourage person-to-person replies.

For example, my recent post titled "[t13] PC boot
Bios folk hang out where" appears to you to have
provoked no replies.  But in fact so far I have
received more than one person-to-person reply.

Granted, what's ironic about a person-to-person
reply is that the people replying, more than the rest
of us, might especially like to know that more than
one person is replying, and to hear what they say.

But as the receiver, I have no good way of sharing
that information.  What can I say, without being
indiscreet, except that indeed you each are hardly
ever alone in replying to me offline, no matter the
topic.

About all I can do is try to remember to post back
here anything substantive that happens to fall out of
the discussion, either immediately else after the
relevant NDA expires.

> I guess we all need to be more careful when hitting
> the 'reply' button or command.

Suppose you work for a company whose exec's
understand the direct argument that they don't want
anyone but PR folk quoted as having spoken for the
company, but don't understand the indirect benefits
of free attributed discussion, merely because those
benefits are hard to quantify & predict.

In that world, to reply person-to-person is to risk
your own interests for the benefit of the community,
and to reply-to-all is impossible.

Pat LaVarre

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