On Monday, May 28, 2001, at 08:16 AM, David W. Tamkin wrote:
> Not my experience. Nearly all lists on Yahoogroups and Topica are set
> RTL
> because greenhorn listowners think "it encourages discussion" or "it
> makes
> it easier"
Just had that argument again on one of my lists (sigh). Guy finally
tried to force the issue and called for a public poll on the issue, and
got about ~20 votes for the reply-to, out of 350 subscribers. About
normal for this kind of thing. sigh.
On yahoo and topica, I believe the default is RTL and most folks leave
the default. And don't forget, those sites primary interest is to
generate as much traffic as possible, because it distributes more
advertising that way, not because it's better for discussions.
> I'd have to say that the RTS/RTL ratio has plummeted.
My experience is that when you survey a list, you find AT MAX about 15%
of the list who want it that way. Most don't care. More usually want it
set RTS -- but the RTL folks kvetch about it on the list, and the RTS
folks send their feedback to the admin privately. Almost invariably.
And as you talk to the people who run lists seriously and study this
issue, you find fewer and fewer in the RTL camp. In all honesty, you can
run lists just fine either way -- it's a good/better thing.
My most recent comments about it are here:
<http://lists.apple.com/mhonarc/dvdlist/msg00533.html>
<http://lists.apple.com/mhonarc/dvdlist/msg00541.html>
<http://lists.apple.com/mhonarc/dvdlist/msg00551.html>
use "archives" and "archives" to get in. (and I'm open for suggestions
on better ways of protecting archives without munging messages. I've
tried a few things, and they all suck more than this, and I haven't had
time to write a custom authenticator)
> Blind faith in reply-to-all to do the right thing magically without the
> user's reviewing its choices is not perfect either.
which goes back to previous discussions here that reply needs to be
tri-state: reply to author, reply to list, and reply to all.
Unfortunately, there's no way to implement that, and the whole reply-to
coercion 'thing' is simply an attempt to use reply-to to implement a
bogus form of reply to list...
--
Chuq Von Rospach, Internet Gnome <http://www.chuqui.com>
[<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> = <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> = <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
Yes, yes, I've finally finished my home page. Lucky you.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the
end.
