[KL]
By the way, the best way to reply to the *whole list* is to click on
your "RE: ALL" button. If you just click on "RE: MAIL" your reply will
go ONLY to the person who wrote the message that you are replying to.
[AL]
In light of recent experience (especially Omega ;-) I would like to add
the following advice:
1. When using "Reply All" always delete the original quoted message
except for those parts you are specifically responding to.
2. Check your reply and the original message again before actually
sending to ensure that:
a) Quotations of remarks by one person are not confused with quotations
of remarks by another person -- by adding labels where necessary to
avoid such confusion.
b) Deletions from the material quoted do not result in misrepresentation
of what is being replied to -- by adding ellipsis [...] or parapharse
where necessary. (Quoting the whole of the original message is no
substitute - the point is to make it clear precisely what is being
responded to as well as what the response is, whereas quoting the whole
of the original message does not achieve that.
3. Do not start drafting a reply to any message while reading it the
first time. Go through the whole batch of unread messages first, then
select those points you want to respond to, or new issues you want to
raise, and compose 1 message in each subject thread saying what you want
to say (use cut and paste to include quotes from other messages).
4. Do not send any message immediately after composing it. Save it as a
draft first. Then come back to each draft after reading through all the
drafts and reading the original messages being replied to again before
finalizing each draft and sending it.
5. Keep all messages from the list (or all interesting messages) in a
separate email folder so you can check back to follow what has been
happening in a subject thread. (Email software is readily available that
enables you to do this automatically and also to sort messages by
subject etc).
6. Include links to interesting documents on the web, with a brief
explanation of why people should take a look, rather than copying the
whole document into a message unless it is intended to be a document for
detailed discussion and analysis. Setup a member's page and keep copies
of documents you want to refer to there if they do not already have web
URLs (e.g. items from other mailing lists or newsgroups).
7. Remember that one of the big advantages of email over chatlines and
meetings is that there is no need to reply immediately. Expect
"conversations" to take much longer than in "real-time" but also to have
more carefully thought through content.
8. Try to keep conversations organized in subject threads by:
a) Never changing a subject line when you reply to a message unless you
intend to start a new subject thread.
b) Carefully choosing the subject line for a new thread whether you
start it from scratch or by responding to something in another subject
thread that should be discussed separately from the main topic of that
thread.
8. Don't get unduly frustrated about people not using an email list the
way you think it should be used (e.g. not following this wonderful
advice ;-). Instead help develop further general guidelines, learn how
to use "kill filters" to ignore people you want to ignore and to focus
on subject threads you are particularly interested in and avoid those
you are not interested in.
***
This public-list is just getting started and looks as though it has
almost, but not quite reached a level of viable ongoing discussion.
There are about 50 lurkers and a much smaller number of active
participants which is normal for email lists. Hopefully in the next
couple of weeks we will have contacted the many hundreds of other
Neither supporters who have previously got in touch with Neither and
invited them to join in, and also got a web archive of messages
available and enabled direct update of member pages. That should make it
possible to get down to serious business.
At that stage the list is likely to quickly move from self-sustaining
viability to being "too noisy". We will need to get working groups going
with separate lists, have moderated lists etc etc.
I suggest this thread be used for discussion of how to organize
additional email lists etc.
