Bob Bernstein <poobah%ruptured-duck.com@localhost> writes: > On Sun, 19 Dec 2021, Greg Troxel wrote: > >> There's nothing wrong with a direct reply to a list message, and >> it's discourteous to refuse them. > > Would it be correct to claim equivalence -- more or less -- > between your category "direct reply," and what I have been accustomed > to call an "off-list reply?" I mean by that expression a private reply > to a list subscriber without CC'ing that reply to the list itself. More or less, yes. Sometimes I send a message just to the poster, often when I want to say something I don't want to say on the list or when it doesn't merit being sent to all. That's what the "reply" action of a MUA is supposed to do. Then there's "reply-all" which should send to the From: and all To/CC. What's messy is the idea that when replying to the list one should send to *only* the list. That has some merit, but the standards are murkier (Mail-Followup-To:) and implementation of them somewhat sparse. I was not intending to wade into the "don't send me private replies" debate. The desire not to get them is an area where reasonable people differ. Personally, I filter duplicates so when two copies that are the same arrive, I only see the first one. I am of course not missing anything from this practice. > I agree that such messages ought to be acknowledged by their > recipient. Some seem to have a burr under their saddle as to this > point. Never understood that, but then the 'burr' question is > tangential to the events you described. I didn't mean to demand human acknowledgement, merely "not rejected by the MTA, and actually delivred to the original poster". Mistakes certainly are going to happen -- mail config is hard, and I have at times messed mine up. I am always grateful when someone tells me my config is broken, so I can fix it before more trouble happens.
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