Re: traffic

[Tom Rettie <tom@his.com>]

Poster: Tom Rettie <tom@his.com>

Karen Lyons-McGann wrote:

>I've been on dozens of lists through the years, and never seen another 
>whose automatic reply didn't go to the list. What is the reasoning?

Having run lists with both configurations (though not this one), I've found
some good arguments for default reply to the sender.  For one, it precludes
the dreaded "I'm on vacation" autoresponder death loop.  While
autoresponders should be smart enough not to do this, it does happen, and
it can bring a mailing list to its knees in a matter of hours (and really
torque-off the subscribers).

I've also seen a number of times when particularly embarassing posts went
out to the list because the sender thought it was a private reply.  I'd
rather that a user have to resend a post and be mildly inconvenienced than
to have a private message cause them grief.  

No matter what the configuration is though, there are always folks who want
it the other way.  

Regards,

Fin



------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Rettie                                       tom@his.com
Heather Bryden                               bryden@hers.com
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