[R] Protocol for answering basic questions

[Jari Oksanen]

On Thu, 2004-12-02 at 11:19, John Logsdon wrote:

> There are three ways of tackling this as far as I see:
> 
> First would be to make the list a Reply to Sender so that most of us don't
> see the replies. This would keep the traffic down and if any topic was of
> interest to another member, s/he could ask the originator whether it had
> been solved or the solution could also be posted as a summary.  One
> advantage of Reply to Sender is that it is only the Sender sees the
> multiple messages sent saying the same thing from good souls around the
> world who haven't seen the N-1 other messages...
> 
This seems to depend on the mail reader. This already is the default
behaviour with me (Evolution mail reader). I have to select
"Reply-to-All" to send the message to r-help as well -- and then it goes
to Cc list as well. It seems that some other mail software behaves
differently. It seems that R-help mail has two candidates to Reply:

From: this field is the original poster
Sender: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch

Obviously my mail reader picks only "From", but John's picks both "From"
and "Sender".

Some other mail lists add to headers a new field "Reply-To" which equals
to "From" (original poster). It seems that this would be sufficient to
make many mail readers to use this as a default address.

Another issue is whether it is nice to divert a public discussion to a
private conversation. In several cases the solutions to the problem
remain private as well. After all, the purpose of the mailing list is a
public discussion instead of a public call to a private discussion.

cheers, jari oksanen
-- 
Jari Oksanen -- Oulu, Finland.
"But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men, Gang aft agley,
An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy!" (Robert Burns)