[Sca-cooks] Double Posts

[Colin MacNachtan]

--On Friday, April 21, 2006 18:43:18 -0400 Tom Vincent
<Tom.Vincent at yahoo.com> wrote:

> s there a reason why some people double post?  Sending a reply to the
> poster as well as to the list, which *also* goes to the poster? 
> It's rather annoying and I wondered if there was actually any good reason
> to do it.

I can think of a few reasons why it happens...

First and foremost, many mail clients will do this automatically when you
reply.  They will send the message to the sender of the original and cc
anyone else it went to, ie the list.  While some of us are computer geeks,
others aren't, and will probably not realize the effect of doing it.

Second, from a social standpoint, I consider it polite to address the
response to the person sending, especially if my remarks are aimed directly
at the sender (I didn't do that with this message since you stated that you
prefer otherwise).

Third, some mail systems will detect and remove duplicate messages, so
those recipients will only receive one copy and never realize multiple
messages were sent.  This tends to encourage those people to include the
sender in their replies, as well, since they have no idea it doesn't work
that way everywhere.

And in the end, we all have things we don't know and/or don't have the
patience to learn in depth.  We should all show tolerance for those who
don't have the same pet peeves as we do, and allow them their lack of
understanding of that particular detail.

Colin