Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 07:02:48 -0500

From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU

Subject: Re: replying to individuals



I've been wondering. On other lists I'm on, it's customary to reply to

individuals for some topics; here, messages addressed to individuals

keep getting forwarded to the whole list (eg, about a dozen replies to

Luanne v.m.'s request for assistance/informants

. Is this customary? or are people just unaware of it?



You must be on some unusual lists. This list seems fairly typical to me

in that some people do reply to the individual (e.g., I replied to Luanne

directly, as I'm sure many other people did) and some people reply to the

whole list because they don't notice the 'reply-to' line in the headers

and think they're replying to the individual, or they realize that this

is a low-traffic list and that most of us don't mind seeing their replies,

or they're too lazy to readdress.



I, for one, apologize for mis-posting. I realized after I sent off my

reply that the whole list didn't need to see it and that I had needlessly

wasted bandwidth. Consider this my final, penitent, public reply to a



So far, I haven't found anybody who could really explain how bandwidth

can be wasted. I've become convinced that the concept of wasted bandwidth

is a cybermyth.

--Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)