Re: Please read incoming mail before responding

Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Tue, 18 Nov 1997 05:51:35 -0600

At 4:09 AM -0600 11/17/97, clayton bartholomew wrote:
>Jonathan Robie
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>A good policy. I would, however, like
>to encourage us to be merciful,
>realizing that there are sometimes
>unusual time delays on the Internet, and
>people can sometimes
>respond to messages without having received other
>messages which they should theoretically
>have seen hours ago.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
>Yes Jonathan,
>
>It somtimes takes 3 days for my mail to b-greek to show up in the digest
>and sometimes it does not show up at all. And I am only a few thousand
>miles from Virginia, just think of those folks in UK and Germany and
>even Moscow, not to neglect Australia.
>
>If I may risk interperting Carl's post, I believe his intent was to have
>people read all the incomming mail *in the thread* they are responding
>to. If I was to read all the incoming mail to b-greek before responding
>I would never respond. I cannot begin to read all the incoming mail to
>b-greek.
>
>Thanks to all of you for your patinence with those of us on the b-greek
>list with IQ's in the more or less normal range.

Jonathan's immediate response to my hasty post of early Sunday morning made
me at once aware that my post was all too hasty indeed, however honest and
honorable its intent. Clay has indeed caught what I meant precisely. I
think that, even if one is reading mail on an open network connection
rather than downloading it first (which is surely much more convenient if
one is going to think about responding), it is neither a great intellectual
burden nor a great imposition to look at other responses to an original
query that are in the current incoming mail. I can remember writing quick
responses to a message before reading on through other messages on the same
subject and finding myself embarrassed about repeating something that
somebody else had already said better or occasionally wishing that I had
first checked the other message or two on that thread in my incoming mail
before answering the first one; at any rate, I adjusted my response pattern
once I realized this and I'd like to believe it's made what I've had to say
more helpful, if it's helpful at all.

At any rate, I can well understand that the distribution of B-Greek
messages across the world operates differently and varies even from one
time to another because of the currently open channels through which a
packet must pass. So I'm certainly not suggesting that one do what is
impossible, and I'm not making any assumption that someone who has posted a
response to an original query that seems to ignore earlier responses was
necessarily aware of those earlier responses. Often the early responses
cross in the mail, I think. Nevertheless, I think it's a healthy exercise
to look through the incoming mail and check other responses in a thread
before responding--it really can make a difference in the effectiveness and
usefulness of a response. As for reading ALL the incoming mail in B-Greek
before responding, I don't do that myself either--but I do look at all the
subject-headers--and even that may be easier just because I'm using Eudora,
which opens up a neat catalogue of new messages that can be grouped by
subject with a simple key-stroke.

If you've borne with me to this point patiently, I hope this makes more
sense than that hasty note I wrote Sunday morning.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/