Its never a good idea when thinking about the rules by which a group or an organization are structured to depend on the actions of individuals to support that group. This is the failure of individualistic thinking. "If we just have a few more people with strong character and a willingness to contribute to the good of the society the current economic crisis could be over." As social scientists we know that structures have a huge impact on the ways that people act. Agency always occurs within the context of some set of grooves that are there. People can step out of the groove and do other things, but in fact many people in many situations won't. I am most impressed by Phillipa's comments, which in a very measured way point out that the gifts we all receive - this generalized reciprocity that many of us have been claiming are an extraordinary benefit of the Internet - depend upon replies going to the list. And that on balance, these gifts are worth having to delete or filter a few emails. I would suggest this is a big deal and if we rely on people hitting the 'reply all' button, then 1) this is very naive thinking about social behavior and we ought to go back to Soc 101 and 2) there will be many more gifts lost to the community. Wes Wesley Shumar Professor of Anthropology Department of Culture and Communication Drexel University 3141 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19104 215-895-2060 shumarw@drexel.edu http://www.shumarw.com/ On May 10, 2009, at 10:42 PM, Richard Forno wrote:
Holly, thanks for this change, even though it seems that I'm in the minority who appreciates it.
IMHO contrary to much of what's been written against this change thus far, this minor tweak does absolutely nothing to contrain Info- sharing or group conversations here in the slightest - any list member can reach the entire list, they just need to click a different button on their mail client . Big deal. Maybe a few of us have to think about which button to click when replying to list traffic a few times until it becomes second nature here after all these years, but that's about it. So again - big deal! Call me naive, but I don't understand why folks are so adamantly-opposed to this very minor change.....based on the comments tonight, you'd think the AIR execs were moderating AIR-L or enacting some other oppressive policy upon us.
I do not think it's unreasonable for someone to have to click "reply- all" to reach everyone when on a mailing list ... in fact, AIR-L is the *only* list that I am on that didn't do that by default, and I've been "burned" by having a note intended in response to one person being sent to the whole list because I was 'conditioned' based on how every other list I've been on functions.
That said, if any CMC specialists wiser than me want to explain how this is such a detriment to the flow of information here (other than perhaps 'raising the bar' in some minor way by forcing people to re- think which button they click to reply-to-everyone), please enlighten me.
Frankly, speaking as a technologist and long-time email list admin myself, I just don't see what the fuss is all about.
-rick (apparently an "AIR-L heretic")
On May 10, 2009, at 19:19 , jeremy hunsinger wrote:
gotta say, that... I think this is very detrimental to the community. This change fundamentally destroys the conversation construed as a group, and forces it to be between individuals, unless they consciously choose otherwise. This is a change I've always been against and I am against it now. Air-l should be about collegiality and sharing, not about replying to individuals. I think this setting should be reverted asap.
On May 10, 2009, at 7:11 PM, Holly Kruse wrote:
Up until now on air-l, replies to messages posted to the list went, by default, to air-l. The default reply setting for air-l has been changed. As of now, replies to list posts will go privately to the message poster and not to air-l. If you would like people on the list to see your reply, you will need to manually insert the air-l address into the To: field of your reply.
Thanks for your attention to this change,
Holly Kruse List Manager, air-l holly@aoir.org holly-kruse@utulsa.edu
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