[AMRadio] Reply preferences rant

[John Lawson]

   Been on the Net since early 1990 - before there was a WWW, and 
everything was ASCII and slow, and bytes were still to be conserved.

   I've subscribed to who knows how many Lists and Reflectors over the 
years - now it's down to about five, four of them BA-Gear related.

  I've also been the List Admin of more than one - so I know precisely what 
Brian and Crew go through.  One big List I used to run took two to four 
hours *daily* to clear the spam and 'prune' the messages - and take care 
of the comings and goings of dozens of folks a week.

  The "Reply To:" can be set to send your reply to the Originator of the 
particular message, to the List as a whole, or in some special cases to a 
hybrid.

   My own preference inclines to having replies back to the List in 
general, for the reason that Roger KC8OPP brings up - information is 
available to everyone that way.  And yes everyone is going to 'slip' and 
send a reply to the List when they meant to speak only to an individual. 
I've done it, y'all have done it, I'll do it again - I get in a hurry and 
ooops - there it goes.  Luckily I've never 'busted' myself, or broadcast 
an eminently "private" opinion - but Oh Boy!! have I seen some monumental 
situations come from it - like the lady at the FCC who sent someone a 
really nasty joke, and hit 'reply to' the FCC Journalist's List.


   I look at this situation like this:  All of us have old transmitters and 
recievers and other BA gear that needs quite an amount of Advanced Vintage 
Radio Chops just to get it to work right - how many Hams today would I let 
sit at my Viking and try to get 'er on the air? Not many - I like them 
6146s un-melted.  Some of us have complex broadcast transmitters and 
military rigs that we tune up and operate and maintain - YET, some of us 
can't or won't take the time to re-type the "To:" line, or go through and 
delete the bodies of long-reposted mail....  I know someone with two 
Broadcast Rigs and several other high-power 50's era transmitters and 
recievers - yet he's one of the worst "offenders" at putting "Me Too" at 
the top of 500 lines of re-post and the just hitting 'send'. I've 
mentioned to him many times about trimming that shit up a bit, to which he 
replies "Oh, I just dont' know how to do those things..."

  Yeah, right.

   Anyway this is bordering on a Screed/Rant so I've made my point.

   If you can repair, tune, and operate a Gates BC1 or RCA BTA1 or BC610 - 
don't tell me you can't figure out how to edit replies in OutHouse Mail 
(or Pegasus, or Thunderbird, etc..)!


   Cheers

John KB6SCO
Carson City DM09fg
Valiant-Ranger-Elmac
R390-R390A-R388

PS: Then there's those few who seem to fancy a 40-line ASCII 'sigfile' ( a 
throwback from the old Usenet days)....  with all the ASCII art and all 
their contact numbers and little quotes and an inventory of every piece of 
gear they ever owned....  don't get me started!