[HomeBrew] Administrative comment

[Jim Glover]

Steve, KD1JV asks:

> >If you include more addresses than <homebrew at mailman.qth.net> in the "TO" or
> >"CC" fields, your message will automatically bounce to me. At minimum, this
> 
> Why do you do this? If we click reply, it only goes to the originator of

While I am not privy to the reasoning of the owner of this
particular list, the most common reason, historically
speaking, for limiting the number of addressees was to cut
down on spam.  In years gone by, the normal mechanism for
generating spam was to send a message to a large number
of Usenet newsgroups, and/or e-mail discussion lists.

The practice of limiting the number of addressees is a
trade-off.  It limits the options of legitimate posters
for the sake of reducing presumably unwanted e-mail.  In
some cases, the choice is based on a personal preference
not to receive two copies of a reply (one directly to
the author of the post being replied to, and possibly
to others who have participated in the discussion, along
with the copy distributed to the whole list).  There are
those who frown on replying both directly and through a
list, and will exclaim that doing so is WRONG!  On the
other hand, there are those of us who may not attend to
our e-mail from lists as frequently as we check for
e-mail directly to us, who are happy to get the direct
reply to notify us that there have been developments
in a thread we're participating in.  Many who subscribe
with a "digest" option, thus receiving their list e-mail
only once per day, especially appreciate the direct
e-mail.  What I'm saying is that whether multiple
addressees would sometimes be acceptable, or is always
"wrong," is a matter of opinion.

The owner or administrator of an e-mail discussion group
has the privilege of dictating the list rules.  They may,
or may not, choose to listen to member preferences, and
consider modifying rules in response.  I have no idea
whether the owner of this list entertains suggestions
for rules changes, but my vote would be to allow
multiple addressees.  Perhaps any remaining concerns
about specific abuses of multiple addressees could be
the subject of an administrative guideline for the list,
rather than enforced with an automated bounce-out from
the list software.

73,
Jim  WB5UDE