[Mailman-Users] The "right" way to reply to a mailing list

[Peter Shute]

Carl Zwanzig wrote:

> > How can mail "interrupt"? [...]
> > Mail arrives all the time anyway, so people need to be able 
> to deal with that.
> 
> Exactly. Mail arrives when it does and I read it when I do. I 
> really don't know why so many people feel compelled to check 
> each message as it arrives.

Have you ever been in the situation where you're waiting for an important email which must be acted on quickly, and your mailbox is also suddenly receiving a flood of emails from a normally quiet list? It's so easy to miss the important emails, especially on a phone with it's tiny screen.

Many of us deal with this by creating a message rule that filters the unimportant list mail to a folder to be read at leisure. But many people don't know how to create message rules. When pop3 mail was common it wasn't possible to have the rules running server-side, so many users still don't even know it's possible. So they panic and either:
- unsubscribe
- reply to the list demanding that people stop talking about this off topic subject
- change to digest mode
 
Peter Shute