John Newbright wrote: > > I have been observing on the sidelines for sometime and would like to make a > comment. Most of the posting , which I have read, are asking questions > specific to an individual ancestor. Very seldom do I see an answer to this > type of question. Are there responses being sent to the individual rather > than the list? > I think the answer is mostly yes but a lot of questions are so poorly asked that no one can answer. I generally reply to the list but if the answer is "go to your library and get some books on researching your [German] family history" I reply privatly This same situation occurs on several other genealogy lists that I belong to. Some listers are afraid to reply via the list and others don't know how to use the Reply All. Some non-genealogy lists have the reply to the lsit with the sender as cc. Another, TMG-L, you have to reply to the list unless you copy and paste the senders address. Michale mahffy said: >I agree a lot of responses go on behind the scenes. Some list administrators insist on that. > I have nver seen a genelaogy or railroad list that was handled that way >I usually only post to the person asking the question myself. If I see a question that I'd like the answer to myself I post to the list also asking for that information to be posted to the list.> If you have information and not just guidance that applies to the sender, why not send it to the list. To delete is so easy to do. I keep the cursor on the delete icon and scan the subject and fist few lines of the message. Asking for the answer to be posted to the list or haveing the original sender send the answer to the list wastes so much effort and bandwidth. You have to send a message asking and the replier probably doesn't see you message till after she has replied. So that means the original sender has to reply to the list again. I would like to see the from and to be interchanged on the lsit messages, From:Pfalz-L and the To: sender. this way if someone Replies to sender then the list gets the message. If reply to all then the list and the sender gets it. If the reply is to go only to the sender, the delete Pfalz-L. Sorry for being so long winded. bob gillis