What is it about this News Group?

I have subscribed to many different NGs over a period of quite a few years
and, invariably, the discussions have all taken place within the NGs for
everyone to see. I have only rarely received private messages - and then
only when there was a specific reason, like someone needing to send me an
un-munged email address so I could sent them a file.

Chris Watts...

I have found this group/list quite good in this respect.

The worst gropu/list that I have come across so far is
soc.genealogy.australia+nz In that group I have often received personal
messages - not just replies but questions that the poster expects me to
address personally. In addition there are several members who do not knwo
how to start a new thread - they seem to think that it is appropriate to
reply to old message and just change its title!

Chris Watts...

direct.
I adopt a very similar policy. Reply to the group unless the message is
personal or obviously of no general interest.

However, since participating in this NG for the past 3 months or so, I've
received more private messages than in all the others put together - and for
no good reason as far as I can see. And they go to a mailbox which I rarely
look at anyway, like it says in the Sig below.

Is it that subscribers to this group are incapable of clicking on the "Reply
Group" button in their news client rather than just "Reply" - or am I
missing some subtle reason why this NG is different from all the rest?

Hugh Watkins...

some subsscribers read this group as genbrit list on rootsweb
and the reply to group button does not work

reply sender or reply all do

an idiosyncracy of the old fashioned rw technology

Hugh W

Neale Sheldon...

Some people are perhaps fed up of caustic comments made when they post a
message in reply to a question, so to save starting a flame war they post
directly to the original sender of the post.

Roger Mills...

That may be true in some cases - but there's more to it than that.

Steven Gibbs...

I used to make that mistake, so I removed 'Reply' from the toolbar.

Charani...

I've done the same thing, for the same reason.

Steven Gibbs
Bedford

As a recent example - someone asked a question. I couldn't answer it per se
but made a suggestion which I hope was helpful. Someone else replied to my
message and provided an answer - but sent it as an off-list email to *me*
rather than to the group - so the OP would never had seen it had I not
forwarded it to the group.