> > I feel strongly about this as well - the From: address is how I
> > contact people when I want to chat privately.

> You act as if you have some right to do that. =A0What about the other per=
son's
> right not to receive your messages? =A0It should be their call, not yours.

As a point of perspective / straw man / observation and not a strongly
held view worth arguing about:     The ability to contact people
privately when they post on a public list appears to be part of the
implicit social contract.One may say things like 'delete it if you
don't like it' or 'in a free society/list/world/... I can post what I
like" etc, but an alternative view is that if I have the right to
pollute the ether with my whimsy somebody has an equal right to talk
to me about it without having to share their thoughts with the world
at large. Needless to say, some will not agree with this counter view
(and I'm not sure whether I do either ;-).)

What the recipient does with messages that they receive is another
matter. Again, social contract would seem to be that the recipient has
the obligation to at last skim material which arises as a result of
their prognostications, unless the sender has exceeded a socailly
acceptable [tm] level of blether in past utterances. Determination of
'socially acceptable level' will vary widely :-).



   Russell

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