Re: [Re: offline courtesy among list members]

[Hannah <to -dot- hannah -at- usa -dot- net>]

"C. Janzen" <cjanzen -at- mindspring -dot- com> wrote:
> A couple of comments in general...
> <snip>
> 4. A "me too" is different than a "thank you" because generally a me too 
> doesn't require much work, but a thank you is acknowledging that someone 
> took part of their productive time and did something for you that they 
> really didn't have to. <snip>
> 6. A reason why some people view either "Thank You (nm)" in the subject 
> or just "thanks" in the body as bad form is the same reason your 
> grandmother got irritated when you sent the thank you note for your 
> birthday present and didn't say anything about it! Lots of people want 
> to know that their effort helped, that they made a difference. How hard 
> is it to say "Hey, thanks for the doc plan. My boss loved what I did 
> with it, and the developers think I'm a goddess of documentation"? 
> Guaranteed those three clauses don't take up near the bandwidth that 
> your friend's dancing Santa Claus card took up!
> 
> <snip>

First let me note that I see your point and agree for the most part. However,
consider those who get many responses to a request. Most say similar things.
Then there are all of the responses posted to list. Where do you draw the
line? Who do you credit the help to? The first message you happened to read or
all? Do you reply to only those who sent to you and not the list? Do you send
a general reply to the list? (that wouldn't satisfy the need to confirm the
information was received - side note on that, someone who runs my soccer
league just got a request last week from Oct for him to schedule refs for 5
makeup games - i'm still not sure how we managed to get the refs for those
games, so yes, email does get..."lost"). Add to this that sometimes a request
has to be tried, tested, and fit into a schedule of many other projects and
priorities. Sometimes the suggestion isn't appropriate to your specific need -
do you say "thanks but this is different so your suggestion doesn't apply"
because the suggestor doesn't know about some minor point that's different in
your situation? And as Bruce (i think) mentioned, what of those that send
offers to be hired as a sub-contractor for you? Do you thank them? Ignore
them? Tell them to go away and not spam you? I don't want to be
inappreciative, but I also don't want to go overboard on this.

hannah Bissell
to -dot- hannah -at- usa -dot- net

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