Reply/all seasoned

Peace, Love, and Reply/all

 

Bless us oh lord for yeah though we slog through the bog of email overwhelm, thy bounty extends to issues which belong in email rather than on a blog. Yet before interacting further with group email, RantWoman is called to meditate upon the questions of reply/all in general and with respect to community email lists.
 

Community Email lists

First, with respect to community email lists, RantWoman GUESSES she is supposed to be tgrateful for one Friend who blurted out “you were the only one who objected so we ignored you.” RantWoman may not have been as clear as one might hope trying to object in Business meeting, but by observing another list, RantWoman has come to even greater clarity that SOMETIMES reply/all is a very important part of community life.

 

In particular, on the other list, there have been several moments where someone has died or there was some kind of life circumstance needing care. RantWoman may or may not have known the deceased well but as with in-person memorials, the reply/all flow created a rich tapestry of history and community connections, connections very important to RantWoman. These sort of connections may be more important to some Friends than others; RantWoman does not think it nurtures community life very well though just to make a blanket determination that they do not matter or cannot be supported.

 

RantWoman has made repeated requests to TALK ABOUT this aspect of community mailing lists and this has not happened. This would not be the only topic on RantWoman’s heart.  RantWoman is also finding it easy to think that difficulty talking about something no one anticipated or thought about means people just do not care about connections the same way as RantWoman. RantWoman notes that there is a further well of bad feeling because of another moment where RantWoman felt VERY bullied but also notes that sometimes a review after some interval can serve useful purposes. RantWoman supposes she MIGHT be able to live without Reply/all in this circumstance IF she felt space to speak her concern and to give others the option to reply in the first place.  In the second place, the subject of bullying needs its own attention.

 

One further technical note about reply/all to a mailing list: NOT doing reply/all is MUCH easier on the list than when RantWoman is supposed with bad eyes and screen reader tools to pick names out of a list.

 

 Reply/all when a topic might not belong on a blog

RantWoman is trying to have conversations about two related topics that to RantWoman’s sensibilities are not ripe for blogging.

 

RantWoman has received yet another email in the genre “RantWoman things are FINE. We are not even interacting with your points but we are sure things are FINE.” RantWoman is working on a “This is what does not look FINE to RantWoman” email. Part of the email thread also includes requests from two people asking to be deleted from a thread other people besides RantWoman included them in.

 

One Friend complains “I feel burdened.”

 Yeah? RantWoman is not unconcerned about burden. RantWoman remains faithful in her light that there ARE paths to SHARED burden. However RantWoman is torn: RantWoman can simply delete this Friend from email she sends out. That will ensure that burdens land on other people before they reach the new clerk. Or RantWoman can not violate her rule about not deleting people from a reply/all list if someone else has put them there. Please hold RantWoman’s discernment in the Light.

 

In the other case, RantWoman received a simple “please delete me from this list. RantWoman mysteriously finds it easy to interpret this request as “RantWoman shut up.” RantWoman would find it more helpful if the Friend were to get curious and ask “RantWoman, why did you include me…?” RantWoman being the opinionated and judgmental soul that she is, would think the Friend in question was more appropriately plugged in to what God asks of us, never mind whether this Friend is used to speaking of God, if there were an opening to draw out the several threads on RantWoman’s mind. RantWoman has a versatile God and supposes this will happen somehow. Hold the path to there in the light.